Timeline 2005 July - September
Return to home
2005 Jul 1,
Sandra Day O'Connor, the first woman on the US Supreme Court and a
swing vote on abortion as well as other contentious issues,
announced her retirement.
(AP, 7/1/05)
2005 Jul 1-2005 Jul 2, Federal
and local authorities arrested 27 suspects in the Bay Area in a sex
trafficking operation. Another 18 people were arrested in southern
California during nighttime raids for allegedly conspiring to
smuggle South Korean women into the US to work as prostitutes at
massage parlors and other businesses.
(AP, 7/2/05)(SFC, 7/2/05, p.A1)
2005 Jul 1, In St. Paul some
state offices closed and about 9,000 state employees were jobless
after parts of Minnesota's government shut down for the first time
in state history, leaving most rest stops closed for the
Independence Day weekend. Lawmakers failed to pass even a stopgap
plan to keep the government up and running while negotiators keep
working.
(AP, 7/1/05)
2005 Jul 1, In North Dakota a
14-mile, $28 million drainage channel, from Devil’s Lake to the
Sheyenne River, was scheduled to open, but it was held up by heavy
rains. Canada protested that polluted water would end up in Lake
Winnipeg.
(Econ, 7/16/05, p.34)
2005 Jul 1, The Mustang Ranch
bordello reopened east of Reno with the generic name World Famous
Brothel six years after the government shut it down and auctioned
off its buildings and contents.
(AP, 7/1/05)
2005 Jul 1, Song, a low-fare
unit of Delta Airlines, began service from SFO to JFK in NY.
(SFC, 7/2/05, p.C1)
2005 Jul 1, IBM and Microsoft
settled antitrust claims with IMB getting $775 million in cash and
$75 million worth of software from Microsoft.
(SFC, 7/2/05, p.C1)
2005 Jul 1, In Detroit Renaldo
"Obie" Benson (69), a member of the legendary Motown singing group
the Four Tops, died.
(AP, 7/2/05)
2005 Jul 1, Luther Vandross
(54), Grammy award winning singer, died in New Jersey.
(AP, 7/2/05)
2005 Jul 1, In eastern
Afghanistan a US airstrike in Kunar province resulted in casualties;
Afghan officials said 48 people were killed, including 25 members of
an extended family attending a wedding celebration; US officials
later confirmed 34 dead. Hundreds of Afghan troops raided a Taliban
hide-out in the mountains of central Afghanistan and 18 rebels and
two soldiers were killed in fierce fighting.
(SFC, 7/7/05, p.A14)(AP, 7/2/05)(AP, 7/1/06)
2005 Jul 1, Canadians
celebrated Canada Day, the 60th anniversary of V-E Day and Canada's
role in liberating the Netherlands, as well as the 100th anniversary
of Alberta and Saskatchewan joining Confederation were all marked
with music and tributes.
(AP, 7/2/05)
2005 Jul 1, China and Russia
issued a declaration demanding respect for the right of all
countries to develop free of outside interference.
(SFC, 7/2/05, p.A14)
2005 Jul 1, In Dagestan,
Russia, a bomb in Makhachkala killed 10 Russian troops.
(WSJ, 7/29/05, p.A11)
2005 Jul 1, Egypt and Israel
signed a commercial agreement committing Egypt to export natural gas
to Israel.
(Econ, 3/28/09,
p.56)(www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Peace/egisgas.html)
2005 Jul 1, An EU directive
took effect banning lead, mercury, cadmium, hexavalent chromium, and
2 types of brominated flame retardants. Some exceptions were
allowed.
(SSFC, 2/27/05, p.E1)
2005 Jul 1, Finland's crippling
paper industry dispute ended but there were lingering fears that the
seven-week shutdown could have wider repercussions beyond the loss
of an estimated 1.5 billion euros ($1.8 billion) in export earnings.
(AP, 7/1/05)
2005 Jul 1, Germany's
parliament voted no confidence in Gerhard Schroeder's government at
the chancellor's own request, setting the stage for new elections
amid economic sluggishness and growing discontent with proposed
economic reforms.
(AP, 7/1/05)
2005 Jul 1, Police in Iceland
charged Jon Asgeir Johannesson, multimillionaire and CEO of Baugur,
with fraud. Baugur was taken private in 2003. In October the Supreme
Court dismissed 32 of 40 charges. A district court acquitted him of
the remaining 8 charges in March, 2006.
(Econ, 7/25/05, p.54)(Econ, 7/1/06, p.A9)(WSJ,
7/11/06, p.A9)
2005 Jul 1, In Iraq gunmen
killed Shiite cleric Kamal Ezz al-Deen al-Ghuraifi, an aide to
Iraq's most influential Shiite cleric, and 2 bodyguards in a
drive-by shooting outside a Baghdad mosque. A suicide bomber
detonated his car outside the party offices of PM Ibrahim
al-Jaafari, killing one guard.
(AP, 7/1/05)
2005 Jul 1, The Defense
Ministry gave clearance for the last Italians serving under the
military draft to be discharged, marking the end of a 200-year-old
practice.
(AP, 7/1/05)
2005 Jul 1, Italian police
arrested two people accused of creating a "parallel" anti-terrorism
police force that used government money and confidential police
information.
(AP, 7/1/05)
2005 Jul 1, In Northern Ireland
a Protestant construction worker sitting in a truck was shot to
death in an attack in Belfast that police blamed on Protestant
extremists.
(AP, 7/2/05)
2005 Jul 1, Russia's defense
minister said that most university military departments will be
closed by 2009, a decision that blocks a widely-used chance to avoid
compulsory military service.
(AP, 7/1/05)
2005 Jul 1, An explosion
believed to have been caused by a remote-controlled bomb ripped
through a Russian military truck at a bath house in Makhachkala, the
capital of Dagestan, killing at least 10 troops.
(AP, 7/1/05)
2005 Jul 1, On the island of
Tobago Kitty Nichole Pepe (14) of Keene, N.Y., was stabbed to death
in the village of Charlottville. On July 4 police arrested a
22-year-old man in connection with her death. Pepe was the 5th
homicide victim on the island of 55,000 people this year. In April,
2011, Sean Antoine (28) was convicted of manslaughter. In May he was
sentenced to 19 years at hard labor.
(AP, 7/3/05)(AP, 7/5/05)(AP, 5/16/11)
2005 Jul 1, In Ankara, Turkey,
a suicide bomber who tried to enter the Justice Ministry was shot to
death by police as he fled when metal detectors went off. Police
identified the dead man as Eyup Beyaz, a member of the Revolutionary
People's Liberation Party-Front, or DHKP-C, an outlawed group that
aims to topple the government and replace it with a Marxist one.
(AP, 7/1/05)
2005 Jul 2, Venus Williams beat
top-ranked Lindsay Davenport at Wimbledon 4-6, 7-6 (4), 9-7 for her
fifth major title and her first in nearly four years.
(AP, 7/2/06)
2005 Jul 2, Shasta Groene, an
8-year-old girl kidnapped six weeks earlier, was rescued at a
Denny’s restaurant in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho. Joseph Edward Duncan
III, a registered sex offender, was arrested and accused of
kidnapping Shasta as well as killing members of Shasta's family.
[see May 16, July 4] The remains of Shasta’s brother, Dylan Groene
(9), were found 2 days later in western Montana.
(AP, 7/2/06)(SSFC, 7/3/05, p.A18)(AP, 8/28/08)
2005 Jul 2, Ernest Lehman (89)
Hollywood screenwriter, died. His work included the 1959 screenplay
for Alfred Hitchcock’s film "North by Northwest."
(SFC, 7/6/05, p.B7)
2005 Jul 2, In Afghanistan a
roadside bomb in Paktika province killed 4 policemen traveling in a
convoy. Gov. Jan Mohammed Khan said 25 rebels and six Afghan
soldiers were killed in a raid on a mountainous Taliban hideout in
central Uruzgan province. US and Afghan forces killed 3 rebels after
coming under attack twice near the southern city of Kandahar.
(AP, 7/2/05)
2005 Jul 2, A case of polio in
Angola was reported by the UN’s WHO.
(SSFC, 7/3/05, p.A2)
2005 Jul 2, Australia and New
Zealand agreed on tough new measures to pressure Zimbabwe's
President Robert Mugabe to respect human rights, including a sports
ban and action against him in the International Criminal Court.
(AP, 7/2/05)
2005 Jul 2, Two trains collided
Saturday in Austria's Salzburg province, killing two people.
(AP, 7/3/05)
2005 Jul 2, A Dhaka-based
rights group said Bangladeshi police and security forces had killed
a record 236 people in the first six months of 2005.
(AFP, 7/2/05)
2005 Jul 2, Live 8, the biggest
and most ambitious series of rock concerts ever staged, swung into
full action with a concert in London, the centerpiece of a 10
worldwide concerts aimed at pressuring the industrialized world to
end African poverty.
(AP, 7/2/05)(SSFC, 7/3/05, p.A1)
2005 Jul 2, A gas explosion at
an illegal coal mine in central China killed 19 workers.
(AP, 7/3/05)
2005 Jul 2, An Egyptian
judicial report was released that alleged the government forged
turnout figures and forced state employees to fabricate results in a
May referendum to allow first-ever multiparty presidential
elections.
(AP, 7/3/05)
2005 Jul 2, Ihab al-Sherif, an
Egyptian envoy, was kidnapped in Baghdad, weeks after arriving in
the country. He was expected to become Iraq's first Arab ambassador
since Iraq's new government took office. Al-Qaida later announced it
had killed him.
(AP, 7/3/05)(AP, 7/2/06)
2005 Jul 2, Estonia reigned
supreme once again in the wife-carrying world championship, as Margo
Uusorg sprinted home to win the Baltic country's eighth straight
title.
(Reuters, 7/2/05)
2005 Jul 2, The Tour de France
got under way as Lance Armstrong started his quest for a seventh
straight title before retiring from cycling.
(AP, 7/2/05)
2005 Jul 2, A French woman in
Lyon defied a threat of excommunication by the Roman Catholic Church
and held a ceremony proclaiming herself a priest.
(AP, 7/3/05)
2005 Jul 2, Indian police
detained close to 600 protesters as they demonstrated against moves
to start the dredging of a controversial sea channel through the
island chain between India and Sri Lanka.
(AP, 7/2/05)
2005 Jul 2, In the southern
Indian state of Tamil Nadu at least 20 people were killed and 15
others injured in a blaze at a fireworks factory.
(AP, 7/2/05)
2005 Jul 2, Raging monsoons
continued to submerge vast swaths of Indian countryside and forced
the evacuation of half a million people.
(AP, 7/2/05)
2005 Jul 2, A suicide bomber
strapped with explosives killed 20 people waiting outside a police
recruiting center in Baghdad. 2 more struck in Hillah, a Shiite city
south of the capital, in attacks that killed another 5 people.
(AP, 7/2/05)
2005 Jul 2, In Scotland tens of
thousands of protesters clad in white streamed through the cobbled
streets of Edinburgh, demanding that the leaders of the world's
richest nations act to better the lives of the poorest.
(AP, 7/2/05)
2005 Jul 2, In eastern Turkey a
bomb explosion killed six people and injured eight others on a
passenger train. The second train was bombed as it rushed to help
the first.
(AFP, 7/2/05)(AP, 7/3/05)
2005 Jul 3, Roger Federer won
his third consecutive Wimbledon title by beating Andy Roddick 6-2,
7-6 (2), 6-4.
(AP, 7/3/06)
2005 Jul 3, NASA’s Deep Impact
spacecraft collided with the comet Tempel 1, half the size of
Manhattan, creating a brilliant cosmic smashup that capped a risky
voyage to uncover the building blocks of life on Earth.
(Reuters, 7/4/05)(SFC, 7/4/05, p.A1)
2005 Jul 3, Gaylord Nelson
(89), former governor and US senator from Wisconsin, died. He
founded Earth Day (1970), and helped spawn the modern environmental
movement. Nelson was at the center of legislation that resulted in
the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act (1968), the Clean Air Act (1970), and
passage of the Endangered Species Act.
(AP, 7/3/05)(SFC, 7/4/05, p.A2)
2005 Jul 3, Albanians held
elections for a new parliament.
(AP, 7/3/05)
2005 Jul 3, One of Australia's
12 Apostles has disappeared. One of nine limestone stacks that made
up the famous landmark off Australia's southern coast collapsed into
the Indian Ocean.
(AP, 7/4/05)
2005 Jul 3, In India's Gujarat
state the death toll from floods was raised to 132 people, where 25
million people were affected by the floods.
(AFP, 7/3/05)
2005 Jul 3, A car bomb killed
three Iraqi policemen north of Baghdad. 2 US soldiers were wounded
in a suicide attack near a checkpoint in the western city of Ramadi.
(AP, 7/3/05)
2005 Jul 3, In Mexico State the
former ruling party (PRI) added momentum for the upcoming
presidential race with a crushing victory.
(AP, 7/4/05)
2005 Jul 3, In Saudi Arabia
security forces killed al-Qaida leader Younis Mohammed Ibrahim
al-Hayari (36), during a fierce gunbattle in eastern Riyadh. The
Moroccan topped the nation's list of most-wanted militants.
(AP, 7/3/05)
2005 Jul 3, In St. Lucia
leaders of the Caribbean Community, began to hold a four-day summit
with only three of 15 members, Trinidad, Jamaica and Barbados,
saying they are ready to join a single market that would eliminate
tariffs and ease migration for skilled workers and professionals in
the region.
(AP, 7/2/05)
2005 Jul 3, Syrian’s new agency
SANA reported that security forces had killed an Arab extremist who
was trying to illegally cross into neighboring Lebanon with other
suspected militants. 2 Syrian soldiers were also killed in the
clash.
(AP, 7/3/05)
2005 Jul 4, President Bush,
during an Independence Day visit to Morgantown, W.Va., urged resolve
in the war in Iraq and said that "the proper response is not
retreat. It is courage."
(AP, 7/4/06)
2005 Jul 4, A senior US defense
official confirmed the deaths of two Navy SEALS that were missing in
action in Afghanistan's northeast.
(AP, 7/4/05)
2005 Jul 4, Meeting in Georgia
the General Synod of the United Church of Christ, the rule-making
body for 1.3 million members, endorsed same-sex marriage with a
resolution that called for equal marriage rights for all.
(SFC, 7/5/05, p.A3)
2005 Jul 4, Iowa’s Gov. Tom
Vilsack gave all Iowa’s ex-prisoners the right to vote.
(Econ, 7/25/05, p.23)
2005 Jul 4, In NYC Takeru
Kobayashi (27) captured the Nathan's Famous hot dog eating contest
for the 5th straight year, gobbling a nauseating 49 dogs in 12
minutes, but missing his own world record of 53 1/2, set at last
year's July Fourth competition.
(AP, 7/5/05)
2005 Jul 4, Idaho authorities
said they found the remains of Dylan Groene (9) in western Montana.
[see July 2] In 2008 a jury recommended the death sentence for
Joseph Edward Duncan III in the 2005 kidnapping, torture and murder
of the 9-year-old boy.
(SFC, 7/5/05, p.A3)(AP, 8/28/08)
2005 Jul 4, Hank Stram (82),
Hall of Fame football coach, died in Covington, La.
(AP, 7/4/06)
2005 Jul 4, June Haver (79),
movie musical actress died.
(AP, 7/4/06)
2005 Jul 4, In Afghanistan a
provincial governor said a 2nd member of a missing elite US military
team has been located in the rugged mountains near the Pakistan
border.
(AP, 7/4/05)
2005 Jul 4, Al-Jazeera
announced plans to launch an international, a satellite channel by
march, 2006, that will beam English-language news to the US, and
much of the rest of the world, from its base in tiny Qatar.
(AP, 7/4/05)
2005 Jul 4, In Austria
IAEA representatives of more than 100 countries gathered at the UN
nuclear agency's Vienna headquarters to consider strengthening
international laws meant to safeguard nuclear materials from theft
and prevent terrorist attacks on atomic power plants.
(AP, 7/4/05)
2005 Jul 4, A British court
upheld the government's ban on adoptions of Cambodian children. Six
couples had gone to court to challenge the ban, which was imposed in
June of last year.
(AP, 7/4/05)
2005 Jul 4, Burundi's main Hutu
ex-rebel group, the Forces for the Defence of Democracy (FDD), won a
comfortable victory in legislative elections, taking 58.23% of the
vote.
(AP, 7/5/05)
2005 Jul 4, In China protests
began at the Jinxing Pharmaceutical plant in Xinchang, a town about
125 miles south of Shanghai, by local farmers angry over pollution.
(AP, 7/19/05)
2005 Jul 4, Egypt replaced the
editors of all the top state-owned publications in the biggest
reshuffle the media houses have seen in nearly 20 years.
(AP, 7/4/05)
2005 Jul 4, A UN official said
boat carrying dozens of migrants fleeing Haiti sank off the island's
coast, killing two people and leaving 11 others feared dead.
(AP, 7/4/05)
2005 Jul 4, In an illegal
overflight an American Shadow-200 aircraft crashed about 38 miles
inside Iranian territory in the province of Ilam. On Nov 7 Iran
circulated letters at the UN protesting the violation of its
territory and airspace.
(AP, 11/8/05)
2005 Jul 4, US and Iraqi forces
raided suspected insurgent safe houses near Baghdad International
Airport, arresting at least 100 suspected militants, including
foreign fighters.
(AP, 7/4/05)
2005 Jul 4, A Japanese
parliamentary committee approved bills that would create the world's
largest bank by privatizing the state-run postal system, which
handles trillions of dollars in savings and insurance deposits.
(AP, 7/5/05)
2005 Jul 4, In Libya Moammar
Gadhafi called on African nations to stop "begging" during the
opening of an African summit attended by more than 50 leaders from
this crisis-wracked continent. African Union (AU) chairman Olusegun
Obasanjo called on rich nations to provide "massive" financial help
rather than sympathy in its fight against poverty at their summit in
Scotland this week. UN Sec-Gen. Kofi Annan announced the creation of
a fund to promote democratic institutions and practices around the
world, an idea first proposed by the Pres. Bush in Sep 2004.
(AP, 7/4/05)(AP, 7/5/05)
2005 Jul 4, In Kuala Lumpur,
Malaysia, UN agencies met for a 3-day conference on bird flu virus
and said the disease remains as dangerous as ever and nations must
do more to prepare for a pandemic among humans.
(AP, 7/4/05)
2005 Jul 4, Mauritius'
opposition Social Alliance claimed victory as counting from the
Indian Ocean island's weekend election neared an end.
(AP, 7/4/05)
2005 Jul 4, A Moroccan court
convicted and sentenced Taoufik Hanouichi and Mohcine Bouarfa to
death. They were among those arrested in a sweep to dismantle
militant Islamic networks following suicide bombings in Casablanca.
Dozens of others were jailed. The two men were unlikely to be
executed, as Morocco has had a de facto moratorium on the death
penalty since 1993.
(AP, 7/5/05)
2005 Jul 4, In Edinburgh,
Scotland, police scuffled with black-clad anarchists and
antiglobalization protesters, and 450 demonstrators sat down in the
road blocking an entrance to a naval base for nuclear submarines.
(AP, 7/4/05)
2005 Jul 4, The UN’s World Food
Program (WFP) said it has suspended aid shipments to lawless Somalia
after gunmen hijacked a vessel it chartered and demanded a $500,000
ransom.
(AP, 7/4/05)
2005 Jul 4, In Zimbabwe armed
paramilitary police swept through a Harare township, pulling down
more 100 prefabricated wooden cabins, including one with screaming
children inside.
(AP, 7/5/05)
2005 Jul 5, President Bush
thanked Iraq war ally Denmark during a stopover in Copenhagen while
en route to an international economic summit in Scotland.
(AP, 7/5/06)
2005 Jul 5, A survey of US
sheriffs was released in which most considered methamphetamine as
the most serious problem facing their departments.
(SFC, 7/6/05, p.A2)
2005 Jul 5, Police in Torrance,
Ca., arrested 2 men for robbing gas stations. Investigations soon
revealed that they were associated with Kevin James, an inmate at
California State Prison in Sacramento, a founder of Jamiyyat
Ul-Islam Is Saheeh (JIS). The group was planning terrorist attacks
in the LA area. Another participant was arrested Aug 2. In 2007
Kevin James (31) and Levar Haley Washington (28) pleaded guilty to
conspiring to levy war against the US.
(SFC, 9/1/05, p.A4)(SFC, 12/15/07, p.A3)
2005 Jul 5, At its Synod in
Georgia(US) the United Church of Christ voted to use "economic
leverage" to promote peace between Israel and Palestinians and to
call for the dismantling of the Jewish state's security fence.
(AP, 7/6/05)
2005 Jul 5, A judge in Kentucky
authorized a $120 million settlement between the Roman Catholic
Diocese of Covington and hundreds of victims in child-molesting
cases.
(SFC, 7/6/05, p.A3)
2005 Jul 5, Tropical Storm
Cindy moved ashore, pelting the Louisiana coast with sideways rain
and intermittent squalls.
(AP, 7/5/06)
2005 Jul 5, James Stockdale
(81), ex-POW and 1992 vice-presidential candidate with Ross Perot,
died in Colorado. His 1984 autobiography was titled “In Love and
War.”
(SFC, 7/6/05, p.B7)
2005 Jul 5, An alliance of
Russia, China and central Asian nations called for the US and
coalition members in Afghanistan to set a date for withdrawing from
member states, reflecting growing unease over America's regional
military presence. The Shanghai Cooperation Organization includes
China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.
(AP, 7/5/05)
2005 Jul 5, It was reported
that French and South African researchers had found that
circumcision reduces the risk of AIDS by 70%.
(WSJ, 7/5/05, p.A1)
2005 Jul 5, Albania's
opposition party headed by Sali Berisha, the country's former
president (1992-1997), took the lead in parliamentary elections, but
foreign monitors criticized the vote as falling short of
international standards.
(AP, 7/5/05)(Econ, 7/25/05, p.43)
2005 Jul 5, In Brazil a top
official of the ruling Workers' Party stepped down, the second ally
of President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva to resign this week amid new
allegations regarding a bribes-for-votes scandal.
(AP, 7/5/05)
2005 Jul 5, Workers began
removing a field of crosses at Berlin's former Checkpoint Charlie
after a privately run museum lost a court battle to keep the
memorial to people killed at the East German border during the Cold
War.
(AP, 7/5/05)
2005 Jul 5, In India a suicide
bomber blew up a security fence and gunmen used the breach to storm
the Ram Janmabhoomi shrine complex in Ayodhya, setting off a
two-hour gunbattle that left all six attackers dead. A Hindu mob
razed a mosque at the site on Dec 6, 1992. Police later said that
the 5 gunmen who attacked the site in Uttar Pradesh state were
Islamic militants who came from Pakistan, adding that two
gun-runners linked to the assault have been arrested in Kashmir.
(AP, 7/5/05)(WSJ, 7/6/05, p.A1)(AP, 7/15/05)
2005 Jul 5, At least 100
suspected insurgents, including foreigners, were arrested in a new
military operation by US and Iraqi security forces. Insurgents
mounted attacks against Arab and Muslim diplomats in Iraq, wounding
Bahrain's top envoy in a kidnapping attempt. Pakistan's ambassador
also escaped an assault on his convoy.
(AP, 7/5/05)
2005 Jul 5, Abu Musab
al-Zarqawi issued an audiotape announcing the formation of the Omar
Brigade to kill Shia. Sunni clerics had recently accused the Shia
Badr Brigade of sending hit squads against Sunnis.
(Econ, 7/16/05, p.41)
2005 Jul 5, A US soldier from
Task Force Liberty was killed and two were wounded by a roadside
bomb northeast of Baghdad.
(AP, 7/5/05)
2005 Jul 5, In Kashmir
suspected Islamic militants shot dead five people, two of them
Indian soldiers guarding the de facto border with Pakistan. The
soldiers were killed during a clash with militants near the Line of
Control (LoC) that divides Kashmir.
(AP, 7/6/05)
2005 Jul 5, In Pakistan police
arrested 7 men in Chaniot, Punjab province, who a week earlier
allegedly kidnapped and gang-raped a married woman in retaliation
for her cousin's affair with one of the suspect's daughters.
(AP, 7/6/05)
2005 Jul 5, Hamas rejected an
invitation from Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas to join his
government.
(AP, 7/5/05)
2005 Jul 5, A Peruvian judge
ordered the arrest of 118 current and retired military officials for
their alleged involvement in the May 14, 1988, massacre of peasants
in an Andean village and subsequent violations in the area.
(AP, 7/6/05)
2005 Jul 5, In the southern
Russian region of Dagestan an explosion tore through a police post,
killing at least one officer and wounding 3.
(AP, 7/5/05)
2005 Jul 5, Sudan and two
Darfur rebel groups signed a "declaration of principles" aimed at
helping bring peace to Darfur, but failed to reach a comprehensive
deal to stop the violence that has left tens of thousands dead.
(AP, 7/6/05)
2005 Jul 5, Thousands of poor
ethnic Hmong refugees from Laos were living without shelter in
northern Thailand, forced from their homes under a Thai campaign to
pressure them to return to their native land. Landlords said the
government had set a July 4 deadline for them to evict the some
6,500 refugees from their bamboo shelters.
(AP, 7/6/05)
2005 Jul 5, The United Arab
Emirates (UAR), under international pressure to stop child abuse in
a traditional desert sport, banned the use of underage riders in
camel racing.
(AP, 7/5/05)
2005 Jul 6, NY Times reporter
Judith Miller was jailed for refusing to name her CIA-leak source
(2003) for a never-written article on CIA officer Valerie Plame. She
was freed after 85 days when Lewis Libby (55), chief of staff for VP
Cheney, released her from a claim of confidentiality. She agreed to
testify before a federal grand jury.
(WSJ, 7/6/05, p.A1)(SFC, 10/1/05, p.A4)
2005 Jul 6, Crude oil for
August delivery rose $1.69 to settle at a record $61.28 per barrel.
(SFC, 7/7/05, p.C1)
2005 Jul 6, L. Patrick Gray III
(88), acting FBI director during Nixon’s Watergate crisis, died in
Florida.
(SFC, 7/7/05, p.A15)
2005 Jul 6, Author Evan Hunter
(78) died in Weston, Conn.
(AP, 7/6/06)
2005 Jul 6, Brazil’s Pres. Luiz
Inacio Lula da Silva named 3 cabinet ministers from a centrist party
to shore up support for his governing coalition, mired in charges of
buying votes in Congress.
(AP, 7/7/05)
2005 Jul 6, London was awarded
the 2012 Olympics, upsetting European rival Paris in the final round
of voting to take the games back to the British capital for the
first time since 1948. Costs for the 2112 Olympics were originally
estimated at £2.4 billion. By 2006 the costs rose to
£4.7 billion.
(AP, 7/6/05)(Econ, 11/25/06, p.57)
2005 Jul 6, Canada asked
Washington to persuade a US court to dismiss a lawsuit against
Talisman Energy Inc. that alleges the Calgary-based oil company
aided genocide in southern Sudan. The suit was filed in a New York
district court in 2001 by the Presbyterian Church of Sudan. Talisman
sold its 25% interest in Sudan's main oil project for $771 million
in 2003.
(AP, 7/7/05)
2005 Jul 6, A Chilean court
stripped Gen. Augusto Pinochet of immunity from prosecution for his
alleged role in the killing of 119 dissidents in the early years of
his dictatorship.
(AP, 7/7/05)
2005 Jul 6, China unveiled its
1st index of manufacturing-purchasing activity.
(WSJ, 7/7/05, p.A11)
2005 Jul 6, In northeastern
China a bomb exploded in a shopping mall, injuring 47 people but
causing no deaths. Xinhua News said Ma Yuanxi, had fled China after
being suspected of murder but sneaked back into the country seeking
revenge in a dispute with another man.
(AP, 7/6/05)
2005 Jul 6, In Haiti hundreds
of peacekeepers stormed Cite Soleil, part of an effort to clamp down
on politically aligned gangs that have been accused of waging a
campaign of violence to destabilize Haiti ahead of October and
November elections. Gang leader Emmanuel "Dread" Wilme was killed in
the raid.
(AP, 7/9/05)
2005 Jul 6, In Iraq gunmen
killed 4 policemen and wounded at least 9 more in separate attacks
in Baghdad.
(AP, 7/6/05)
2005 Jul 6, In Jordan over 170
leading Muslim scholars in Amman concluded an Int’l Islamic
Conference. They affirmed their authority and announced a mutual
recognition between Islam’s 8 main schools of legal interpretation:
4 Sunni, 2 Shia, the Ibadis of Oman and the small but prestigious
Zahiri school.
(Econ, 7/30/05, p.41)(www.asmasociety.org/home/)
2005 Jul 6, In Kashmir Indian
troops shot dead, Hizbul Mujahedin, a self-styled divisional
commander of the region's main rebel group in the northern district
of Baramulla.
(AP, 7/6/05)
2005 Jul 6, In Mexico Omar
Pimentel (37), Nuevo Laredo's new police chief, survived his 1st day
on the job with 3 bodyguards shadowing his every move, but one of
his police officers was killed and 2 other policemen badly wounded
by shots fired from a truck at their private car.
(AP, 7/7/05)
2005 Jul 6, In Acapulco,
Mexico, gunmen fired a spray of bullets at Jose Ruben Robles
Catalan, a former Guerrero state official as he entered a hotel
lobby with his 6-year-old grandson, killing him and his chauffeur.
(AP, 7/6/05)
2005 Jul 6, Monaco’s Prince
Albert admitted that he had fathered a boy with a French-Togolese
women in 2003.
(SFC, 7/7/05, p.A20)
2005 Jul 6, Myanmar's military
government released about 240 prisoners, including political
detainees and opposition politicians.
(AP, 7/6/05)
2005 Jul 6, A shootout between
police and gunmen with automatic weapons left a bystander and two of
the gunmen dead in the southern Russian region of Dagestan.
(AP, 7/6/05)
2005 Jul 6, In Scotland G-8
leaders scaled back goals for relieving African poverty and
combating global warming under US opposition to British PM Tony
Blair's ambitious objectives. Riot police with attack dogs beat back
demonstrators as thousands marched near the site of the Group of
Eight summit, demanding action from the world's leaders on poverty
reduction and climate change.
(AP, 7/6/05)(AP, 7/7/05)
2005 Jul 6, Sudan's National
Assembly unanimously passed a new constitution that steps away from
complete Islamic rule and paves the way for a Christian former rebel
leader to be inaugurated as first vice president later this week.
(AP, 7/6/05)
2005 Jul 6, Hikmet Fidan,
prominent Kurdish politician and critic of Abdullah Ocalan, was
killed in Diyarbakir, Turkey. Police said he was killed by the PKK.
(Econ, 7/23/05, p.48)
2005 Jul 7, Morgan Stanley
disclosed that Philip Purdell had been given an exit package worth
an estimated $113.7 million. 2 days earlier John Mack was signed on
as CEO on a contract worth as much as $25 million a year.
(SFC, 7/8/05, p.C1)
2005 Jul 7, Gustaf Sobin (69),
American-born writer and poet, died in France. His work included the
2000 novel “The Fly-Truffler.”
(SFC, 7/13/05, p.B7)
2005 Jul 7, A Human Rights
Watch report said numerous officials in Afghan President Hamid
Karzai's government are implicated in war crimes that took place at
the start of the country's bloody civil war in the early 1990s.
(AP, 7/7/05)
2005 Jul 7, In Pale,
Bosnia-Herzegovina, NATO troops arrested Aleksandar Karadzic, the
son of top Bosnian Serb war crimes fugitive Radovan Karadzic, who is
wanted for alleged genocide including the 1995 Srebrenica massacre.
(AFP, 7/7/05)
2005 Jul 7, Four blasts rocked
the London subway and tore open a packed double-decker bus during
the morning rush hour, sending bloodied victims fleeing. 56 were
killed in the subway blasts, including 13 on the bus, and London
hospitals reported more than 700 wounded. A group calling itself
"The Secret Organization of al-Qaida in Europe" posted a claim of
responsibility, saying they were in retaliation for Britain's
involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan. In 2007 British police arrested
3 suspects. [see ref URL for CNN timeline on the bombing] In 2008 a
jury failed to convict 3 Britons accused of helping the suicide
bombers. In 2009 three men were found not guilty of helping to plan
the suicide bombings, although two were convicted on lesser charges.
(AP, 7/7-8/05)(http://tinyurl.com/dxvlb)(AP,
7/11/05)(WSJ, 3/23/07, p.A1)(WSJ, 8/2/08, p.A6)(AFP, 4/28/09)
2005 Jul 7, Al-Qaida in Iraq
said in a Web statement that it has killed Ihab al-Sherif, Egypt's
top envoy in Iraq, posting a video of the blindfolded diplomat
identifying himself.
(AP, 7/7/05)
2005 Jul 7, Egypt recalled its
staff to Cairo and said it will temporarily shut its diplomatic
mission in Iraq.
(AP, 7/7/05)
2005 Jul 7, Hurricane Dennis, a
Category 4 storm with 135-mph winds, left 10 people dead in
Haiti and some 100 missing.
(AP, 7/9/05)
2005 Jul 7, The 150-ton KMP
Digul sank off Papua province, Indonesia, while en route from the
port town of Merauke to Tanah Merah. As many as 200 were feared
dead.
(AP, 7/9/05)(AP, 7/10/05)
2005 Jul 7, Iraq's president
called for national unity as mortar attacks killed 4 civilians in
the northern city of Mosul and police opened fire on demonstrators
in Saddam Hussein's hometown Tikrit, wounding 4.
(AP, 7/7/05)
2005 Jul 7, About 600 US
Marines and Iraqi soldiers launched Operation Scimitar near
Fallujah, the fourth counterinsurgency operation in less than a
month.
(AP, 7/9/05)
2005 Jul 7, Ali Shakir, the
head of Iraq's karate union, was kidnapped south of Baghdad.
(AP, 7/9/05)
2005 Jul 7, Saddam Hussein's
chief lawyer quit the Iraqi dictator's Jordan-based legal team,
saying some of the team's American members were trying to control
the defense and tone down his criticism of the U.S. presence in
Iraq.
(AP, 7/7/05)
2005 Jul 7, Luxembourg PM
Jean-Claude Juncker asked his citizens to pass a referendum in favor
of the EU Constitution.
(WSJ, 7/8/05, p.A5)
2005 Jul 7, In Pakistan 2
masked gunmen opened fire on an intelligence officer in a remote
northwestern tribal region, killing him before fleeing.
(AP, 7/7/05)
2005 Jul 7, Romania's PM Calin
Popescu Tariceanu said his Cabinet would resign and early elections
would be called after a court blocked essential justice reforms
required by the EU.
(AP, 7/7/05)
2005 Jul 7, In Scotland world
leaders united in a show of solidarity to condemn the deadly
bombings in London as an attack on all nations and vowed to defeat
the terrorists responsible.
(AP, 7/7/05)
2005 Jul 8, Australia granted
fugitive former Chinese diplomat Chen Yonglin a permanent visa
allowing him to stay in the country indefinitely.
(AFP, 7/8/05)
2005 Jul 8, In Austria an
89-nation UN conference approved broadening a treaty meant to keep
nuclear material from the hands of terrorists, opening the way for
states to ratify the agreement. The Convention of the Physical
Protection of Nuclear Material originally obligated the 112
countries that have accepted it to protect nuclear material during
international transport. The amended version expands such protection
to materials at nuclear facilities, in domestic storage and during
domestic transport or use.
(AP, 7/8/05)
2005 Jul 8, Jorge Alberto
Uribe, Colombia's defense minister, resigned amid criticism over his
handling of the country's counterinsurgency war and his alleged
relationship with a jailed female drug trafficker.
(AP, 7/8/05)
2005 Jul 8, Police said that
the bombs used in London's terrorist attacks held less than 10
pounds of explosives each.
(AP, 7/8/05)
2005 Jul 8, In China Exxon
Mobil Corp., Saudi Aramco and top Asian refiner Sinopec signed a
$3.5 billion deal to expand a refinery in south China, sealing what
they called the country's largest oil project.
(Reuters, 7/8/05)
2005 Jul 8, Hurricane Dennis
slammed Cuba, sweeping away coastal homes and sending waves crashing
over Havana's seawall. At least 10 people were killed.
(AP, 7/9/05)
2005 Jul 8, Shares of Gas de
France (GDF), a 20% stake in the state monopoly, began to trade
following the plans of PM Dominique de Villepin. The IPO was
expected to fetch up to $6 billion. A sale of shares in Electricite
de France was set for October.
(Econ, 7/25/05, p.56)y
2005 Jul 8, An Israeli security
guard shot dead a Palestinian teenager during a protest against
Israel's West Bank separation barrier.
(AP, 7/9/05)
2005 Jul 8, In Italy a judge
convicted and sentenced to life in prison three members of the Red
Brigades terrorist group for the 1999 killing of a government labor
adviser, court officials said. A fourth was convicted and sentenced
to nine years.
(AP, 7/8/05)
2005 Jul 8, In rural
southeastern Mexico a series of explosions at a natural gas pipeline
killed two people and set fire to houses, cars and cattle near
Cunduacan.
(AP, 7/10/05)
2005 Jul 8, Gloria Macapagal
Arroyo's presidency was in tatters, her base of support eroding by
the hour, as former backers abandoned the Philippine leader and
added to calls for her resignation over an election scandal.
(AP, 7/8/05)
2005 Jul 8, In Scotland G8
world leaders concluded an economic summit shaken by terrorism,
offering an "alternative to the hatred," a $50 billion aid package
for Africa and up to $3 billion in additional support for the
Palestinians. They pledged new joint efforts against terrorism in
response to the deadly London bombings the day before.
(AP, 7/8/05)(Econ, 7/16/05, p.74)
2005 Jul 8, John Garang, the
rebel leader in a two-decade civil war for southern autonomy,
returned to Sudan's capital for the first time in 22 years to take
up his new position as first vice president in the government he
once fought.
(AP, 7/8/05)
2005 Jul 9, Pres. Bush signed
the Junk Fax Prevention Act of 2005, supported by business
interests, which made it easier for companies to send out junk
faxes.
(SFC, 7/13/05, p.C1)
2005 Jul 9, Minnesota Gov. Jim
Pawlenty signed a temporary spending plan and lawmakers agreed on
the outline of a 2-year budget.
(SSFC, 7/10/05, p.A3)
2006 Jul 9, A panda cub, later
named Tai Shan, was born at the National Zoo in Washington.
(AP, 7/9/06)
2005 Jul 9, It was reported the
world’s 439 nuclear reactors produce about 16% of the world’s
electricity. US reactors numbered 103 plants with capacity
utilization at over 90%.
(Econ, 7/25/05, p.59)
2005 Jul 9, Hurricane Dennis
left at least 32 people dead in the Caribbean and moved toward
Pensacola, Florida.
(SSFC, 7/10/05, p.A1)
2005 Jul 9, The US military
released another batch of 76 Afghan prisoners as part of ongoing
efforts to promote national reconciliation. A purported Taliban
spokesman said that the group has beheaded a missing American
commando, but he offered no proof. The body of the commando was
found the next day.
(AP, 7/9/06)
2005 Jul 9, Suspected Taliban
gunmen ambushed an Afghani government border patrol in the desert
near the frontier with Pakistan, killing 10 soldiers and beheading
their bodies.
(AP, 7/10/05)
2005 Jul 9, The leader of
Brazil's governing Workers Party stepped down, the third ally of
President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva to resign this week amid charges
of buying votes in Congress.
(AP, 7/10/05)
2005 Jul 9, In Congo DRC
Rwandan rebels burned 39 people alive, mostly women and children,
when they torched the village of Mtulumamba in eastern Congo in what
some locals said was punishment for supporting UN peacekeepers.
(AP, 7/11/05)
2005 Jul 9, It was reported
that a recent Internet announcement said that Ibrahim Youssef
al-Shammari would serve as official spokesman for the Islamic Army
of Iraq and the Army of the Mujahideen, 2 groups thought to be
linked to the former Baath Party.
(Econ, 7/25/05, p.39)
2005 Jul 9, Khamis Farhan
Khalaf Abd al-Fahdawi (known as Abu Seba), a senior lieutenant of
al-Qaida in Iraq, was arrested following operations in the Ramadi.
He was a key suspect in the kidnap-slaying of an Egyptian envoy and
attacks on senior diplomats from Pakistan and Bahrain.
(AP, 7/14/05)
2005 Jul 9, North Korea said it
will rejoin six-nation nuclear arms talks on July 25.
(AP, 7/9/05)
2005 Jul 9, The 110-ton barge
left Magadan, Russia, on a two-day journey to Okhotsk, sent out a
distress signal during severe weather, then lost communication. 6 of
10 sailors were rescued 3 days later.
(AP, 7/12/05)
2005 Jul 9, In Sudan John
Garang, the former rebel leader who spent 21 years fighting
Khartoum's government, was sworn in as first vice president. Garang
and Pres. Omar el-Bashir signed into being Sudan's new constitution.
(AP, 7/9/05)(AP, 7/10/05)
2005 Jul 9, In southeastern
Turkey a land mine believed to have been planted by Kurdish rebels
killed 3 soldiers. Two other land mines injured seven people in
separate explosions.
(AP, 7/10/05)
2005 Jul 10, Police in LA
killed Jose Raul Pena (34) as well as Susie Marie Lopez (19 months)
as Pena fired at police while holding the child.
(SFC, 7/12/05, p.A3)
2005 Jul 10, Hurricane Dennis
swamped homes, ripped off roofs and felled power lines and trees
when it hurtled into northwest Florida and Alabama with 120-mph
(190-kph) winds. The storm left at least 16 dead in Haiti. Dennis
killed at least 16 people in Cuba, damaged or destroyed 15,000 homes
and caused an estimated $1.4 billion in property damage. Dennis
killed at least 62 people, the majority in the Caribbean.
(Reuters, 7/11/05)(WSJ, 7/11/05, p.A1)(AP,
7/12/05)(AP, 7/13/05)
2005 Jul 10, In Mississippi 2
Canadian National Railroad freight trains collided outside Bentonia
and 4 crewmen were killed.
(WSJ, 7/11/05, p.A1)
2005 Jul 10, In eastern
Afghanistan the body of a missing US commando was located in Kunar
province. The location and disposition of the service member's
remains indicate he died while fighting off enemy terrorists on or
about June 28.
(AP, 7/11/05)
2005 Jul 10, In Britain a
Pakistani man was killed in a suspected racial attack in the central
city of Nottingham.
(AP, 7/12/05)
2005 Jul 10, In Canada 2 small
biplanes simulating a World War I dogfight collided at an air show
in Saskatchewan, killing both pilots instantly.
(AP, 7/10/05)
2005 Jul 10, China said
torrential rains in the southwest have killed 65 people over the
past two weeks and forced more than 428,000 to flee their homes in
flood-prone areas.
(AP, 7/10/05)
2005 Jul 10, Vidal Cerrato
(63), a former vice president of Honduras (1998-2001) and a
representative of the Central American Parliament, died.
(AP, 7/11/05)
2005 Jul 10, In India suspected
Naga rebels bombed an army convoy, killing two soldiers and
critically wounding six others in Manipur.
(Reuters, 7/10/05)
2005 Jul 10, In Iraq Abdullah
Ibrahim Mohammed Hassan al Shadad (or Abu Abdul Aziz), another
al-Qaida in Iraq lieutenant, was captured.
(AP, 7/14/05)
2005 Jul 10, A man strapped
with explosives blew himself up at an Iraqi military recruiting
center in Baghdad killing 25 people. 2 US Marines were killed by
indirect fire in Hit. 4 insurgents were killed in Tal Afar. 2
suicide car bombers killed at least 7 Iraqi customs officials along
the Syrian border. 8 members of a Shiite family, including a
2-year-old, were shot to death in their sleep. The father suspected
it was a sectarian crime. The body of kidnapped Iraqi karate
association chief Ali Shakir was found floating in the Tigris river
southeast of Baghdad. An Iraqi commando brigade detained 10 Sunnis,
who were later found tortured and suffocated in a container. Attacks
left over 50 people dead.
(AP, 7/10/05)(SFC, 7/11/05, p.A1)(SFC, 7/12/05,
p.A3)
2005 Jul 10, Kyrgyzstan held
presidential elections. With more than three-quarters of the ballots
counted from 95 percent of the districts, Kurmanbek Bakiev (Bakiyev)
received nearly 89 percent of the vote. He had teamed up with Felix
Kulov, his most serious rival, by promising him the position of
prime minister.
(AP, 7/11/05)(Econ, 7/16/05, p.39)
2005 Jul 10, Luxembourg voters
ratified the EU’s proposed constitution referendum.
(AP, 7/10/05)
2005 Jul 10, In Northern
Ireland police using a steel barricade prevented Protestant
hard-liners from parading through the main Catholic section of
Portadown.
(AP, 7/11/05)
2005 Jul 10, Puerto Ricans
voted to do away with half their lawmakers, endorsing a referendum
for a one-house legislature.
(AP, 7/11/05)
2005 Jul 10, In Sri Lanka 4
Tiger rebels were killed at their LTTE office in Trimcomalee,
despite a ceasefire. Violence in the area quickly escalated. The
government denied responsibility for the attack.
(AP, 7/14/05)
2005 Jul 10, Sudan's new
presidency on Sunday lifted the state of emergency in Sudan, except
in the conflict-torn regions of Darfur and the east.
(Reuters, 7/10/05)
2005 Jul 10, On Turkey's Aegean
coast a bomb exploded in a popular resort town of Cesme, wounding
about 20 people, including two foreign tourists.
(AP, 7/10/05)
2005 Jul 11, Frances Langford
(b.1913), singer and entertainer, died. The 1935 song “I’m in the
Mood for Love” by Dorothy Fields and Jimmy McHugh was her signature
piece.
(SFC, 7/12/05, p.B5)
2005 Jul 11, In Afghanistan 4
suspected terrorists escaped from the main US base, the first time
anyone has broken out of the heavily guarded detention facility.
Omar al-Farouq was one of the four suspected Arab terrorists to
escape from the detention facility at Bagram. Born in Kuwait to
Iraqi parents, he was considered one of Osama bin Laden's top
lieutenants in Southeast Asia until Indonesian authorities captured
him in 2002 and turned him over to the US. On Nov 2 Indonesian
anti-terrorism official, Maj. Gen. Ansyaad Mbai, sharply criticized
the US government for failing to inform him that al-Farouq was no
longer behind bars.
(AP, 7/11/05)(AP, 11/2/05)
2005 Jul 11-2005 Jul 12,
Fighting between rebels and Afghan and American forces in Zabul
province left 17 insurgents dead.
(AP, 7/13/05)
2005 Jul 11, Joao Batista Ramos
da Silva, a Brazilian congressman and an ordained minister of the
evangelical Christian Universal Church of the Kingdom of God, was
detained with 6 other people as they tried to board a private jet
with seven suitcases stuffed with cash. Ramos said the $2.6 million
in Brazilian reals was from tithes collected during religious
services
(AP, 7/11/05)
2005 Jul 11, It was reported
kidnappers in Brazil were targeting the mothers of top soccer
players with 5 mothers kidnapped in the last 7 months.
(SFC, 7/11/05, p.A1)
2005 Jul 11, British
investigators found the images of 4 young men carrying backpacks in
King's Cross station at about 8:30 a.m., 20 minutes before the Jul 7
subway explosions.
(AP, 7/13/05)(AP, 7/14/05)
2005 Jul 11, The Deh Cho First
Nations of the Northwest Territories agreed to a deal with the
Canadian government to get meaningful participation in the
environmental assessment and regulatory review of the $5.7 billion
Mackenzie Valley Pipeline for gas project.
(WSJ, 7/12/05, p.A15)
2005 Jul 11, In China an
explosion in the Shenlong Coal Mine in the far west Xinjiang region
killed at least 76 miners. 7 were still reported missing.
(AP, 7/12/05)
2005 Jul 11, In Iraq US troops
killed 10 more insurgents in the northern city of Tel Afar. 6
civilians were reported killed in the Tal Afar fighting. Insurgents
stormed an Iraqi army checkpoint north of Baghdad, killing 12
people, including 9 soldiers.
(AP, 7/11/05)(Reuters, 7/11/05)(SFC, 7/12/05,
p.A3)
2005 Jul 11, Deputy PM Shimon
Peres said Israel is asking the US for $2.2 billion in additional
aid to help fund its upcoming withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and
parts of the West Bank.
(AP, 7/11/05)
2005 Jul 11, A judge ordered
the arrest and isolation of 3 senior officers of the Banco di
Credito Cooperativo Sofige Gela, a small bank on Sicily’s southern
coast. The had been under investigation for aiding and abetting the
Mafia.
(Econ, 7/16/05, p.72)
2005 Jul 11, Hugo Alberto
Wallace (36), a divorced entrepreneur, was kidnapped as he left a
movie theater in Mexico City. In 2007 Brenda Quevedo was arrested in
Louisville, Kentucky, after Maria Isabel Miranda, the mother of
Wallace, received a tip and tracked her down. Frustrated with
investigators' lack of progress in her son's 2005 kidnapping,
Miranda launched her own investigation, tracking down five suspects.
In 2009 Quevedo was extradited to Mexico.
(www.nytimes.com/2006/04/04/world/americas/04kidnapping.html)(AP,
9/26/09)
2005 Jul 11, The Dutch market
research firm, VNU, announced its acquisition of IMS Health, the
leading supplier of research to pharmaceutical firms, for $7
billion.
(Econ, 7/16/05, p.60)
2005 Jul 11, A boat rescuing
flood-hit Pakistani villagers hit a power cable and 14 people,
including eight children, were electrocuted.
(AP, 7/11/05)
2005 Jul 11, Russian
prosecutors said they have opened a criminal investigation into
former PM Mikhail Kasyanov (Misha 2%), a potential presidential
candidate, for abuse of office.
(AP, 7/11/05)(Econ, 7/16/05, p.48)
2005 Jul 11, Russian news media
reported that Rosoboronexport, Russia’s main arms exporter, has
signed a $300 million deal to sell jet fighter engines to China.
(AP, 7/11/05)
2005 Jul 11, In Russia at least
20 people were killed after arsonists set fire to a store in the
northern city of Ukhta.
(Reuters, 7/11/05)
2005 Jul 11, A SA government
report said more than 6.5 million of South Africa's 47 million
people could be infected with HIV.
(AP, 7/12/05)
2005 Jul 11, Kurdish guerrillas
kidnapped a Turkish soldier after stopping dozens of cars at a
makeshift roadblock in the southeast.
(AP, 7/11/05)
2005 Jul 11, Thailand reported
the discovery of 10 new cases of bird flu just as it was about to
declare the country free of the disease.
(AP, 7/11/05)
2005 Jul 11, In Trinidad a bomb
exploded in a trash bin in downtown Port-of-Spain on Monday,
injuring 14 people.
(AP, 7/11/05)
2005 Jul 12, Miguel Tejada and
Mark Teixeira led the American League to a 7-5 win over the National
League in Detroit for the AL's eighth straight All-Star victory.
(AP, 7/12/06)
2005 Jul 12, Francisco
Rodriguez (21) was shot and killed in Redwood City, Ca. Josue Raul
Orozco (14), a Sereno gang member, was later arrested for the murder
of the rival gang member. Orozco escaped from the Youth Service
Center in San Mateo in 2008 on Feb 14 and was arrested in San
Antonio, Texas, on Sep 17.
(SFC, 9/19/08,
p.B2)(http://sfist.com/2008/03/13/17yearold_josue.php)
2005 Jul 12, In Brazil Luiz
Gushiken, Pres. Lula’s communications wizard, was stripped of
ministerial status following reports that his business partners had
been blessed with fat federal contracts.
(Econ, 7/16/05, p.33)
2005 Jul 12, British police
closed Luton's train station and carried out 9 controlled explosions
on a parked car, which the BBC reported contained explosives. At
least 3 Britons from Leeds of Pakistani descent were suspected of
carrying out the July 7 attacks that killed 54 and injured 700.
Surveillance cameras captured the men as they arrived in the capital
20 minutes before the explosions began.
(AP, 7/13/05)
2005 Jul 12, BP said it has
sent teams to fix its 'Thunder Horse' oil platform, which has been
listing since Hurricane Dennis hit the Gulf of Mexico. The platform,
located 150 miles (250 kilometers) southeast of New Orleans, was
slipping by around 20-30 degrees following the passing of the storm,
but no injuries or leaks were reported.
(AP, 7/13/05)
2005 Jul 12, In Costa Rica a
fire at the Calderon Guardia Hospital killed 19 people. 2 more
people died later from complications. The building lacked proper
fire exits. On Oct 7 the country's top investigator said died the
fire was set deliberately.
(WSJ, 7/13/05, p.A1)(AP, 10/8/05)
2005 Jul 12, A raid by hundreds
of Ethiopian bandits on a remote village in northern Kenya, left at
least 45 people dead, including more than two dozen children. Kenyan
security forces pursued the bandits, who numbered between 300 and
500, and killed 16 of them.
(AP, 7/14/05)
2005 Jul 12, French company
Technip SA said it has been awarded a $800 million contract by
Chevron Corp. to develop its largest Nigerian oil project.
(AP, 7/12/05)
2005 Jul 12, India’s Supreme
Court scrapped a controversial immigration law, making it easier for
authorities to crack down on illegal aliens, a move likely to curb
Bangladeshi migrants in the country's northeast.
(Reuters, 7/12/05)
2005 Jul 12, In Iraq armed men
stormed a house in Baghdad, killing 4 Iraqi human rights activists
and wounding another.
(AP, 7/12/05)
2005 Jul 12, Antonio Fazio,
governor of the Bank of Italy, informed his friend Gianpiero
Fiorani, head of Banca Popolare Italiana (BPI), that BPI’s bid for
the Antonveneta bank had received a go ahead before making the news
public.
(Econ, 7/30/05, p.67)(WSJ, 9/13/05, p.A1)
2005 Jul 12, A car bomb hit the
motorcade of Elias Murr, Lebanon's outgoing deputy prime minister,
wounding him and killing at least one other person.
(AP, 7/12/05)
2005 Jul 12, Prince Albert II
(47) was formally instated as ruler of Monaco.
(AP, 7/12/05)
2005 Jul 12, Two gun attacks in
Belfast left one man dead and another critically wounded on the eve
of Northern Ireland's tensest day of the year — the divisive
"Twelfth" holiday of mass Protestant marches.
(AP, 7/12/05)
2005 Jul 12, Mohammed Bouyeri,
a Muslim extremist on trial in the slaying of Dutch filmmaker Theo
van Gogh, unexpectedly confessed in court, saying he was driven by
religious conviction. Bouyeri was convicted and sentenced to life in
prison.
(AP, 7/12/06)
2005 Jul 12, Sami Abu Khalil
(18), from the West Bank village of Atil, detonated 22 pounds of
explosives strapped to his body outside a shopping mall in Netanya.
He killed two 16-year-old girls and a 31-year-old woman. A
50-year-old woman died in the hospital the next day.
(AP, 7/13/05)
2005 Jul 13, Bernie Ebbers
(63), former CEO of WorldCom, was sentenced to 25 years in prison
for his role in fraud orchestrating the biggest corporate accounting
fraud in US history.
(WSJ, 7/14/05, p.A1)
2005 Jul 13, In Virginia a
federal judge sentenced Ali Timini (41), a prominent Muslim
spiritual leader, to life in prison for inciting his followers for
violent jihad against the US. Timini was convicted in April.
(SFC, 7/14/05, p.A9)
2005 Jul 13, The National
Hockey league and the players’ union reached an agreement in
principle on a 6-year labor deal ending a lockout that canceled the
last season. It included a team wage limit of $39 million and a 24%
reduction in current salaries.
(WSJ, 7/14/05, p.D1)(Econ, 7/23/05, p.36)
2005 Jul 13, The Pennsylvania
Health Care Cost Containment Council issued a report that said more
than 11,000 people caught some sort of infection in Pennsylvania
hospitals last year and nearly 1,800 died from them.
(Reuters, 7/13/05)
2005 Jul 13, The White Holly, a
retrofitted WW II Navy freighter, embarked from SF Bay on a 7,000
mile roundtrip cruise to study coral reef decay.
(SFC, 7/14/05, p.A1)
2005 Jul 13, A fuel gauge that
mistakenly read full instead of empty forced NASA to call off the
first shuttle launch in 2½ years.
(AP, 7/13/06)
2005 Jul 13, It was reported
that a triple-star system, HD 188753, is located 149 light-years
away in the constellation Cygnus. The primary star is like our Sun,
weighing 1.06 solar masses. The other two stars form a tightly
bound pair, which is separated from the primary by approximately the
Sun-Saturn distance.
(www.space.com/scienceastronomy/050713_triple_sun.html)
2005 Jul 13, In Afghanistan a
suspected Taliban gunmen killed Saleh Mohammed, a senior
pro-government Muslim cleric in Helmand province.
(AP, 7/13/05)
2005 Jul 13, PM John Howard
said Australia will send 150 elite troops to Afghanistan by
September to fight a growing tide of violence by remnants of the
Taliban and al-Qaida.
(AP, 7/13/05)
2005 Jul 13, British police
identified 3 of the July 7 bombers as Shahzad Tanweer (22), Mohammed
Sidique Khan (30), and Hasib Hussain (19), the bomber on the N0. 30
bus. The 4th suicide bomber was identified the next day as Lindsey
Germaine (19), a Jamaican-born Briton.
(SFC, 7/30/05, p.A11)
2005 Jul 13, Opposition
movements from across Egypt's political spectrum joined in
opposition to President Hosni Mubarak with calls for a boycott of
September's presidential vote.
(AP, 7/13/05)
2005 Jul 13, Egypt announced it
was launching a campaign for the return of five of its most precious
artifacts from museums abroad, including the Rosetta Stone in London
and the graceful bust of Nefertiti in Berlin.
(AP, 7/13/05)
2005 Jul 13, Rudy Therassan,
Haiti's former national police commander (2201-2003), was sentenced
to almost 15 years in prison. He was accused of protecting Colombian
cocaine shipments through his destitute homeland. He pleaded guilty
in federal court in April to conspiring to import at least 22 pounds
of cocaine into the US and laundering money.
(AP, 7/14/05)
2005 Jul 13, In India an
Islamic trust claimed ownership of the Taj Mahal and demanded a
slice of tourist revenue from the 17th-century monument to love, but
the government-run group charged with its upkeep vowed to challenge
that claim in court.
(AP, 7/13/05)
2005 Jul 13, The US military
filed charges against 11 US soldiers for assaulting detainees in
Baghdad. A suicide car bomb exploded next to US troops handing out
candy and toys, killing more than two dozen people, including 18
children and teenagers and an American soldier.
(AP, 7/16/05)(AP, 7/13/06)
2005 Jul 13, Israeli troops
reoccupied the West Bank city of Tulkarem early, killing a
Palestinian policeman in a firefight and arresting five Islamic
Jihad activists after the militant group killed four Israelis in a
suicide bombing.
(AP, 7/13/05)
2005 Jul 13, In Brescia, Italy,
a judge convicted two North Africans of belonging to an extremist
cell alleged to have planned attacks, including one against Milan's
subway. Moroccan Mohamed Rafik was sentenced to four years and eight
months in prison and Tunisian Kamel Hamraoui to three years and four
months.
(AP, 7/13/05)
2005 Jul 13, In Kenya in an
apparent revenge attack, men believed to be from the Gabra tribe
killed 10 members of the rival Borana tribe as they were being
driven to a seminar in Marsabit, 250 miles northeast of Nairobi.
(AP, 7/14/05)
2005 Jul 13, In southern
Pakistan 3 trains collided in a deadly chain reaction after a train
driver misread a signal, killing 133 people and injuring hundreds in
the country's worst crash in more than a decade.
(AP, 7/14/05)
2005 Jul 13, Thousands of
Peruvians protested against a proposed US-trade pact that a UN
investigator warned would put medicines out of reach of millions of
poor people.
(Reuters, 7/13/05)
2005 Jul 13, Pressure grew for
Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo to quit as her
opponents staged the largest rally against her so far.
(AP, 7/13/05)
2005 Jul 13, Russian President
Vladimir Putin signed a decree stripping the security services of
control over a number of detention centers, satisfying a
long-standing request by Europe's top human rights body.
(AP, 7/13/05)
2005 Jul 14, US Chief Justice
William H. Rehnquist, ending a two-day stay in the hospital, pledged
to continue working as long as his health permitted. He died in
September 3, 2005.
(AP, 7/14/06)
2005 Jul 14, The US budget
office said it expects a 2005 federal deficit of $333 billion, down
20% from a previous estimate and $79 billion below the record posted
for 2004.
(SFC, 7/14/05, p.A1)
2005 Jul 14, A US appeals court
overturned the 2003 “mad cow” ban on beef imports from Canada. The
USDA said it would lift restrictions within days.
(WSJ, 7/15/05, p.A1)
2005 Jul 14, US and Afghan
soldiers fought Taliban insurgent near the Pakistan border inside
Afghanistan. Maj. Gen. Rehmatullah Raufi, the top army commander in
Paktia, said the Afghan base was attacked in the Lwara area. The
next day Pakistani troops found the bodies of 24 suspected Taliban
militants. Pakistan protested the US cross-border raid.
(AP, 7/15/05)(WSJ, 7/18/05, p.A1)
2005 Jul 14, In Colombia
commandos acting on a tip seized Jose Aldemar Rendon, as he was
jogging outside Medellin. Rendon was a suspected leader of the Norte
del Valle cartel drug cartel believed to have trafficked half the
cocaine sold in the United States in the 1990s. In Maria la Baja the
local paramilitary group disbanded and handed over its weapons under
a peace agreement with the government.
(AP, 7/15/05)(Econ, 3/24/07, p.41)
2005 Jul 14, The body of
Jacques Roche, a well-known Haitian journalist, was found shot to
death with signs of torture, 5 days after he was seized while
driving in the capital.
(AP, 7/15/05)
2005 Jul 14, Indian troops
recovered the bodies of 5 Islamic militants as they hunted rebels
high in the rugged Himalayas in northern Indian Kashmir. 7 people
died in other violence. A spokesman identified one of the slain
rebels as Abu Lukman, a senior member of the region's main rebel
group Hizbul Mujahedin.
(AFP, 7/14/05)
2005 Jul 14, In Iraq 2 US
Marines were killed by roadside bomb near the Jordanian border.
(AP, 7/15/05)
2005 Jul 14, In Iraq 2 suicide
bombers struck near the Green Zone in central Baghdad, but a third
was wounded and captured by US and Iraqi security forces, officials
said. At least 9 people were wounded in the blasts. Gunmen killed
five Iraqi employees of an American base in Baqouba. At least 9
policemen also were killed in separate attacks nationwide.
(AP, 7/14/05)
2005 Jul 14, In central Kenya
Luigi Locati (76), the bishop of Isiolo diocese, was shot to death
in what appeared to be an attempted robbery.
(AP, 7/15/05)
2005 Jul 14, In southern
Thailand at least 60 insurgents plunged Yala city into darkness by
destroying electrical transformers, then roamed the streets with
fire-bombs, explosives and guns, targeting an area near a hotel,
convenience stores, a restaurant and the railway station. Suspected
Islamic separatists set off 5 bombs and exchanged gunfire with
security personnel in an attack, killing a police officer and
wounding 19 other people.
(AP, 7/14/05)(AP, 7/17/05)
2005 Jul 15, A US federal
appeals court ruled that a Guantanamo detainee who once was Osama
bin Laden's driver could be tried by military tribunal. However, the
Supreme Court in June 2006 struck down the tribunals, saying they
violated U.S. and international law.
(AP, 7/15/06)
2005 Jul 15, In SF District
Court federal prosecutors in the BALCO case dropped 40 of 42
indictments against 3 men accused of providing performance-enhancing
drugs to elite athletes.
(SFC, 7/16/05, p.A1)
2005 Jul 15, Bankrupt Enron
Corp. agreed to pay up to 1.52 billion dollars to settle charges of
market manipulation during the energy crisis that hit California and
other western US states in 2000 and 2001.
(AFP, 7/16/05)
2005 Jul 15, California Gov.
Schwarzenegger said he would quit his 2nd job as editor of two
bodybuilding magazines following criticism of the lucrative
moonlighting. Following this he soon severed ties with the Arnold
Classic, a premier bodybuilding event.
(SFC, 7/15/05, p.A1)(SFC, 7/23/05, p.A1)
2005 Jul 15, Suspected Taliban
gunmen kidnapped and hanged a pro-government tribal leader in
southern Afghanistan. Agha Jan was kidnapped the previous day with
his two sons, brother and two nephews from his home in southern
Zabul province. The relatives were released unharmed. Suspected
Taliban fighters raided a police post in southern Afghanistan,
killing 7 policemen and losing 5 of their own men.
(AP, 7/15/05)(AP, 7/16/05)
2005 Jul 15, Officials said
heavy rains and flash floods have killed 20 people and inundated
tens of thousands of homes in Bulgaria and Romania.
(AP, 7/15/05)
2005 Jul 15, An official said
police in Egypt said they had arrested Magdy el-Nashar (33), an
Egyptian biochemist, sought in the probe of the London bombings. He
was taken into custody upon his arrival in Cairo from abroad.
(AP, 7/15/05)
2005 Jul 15, Hurricane Emily
blew over Grenada and gathered force in the eastern Caribbean with
winds of 135 mph. At least one person was killed.
(AP, 7/15/05)
2005 Jul 15, In India hardline
Hindu activists broke the windows of a cinema, burned posters and
shouted "traitor" in protests against leading actor Salman Khan who
Indian media said had boasted of links with the underworld.
(Reuters, 7/15/05)
2005 Jul 15, Indonesian
authorities said 3 people had died of suspected bird flu in the last
10 days. They had no contact with poultry and raised concern over
human-to-human transmission. A small farm nearby was hit by the
virus a few months earlier. This raised the regionwide deaths from
bird flu to 57, mostly in Thailand and Vietnam
(WSJ, 7/18/05, p.A10)(WSJ, 7/22/05, p.A10)
2005 Jul 15, In Iraq a frenzy
of attacks killed at least 30 people in 12 suicide bombings. 2 US
Marines were killed in a roadside bombing near the Jordanian border.
A suicide car bomb exploded on a bridge overlooking the home of
President Jalal Talabani, killing three of his guards. In Nasiriyah,
judge Nurredin Ahmed, a Kurd from the northern oil centre of Kirkuk,
was shot dead at his home. Akram Ahmed Rasul al-Bayati, a major
general in the old regime's disbanded military, and his son Ali, a
policeman, were killed after being arrested by police commandos on
July 10.
(AP, 7/16/05)(AFP, 7/16/05)(SFC, 7/16/05, p.A3)
2005 Jul 15, The Israeli
military launched an airstrike at a van carrying a group of Hamas
militants and a cache of homemade rockets in a Gaza City street,
killing 4 people.
(AP, 7/15/05)
2005 Jul 15, Two Japanese
tankers collided in the Pacific Ocean off the central Japan coast,
sparking a blaze that killed one sailor and left five others
missing.
(AP, 7/15/05)
2005 Jul 15, Nepal's king
appointed a dozen loyalists to ministerial jobs.
(AP, 7/15/05)
2005 Jul 15, In Serbia a court
convicted 4 former members of the Avengers, a Serbian paramilitary
force, of abducting 16 Muslims from a bus in October, 1992, and
taking them to Bosnia to be tortured and executed. The men in
custody, Djordje Sevic and Dragutin Dragicevic, got 15 and 20 years
respectively. Two others, Milan Lukic and Oliver Krsmanovic, were on
the run and were tried in absentia, and received 20-year jail terms
(AP, 7/16/05)
2005 Jul 15, In South Africa a
passenger bus plunged down a ravine near the southcentral coast,
killing at least 24 people.
(AP, 7/15/05)
2005 Jul 15, Thailand's
government, reeling from bold attacks by suspected separatists in
the Muslim-dominated south, granted PM Thaksin Shinawatra sweeping
powers to tap phones, directly command security forces and order
curfews.
(AP, 7/15/05)
2005 Jul 16, J.K. Rawling’s
latest book, “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince,” the 6th of
the series, went on sale.
(SSFC, 7/17/05, p.A1)
2005 Jul 16, In Australia Sir
Ronald Wilson (82), a former World War II fighter pilot who became a
respected Australian judge and headed a national inquiry into the
"stolen generations" of Aboriginal children, died.
(AP, 7/17/05)
2005 Jul 16, The death toll
from the July 7 bombings in London rose to 55 as a badly wounded
young architect succumbed 9 days after being rescued. British PM
Tony Blair warned that an "evil ideology" of Islamic extremism was
bent on spreading terror through the West.
(SSFC, 7/17/05, p.A17)(AP, 7/16/06)
2005 Jul 16, A small plane from
Costa Rica, piloted by the son of a former owner of the San Jose
Sharks hockey team, crashed off the Pacific Coast, killing six
people.
(AP, 7/17/05)
2005 Jul 16, A Russian-made
plane that disappeared from radar shortly after takeoff in
Equatorial Guinea crashed with 55 people aboard.
(AP, 7/17/05)
2005 Jul 16, In Finland
Indonesia's government and Aceh rebels reached a tentative peace
deal to end a 29-year insurgency in the tsunami-devastated province.
They agreed to sign a peace accord on Aug 15 in exchange for more
autonomy.
(AP, 7/17/05)(WSJ, 7/18/05, p.A1)
2005 Jul 16, Security forces in
India's portion of Kashmir killed at least 17 suspected Islamic
militants, including 13 rebels who had entered the region from
Pakistan.
(AP, 7/17/05)
2005 Jul 16, Iran said it had
arrested 200 people and deported another 800, all of whom were said
to be linked to al-Qaida.
(SSFC, 7/17/05, p.A3)
2005 Jul 16, In Baghdad a
suicide car bomber attacked police commandos in the southern
district of Dura, killing one commando and three civilians, two of
them children. A 2nd Baghdad suicide bomber blew up a car in an
attack targeting a passing US military convoy. One civilian was
killed. A 3rd bomber blew himself up in a police station in Mosul,
killing 4 policemen and wounding 18 more. A 4th bomber blew himself
up in the Jabala area, when Iraqi police tried to arrest him. The
explosion wounded two policemen and four civilians. 3 British
soldiers were killed by a roadside bomb in a rare attack in the
relatively stable southern part of the country.
(AFP, 7/16/05)
2005 Jul 16, In Iraq a suicide
bomber blew up a fuel truck near a crowded vegetable market outside
a Shiite mosque in Musayyib killing 98 people. A suspected
mastermind of the attack was captured later during a raid by Iraqi
forces in which two of his associates were killed.
(Reuters, 7/17/05)(AP, 7/23/05)
2005 Jul 16, US forces in Iraq
began setting up a base 3 miles from the Rawah, a crossroads town
and smuggling route near the Syrian border.
(SSFC, 7/31/05, p.A20)
2005 Jul 16, Israeli troops
raided towns across the West Bank, arresting 26 suspected
Palestinian militants. Israeli aircraft launched a series of
airstrikes in Gaza City and the southern Gaza town of Khan Younis.
(AP, 7/16/05)
2005 Jul 16, Hurricane Emily
skirted Jamaica with winds spiking at 155 mph.
(SSFC, 7/17/05, p.A3)
2005 Jul 16, In Lagos a court
convicted Amaka Anajemba, a Nigerian woman, of helping defraud a
Brazilian bank of $242 million in the country's biggest
international fraud case. She was sentenced to 2 1/2 years in prison
and ordered to give up $25.5 million in cash and assets. Banco
Noroeste of Sao Paolo, Brazil, was reportedly fleeced of some $242
million over seven years until 2001.
(AP, 7/17/05)
2005 Jul 16, Pakistani security
officials said 3 of the 4 London suicide bombers recently visited
Pakistan. Investigators probed whether they met with Al-Qaeda-linked
militant groups.
(AP, 7/16/05)
2005 Jul 16, Pakistani soldiers
fought militants in a northwestern tribal region near the Afghan
border. 18 people, mostly women and children, died in the clash.
(AP, 7/17/05)
2005 Jul 16, A Russian air
force helicopter carrying border guards crashed in mountainous
southern Chechnya, killing eight people.
(AP, 7/17/05)
2005 Jul 16, In Turkey a bomb
blast destroyed a minibus near Kusadasi, a popular Aegean Sea beach,
killing 5 people, including at least 2 foreigners. Initial reports
implicating a female suicide bomber were soon changed to a remote
controlled or timer bomb as the cause.
(Reuters, 7/16/05)(AP, 7/17/05)
2005 Jul 17, Time magazine's
Matthew Cooper said a 2003 phone call with White House political
adviser Karl Rove was the first he heard about the wife of Bush
administration critic Joseph Wilson apparently working for the CIA.
(AP, 7/18/05)
2005 Jul 17, Whirlpool Corp.
offered to buy fellow appliance maker Maytag Corp. for $1.37 billion
in cash and stock, topping an earlier offer that Maytag had accepted
from an investment group.
(AP, 7/18/05)
2005 Jul 17, The North American
Solar Challenge, a race for solar powered cars, began in Austin,
Texas. It was set to end Jul 27 in Calgary, Canada.
(SFC, 7/22/05, p.A13)
2005 Jul 17, Meleia
Willis-Starbuck (19) was shot dead on College Ave. in Berkeley, Ca.,
by Christopher Hollis (21), a close friend. In 2008 a jury convicted
Hollis of voluntary manslaughter. He was sentenced to 24 years in
state prison.
(SFC, 7/18/05, p.A1)(SFC, 7/22/05, p.A1)(SFC,
4/30/08, p.B1)(SFC, 7/12/08, p.B3)
2005 Jul 17, Geraldine
Fitzgerald (91), stage and screen actress, died in NYC. Her films
included “Dark Victory” (1939), “Ten North Frederick” (1958) and
“Rachel Rachel” (1968).
(SFC, 7/20/05, p.B7)
2005 Jul 17, The 168-page
Afghanistan Justice Project report was issued and covered human
rights abuses since the late 1970s. It holds several top officials
and candidates in national elections, scheduled for September, among
those responsible for mass arrests, tortures and executions.
(AP, 7/18/05)
2005 Jul 17, Tiger Woods closed
with a 2-under 70 to win the British Open for his tenth career
major.
(AP, 7/17/06)
2005 Jul 17, Sir Edward Heath
(b.1916), PM of England (1970-1974), died. He led England into what
is now the EU but lost the Conservative Party leadership to Margaret
Thatcher.
(AP, 7/17/05)(SFC, 7/18/05, p.B6)(Econ, 7/23/05,
p.80)
2005 Jul 17, Egypt demanded
that institutions in Britain and Belgium return two pharaonic
reliefs it says were chipped off tombs and stolen 30 years ago,
threatening to end their archaeological work here if they refuse.
(AP, 7/17/05)
2005 Jul 17, In Iraq The Iraqi
Special Tribunal filed its first criminal case against Saddam
Hussein for a 1982 massacre of Shiites. Adel Karim, a deputy
minister for industrial development, said Iraq wants to launch a
privatization program that would end state monopolies over industry.
Suicide strikes killed 22 people in the Baghdad area.
(AP, 7/17/05)(AP, 7/17/06)
2005 Jul 17, In Paraguay some
360 villagers marched on Asuncion to lobby for the expropriation of
128,500 acres of land containing their town of Puerto Casado, owned
by Rev. Sun Myung Moon’s Unification Church. The South Korean based
church had purchased a 1.48 million-acre property in 2000.
(WSJ, 7/18/05, p.A10)
2005 Jul 17, Officials said
heavy rains and flash floods have killed 20 people in the past week
and inundated tens of thousands of homes in Romania. Death for the
month reached 26.
(AP, 7/17/05)
2005 Jul 17, Pilots at Asiana
Airlines, South Korea's No. 2 carrier, went on strike.
(AP, 7/20/05)
2005 Jul 17, In central Spain
11 firefighters trying to extinguish a forest fire sparked by a
smoldering barbeque were killed.
(AP, 7/17/05)
2005 Jul 17, The Sudanese
council of ministers held its last meeting in Khartoum ahead of the
formation of a power-sharing cabinet that will include southern
former rebels.
(AP, 7/17/05)
2005 Jul 17, In Thailand an
emergency decree was signed into law that granted PM Shinawatra
sweeping powers to tap phones, directly command security forces and
order curfews. It also granted immunity to security forces in
emergency zones.
(Econ, 7/23/05, p.40)
2005 Jul 17, Yemeni President
Ali Abdullah Saleh, leader of this Arab nation for more than a
quarter-century, said he will not run in next year's elections, and
he urged political parties to nominate "young blood" to lead the
country.
(AP, 7/17/05)
2005 Jul 18, President Bush
told India's PM Singh he wants to expand economic and diplomatic
ties between the two countries but was expected to pledge only token
help for India's nuclear energy technology. America agreed to grant
India “full civil nuclear energy cooperation.”
(AP, 7/18/05)(Econ, 7/23/05, p.37)
2005 Jul 18, The United States
extradited a Moroccan held at Guantanamo Bay who was indicted in
Spain for his alleged links to an al-Qaida cell.
(AP, 7/19/05)
2005 Jul 18, In Alabama Eric
Rudolph was sentenced to life in prison without parole for a 1998
abortion clinic bombing in Birmingham. On Aug 22 he was sentenced to
4 life terms for the 1996 Olympics bombing in Atlanta, and 1997
attacks on an abortion clinic and gay nightclub.
(SFC, 7/19/05, p.A3)(WSJ, 8/23/05, p.A1)
2005 Jul 18, California Gov.
Schwarzenegger signed legislation to allow construction to go
forward on the new eastern half of the Bay Bridge.
(SFC, 7/19/05, p.B1)
2005 Jul 18, California
reinstated a program to issue identity cards to patients who have
been prescribed medical marijuana.
(SFC, 7/19/05, p.B1)
2005 Jul 18, San Diego acting
Mayor Michael Zucchet and councilman Ralph Inzunza were convicted in
federal court of taking illegal campaign cash from a strip club
owner. Councilwoman Toni Atkins succeeded Zucchet.
(SFC, 7/19/05, p.A10)
2005 Jul 18, News Corporation
announced it was buying Intermix Media, owner of MySpace.com, for
$580 million.
(Econ, 1/21/06,
p.68)(www.newscorp.com/news/news_251.html)
2005 Jul 18, LaToyia Figueroa,
who was five months' pregnant, was last seen in West Philadelphia.
Police recovered her remains a month later. On August 20, 2005, They
arrested Steven Poaches, her former boyfriend and the father of the
unborn child. On October 17, 2006, in a nonjury trial, Common Pleas
Judge M. Teresa Sarmina found Stephen Poaches, guilty of two counts
of first-degree murder in the deaths of 24-year-old LaToyia Figueroa
and her fetus. Poaches waived his right to appeal and, in exchange,
prosecutors agreed not to seek the death penalty. He was given an
automatic life sentence with no parole.
(AP,
8/20/05)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LaToyia_Figueroa)
2005 Jul 18, Paul Duke (78),
former anchor of the NBC news show “Washington Week in Review,”
died. He began moderating the show in 1974.
(SFC, 7/20/05, p.B6)
2005 Jul 18, Gen. William
Westmoreland (b.1914) died. As commander of U.S. forces in Vietnam,
Westmoreland oversaw the introduction of ground troops in South
Vietnam and a dramatic increase in the number of U.S. troops there.
In vain, he sought permission to engage enemy forces in their
sanctuaries in Cambodia, Laos and North Vietnam.
(AP, 7/19/05)
2005 Jul 18, Argentina issued
dollar bonds for the 1st time since its massive default in 2001.
(Econ, 7/23/05, p.34)
2005 Jul 18, A British jury
convicted Faryadi Sarwar Zardad, a former Afghan warlord, of torture
and hostage-taking (1991-1996). It was the first trial in Britain of
a foreigner for crimes committed in his homeland. The next day
Zardad was sentenced to 20 years in prison.
(AP, 7/19/05)(AP, 7/20/05)
2005 Jul 18, China evacuated
over 600,000 people from coastal areas after typhoon Haitang slammed
into Taiwan, killing up to four people.
(Reuters, 7/18/05)
2005 Jul 18, The EU said it
will allow member countries to adopt different approaches in
patenting biotech drug innovations.
(WSJ, 7/19/05, p.A12)
2005 Jul 18, Under orders from
an international court, Guatemala apologized for the
government-directed massacre of 226 people in Plan de Sanchez on
July 18, 1982.
(AP, 7/19/05)
2005 Jul 18, Bayan Jabr, Iraq's
interior minister, accused Syria of not making a serious effort to
crack down on insurgents in its territory or prevent them from
crossing into Iraq, adding that he had pictures and addresses of
militant leaders in Syria.
(AP, 7/18/05)
2005 Jul 18, Insurgents killed
8 police and government workers in seven separate shootings across
central Iraq. Ambushes and shootings across Iraq left at least 26
people dead.
(AP, 7/18/05)(SFC, 7/19/05, p.A11)
2005 Jul 18, Lebanon's newly
elected Parliament, dominated by an anti-Syrian coalition, approved
an amnesty motion for the release of former Christian warlord Samir
Geagea, who was linked to the 1987 bombing death of PM Rashid
Karami.
(AP, 7/18/05)(SFC, 7/19/05, p.A9)
2005 Jul 18, Malaysia launched
its first bond fund on the stock exchange as part of an Asian scheme
to augment underdeveloped capital markets.
(AP, 7/18/05)
2005 Jul 18, Hurricane Emily
slammed into Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula as a powerful Category 4
storm.
(AP, 7/18/05)
2005 Jul 18, Pakistani police
arrested a man accused of killing 14 homeless people in the past
three weeks by bludgeoning them to death with bricks.
(AP, 7/19/05)
2005 Jul 18, Pakistan arrested
5 Taliban leaders.
(WSJ, 7/19/05, p.A1)
2005 Jul 18, Slobodan
Milosevic's paramilitary commander, his secret police chief and five
others were convicted and sentenced for the 2000 killing of Ivan
Stambolic, former Serbian president who was Milosevic's political
rival.
(AP, 7/18/05)
2005 Jul 18, In a program to be
screened on ABC TV, the fisheries chief of the Solomon Islands in
the South Pacific says Japan poured money into the country in
exchange for its support over whaling and cheap access to tuna.
Similar charges were made by former officials from the tiny
Caribbean nations of Dominica and Grenada.
(AP, 7/18/05)
2005 Jul 18, Suriname's
parliament was deadlocked over choosing a new president, with no
candidate securing the two-thirds majority needed to become the
leader.
(AP, 7/19/05)
2005 Jul 18, In Turkey 4
soldiers were killed when the PKK detonated a bomb in Hakkari.
(Econ, 7/23/05, p.48)
2005 Jul 19, President Bush
announced his choice of federal appeals court judge John G. Roberts
Jr. (50) to replace Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor.
Roberts ended up succeeding Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, who
died in September 2005.
(AP, 7/20/05)(SFC, 7/20/05, p.A1)(AP, 7/19/06)
2005 Jul 19, In Phoenix, Az., a
blistering 4-day heat wave was blamed for the deaths of 12 people.
10 were homeless; the other two were elderly women.
(AP, 7/20/05)
2005 Jul 19, Computer and
printer maker Hewlett-Packard Co. said it will cut 14,500 jobs and
overhaul its retirement program in a restructuring plan designed to
save $1.9 billion annually.
(AP, 7/19/05)
2005 Jul 19, Miroslav Bralo
(37), former Bosnian Croat special forces soldier, pleaded guilty to
war crimes at the Yugoslav tribunal in the Hague. Bralo was a member
of an infamous unit, known as "the Jokers," responsible for attacks
on Bosnian Muslim villages in the Lasva Valley of central Bosnia and
Herzegovina in 1993.
(AP, 7/19/05)
2005 Jul 19, British firm
SABMiller announced a $7.8 billion purchase of Grupo Empresarial
Bavaria, South America’s 2nd largest brewer.
(Econ, 7/23/05, p.61)
2005 Jul 19, Insurgents set off
a bomb near a police minibus in breakaway Chechnya after luring the
security forces into a trap, killing 14 people, including two
children, and wounding more than 20 others.
(AP, 7/20/05)
2005 Jul 19, Egypt said that
Magdy el-Nashar, the detained chemist wanted by Britain for
questioning about the London bombings, had no links to the July 7
attacks or to al-Qaida.
(AP, 7/19/05)
2005 Jul 19, In Guatemala a
judge issued an arrest warrant for former President Alfonso Portillo
(2000-2004) in connection with the alleged misuse of millions of
dollars during his tenure. Portillo, who fled to Mexico, is accused
of authorizing the transfer of $16 million from the finance
department to the defense department, where investigators allege
much of it was converted to cash and pocketed by officials close to
Portillo.
(AP, 7/19/05)
2005 Jul 19, Iran publicly
executed two teenagers accusing them of raping a 13-year-old boy and
having gay sex, according to Iran's ISNA news agency. Before Mahmoud
Asgari and Ayaz Marhoni were executed in Edalat ("Justice") Square
in Mashhad, they were held in prison for 14 months and lashed 228
times.
(AP, 7/22/05)(http://tinyurl.com/q7qyt)
2005 Jul 19, One of the Sunni
Arabs appointed to a committee to draft Iraq's constitution was
assassinated in a drive-by shooting. Mijbil Issa was gunned down,
along with two bodyguards, in the Karradah area of Baghdad. Gunmen
opened fire on a minibus carrying Iraqi workers to a U.S. airbase in
central Iraq, killing 13.
(AP, 7/19/05)
2005 Jul 19, Israeli police
encircled thousands of Gaza withdrawal opponents, confining them to
a fenced-in farming village to prevent them from marching to the
nearby Gaza Strip. Israeli and Palestinian leaders announced a fresh
truce.
(AP, 7/19/05)(Econ, 7/23/05, p.41)
2005 Jul 19, Fouad Siniora
succeeded Najib Mikati as PM of Lebanon.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fouad_Siniora)
2005 Jul 19, In Mexico City
soccer coach Ruben Omar Romano was kidnapped following a practice
session with his team Cruz Azul.
(SFC, 7/21/05, p.A6)
2005 Jul 19, In Nepal police
broke up a demonstration in the capital by hundreds of students
protesting the king's seizure of absolute power.
(AP, 7/19/05)
2005 Jul 19, In Niger some 3.6
million people were in need of food, among them 800,000 malnourished
children. About 150,000 could die unless food arrives quickly in the
impoverished West African nation of 13 million.
(AP, 7/19/05)
2005 Jul 19, In Senegal
ministers, entrepreneurs and trade experts from 35 African countries
and the US began to plot ways to give African goods a better shot at
US markets and find means to boost non-oil exports from the poorest
continent. Senegal was one of 37 African countries eligible to
participate in the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), signed
in 2000 by US president Bill Clinton that gives African exports
duty-free status on the US market.
(AFP, 7/19/05)
2005 Jul 19, In his first
decrees as Sudan's No. 2 leader, former rebel chief John Garang
dissolved his guerrilla movement and dismissed all government
officials in 10 southern states.
(AP, 7/19/05)
2005 Jul 19, A top Turkish
general said the US had given direct orders for the capture of rebel
Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) leaders in Iraq.
(AP, 7/19/05)
2005 Jul 20, A day after being
tapped by President Bush, Supreme Court nominee John Roberts paid
courtesy calls on senators while a conservative group purchased TV
ad time in support of his nomination and abortion rights groups
staged protests.
(AP, 7/20/06)
2005 Jul 20, Eastman Kodak Co.
said it is cutting as many as 10,000 more jobs as the company that
turned picture-taking into a hobby for the masses navigates a tough
transition from film to digital photography.
(AP, 7/20/05)
2005 Jul 20, SF Bay Area air
quality officials impost the toughest regulations in the nation to
reduce flaring in the East Bay’s 5 oil refineries.
(SFC, 7/21/05, p.B1)
2005 Jul 20, Actor James Doohan
(85), who transported the crew of "Star Trek" through space on the
command "Beam me up, Scotty," died. He has asked that his ashes be
blasted into space.
(AFP, 7/21/05)
2005 Jul 20, Two Afghans
released from Guantanamo Bay claimed about 180 Afghans at the U.S.
detention facility were on a hunger strike to protest alleged
mistreatment and to push for freedom.
(AP, 7/21/05)
2005 Jul 20, Cambodia handed
over some 107 Montagnards, a largely Christian hilltribe people, to
Vietnamese authorities. More than 1,000 Montagnards fled to Cambodia
after security forces put down demonstrations in Vietnam's Central
Highlands in 2001 against land confiscation and religious
persecution of ethnic minorities. In January, Vietnam, Cambodia and
the UNHCR signed a memorandum of understanding to resettle or
repatriate about 700 ethnic minority Vietnamese who were estimated
at the time to be in Cambodia.
(AFP, 7/20/05)
2005 Jul 20, Haitang was
downgraded from a typhoon to a tropical storm as it moved into
southeast China, leaving a trail of destruction. The death toll in
Taiwan and in China rose to 15.
(AFP, 7/20/05)
2005 Jul 20, Canada legalized
gay marriage, becoming the world's 4th nation to grant full legal
rights to same-sex couples.
(AP, 7/20/05)
2005 Jul 20, In India the
Chattisgarh state government said it will begin supplying arms to
tribespeople who have formed vigilante groups to protect themselves
from attacks by Maoist rebels.
(AP, 7/21/05)
2005 Jul 20, Sunni Muslim
members on a committee drafting Iraq's new constitution suspended
their participation in the wake of a colleague's assassination,
saying they need more security. A suicide bomber blew himself up
outside an army recruiting center in central Baghdad, killing at
least 10 people.
(AP, 7/20/05)
2005 Jul 20, A Milan prosecutor
sought arrest warrants for six more purported CIA operatives,
accusing them of helping plan the kidnapping of an Egyptian radical
Muslim cleric.
(AP, 7/20/05)
2005 Jul 20, In Kashmir a car
bomb blew up an army jeep, killing 5 soldiers and at least one
civilian and injuring 20 others near a school in an elite
neighborhood of Srinagar.
(AP, 7/20/05)
2005 Jul 20, Japanese
electronics giant Hitachi said it has become the first foreign
company to win certification from US transport authorities for its
bomb-detection equipment, opening up major new markets.
(AP, 7/20/05)
2005 Jul 20, In Kenya riot
police beat demonstrators with truncheons and fired tear gas
canisters as protests in Nairobi persisted over proposed
constitutional amendments that critics say leave the president with
too much power.
(AP, 7/21/05)
2005 Jul 20, In Lebanon
PM-designate Fuad Siniora announced a cabinet of 24 ministers. The
lineup for the first time included a member of the Hizb Allah
movement. Mohammed Fneish became energy minister. Hizb Allah ally
Tarrad Hamadeh retained the post of labor minister.
(http://tinyurl.com/m8ctm)
2005 Jul 20, In Mexico more
than 1,000 people marched through the streets of the colonial
capital of southern Oaxaca state to demand that picketers disband a
blockade that has trapped journalists inside a newspaper building
for about a month.
(AP, 7/21/05)
2005 Jul 20, Hurricane Emily
slammed into northeastern Mexico with 125 mph winds.
(AP, 7/20/05)
2005 Jul 20, In Palestine the
ruling Fatah movement and the Islamic Hamas agreed to end several
days of clashes in northern Gaza that took the lives of two
bystanders.
(AP, 7/20/05)
2005 Jul 20, President Vladimir
Putin said Russia won't allow foreign organizations to finance
political activities in the country.
(AP, 7/20/05)
2005 Jul 20, Wenceslas
Munyeshyaka, a former priest of the Holy Family parish in the
Rwandan capital Kigali, was charged in a sealed indictment with
genocide, rape, assassination and extermination, the International
Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) in Tanzania. The charges were
made public in 2007.
(AFP, 6/21/07)
2005 Jul 20, In Yemen at least
11 people were killed in clashes with police after rioters threw
stones and set fires in streets to protest against subsidy cuts that
nearly doubled petrol prices.
(AP, 7/20/05)
2005 Jul 21, The House voted to
extend the USA Patriot Act.
(AP, 7/21/06)
2005 Jul 21, A US appeals court
ordered the government to sell the Unabomber’s property and give the
proceeds to victims of his bombings.
(WSJ, 7/22/05, p.A1)
2005 Jul 21, Sealed court
documents were filed in which the U.S. Attorney's Office initiated
attempts to seize the home of U.S. Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham,
alleging that the California Republican's $3.5 million estate in
Rancho Santa Fe, a San Diego suburb, was purchased with bribe money.
In 2006 prosecutors alleged that Brent Wilkes, a San Diego
businessman, paid Cunningham over $626,000 in bribes between 2000
and 2004 to win government contracts for his companies.
(AP, 8/19/05)(SSFC, 5/14/06, p.A18)
2005 Jul 21, US and Canadian
authorities reported the shutdown of a newly completed 100-yard
border crossing tunnel outside Lynden, Wa., intended for smuggling
marijuana.
(SFC, 7/22/05, p.A3)
2005 Jul 21, The US Centers for
Disease Control reported that the bodies of American children and
adults contained over 100 toxic substance including pyrethroids, a
pesticide ingredient, and phthalates, found in beauty products and
soft plastics.
(SFC, 7/22/05, p.A12)
2005 Jul 21, In Phoenix, Az., a
blistering heat wave was blamed for the deaths of 18 people. 14 were
thought to be homeless; 3 were elderly women.
(AP, 7/21/05)
2005 Jul 21, Airbus said it has
received an order for 20 of its twin-aisle A330 passenger jets from
Air China, in a deal worth about 3.2 billion euros ($3.9 billion) at
list prices.
(AP, 7/21/05)
2005 Jul 21, Long John Baldry
(64), British blues musician, died in Canada.
(WSJ, 7/25/05, p.A1)
2005 Jul 21, Suspected Taliban
rebels ambushed a car carrying a local administrator in southern
Afghanistan. Gul Mohammed, an acting deputy district chief, and his
unidentified driver were killed when militants opened fire on their
car in Helmand province.
(AP, 7/22/05)
2005 Jul 21, In Brazil an
Indian rights group warned that wildcat miners who have entered the
Yanomami Indians' Amazon reservation have brought guns and diseases
that threaten the stone-age tribe. An estimated 500 prospectors have
invaded the reservation, which is rich in gold, magnesium and
niobium.
(AP, 7/21/05)
2005 Jul 21, Explosions struck
3 London Underground stations and a bus at midday in a chilling but
less deadly replay of the suicide bombings that killed 56 people two
weeks ago. One person was seriously wounded. In 2007 a British
prosecutor told a jury that 6 men plotted to kill London subway and
bus passengers with bombs made from hydrogen peroxide and flour on
July 21, 2005, two weeks after suicide bombers killed 52 commuters
in the city. The devices failed to explode. In 2007 a jury convicted
Muktar Said Ibrahim (29), Yassin Omar (26), Ramzi Mohammed (25), and
Hussain Osman (28) for conspiracy to murder. The jury failed to
reach a verdict for Manfo Kwaku Asiedu (34) and Adel Yahya (24). The
4 convicted men were sentenced to life in prison. In 2007 Manfo
Kwaku Asiedu, who was born in Ghana, admitted a charge of conspiracy
to cause explosions over the failed bombings. Asiedu was supposed to
be carrying a fifth bomb on the day but ended up dumping the
rucksack with his device in a park in north London. Asiedu was
sentenced to 33 years in prison. In 2008 Siraj Ali (33), Muhedin Ali
(29), Ismail Abdurahman (25), Wahbi Mohammed (25) and Abdul Sherif
(30), were convicted on 22 charges of failing to disclose
information about terrorism and assisting an offender. They included
the brothers of two of the July 21, 2005 bombers.
(AP, 7/21/05)(AP, 1/15/07)(AP, 7/11/07)(Reuters,
11/9/07)(AP, 11/20/07)(AFP, 2/4/08)
2005 Jul 21, China scrapped the
yuan's peg to the US dollar and tied it to a basket of currencies
revaluing the yuan by 2.1 percent and leaving the door open to
further rises.
(Reuters, 7/21/05)
2005 Jul 21, Germany's Pres.
Horst Koehler agreed to dissolve parliament and hold early elections
Sept. 18 that could give the country its first woman chancellor.
(AP, 7/21/05)
2005 Jul 21, Hong Kong said it
would maintain its 21-year-old peg to the US dollar.
(Econ, 8/6/05, p.60)
2005 Jul 21, In Indonesia the
first suspect to face charges in the 2004 bombing of the Australian
Embassy was sentenced to 3 ½ years in prison for assisting
the attack's perpetrators, but was cleared of more serious charges.
(AP, 7/21/05)
2005 Jul 21, The chief of
Algeria's diplomatic mission, Ali Belaroussi, and fellow envoy
Azzedine Belkadi were seized at gunpoint from the upscale Mansour
district of western Baghdad. In an Internet statement 2 days later
al-Qaida in Iraq said it was responsible. Al-Qaida later announced
it had killed the diplomats.
(AP, 7/23/05)(AP, 7/21/06)
2005 Jul 21, In Indian Kashmir
2 bus passengers were killed and three were wounded when they were
caught in an exchange of fire between militants and soldiers.
(AP, 7/21/05)
2005 Jul 21, A Kurdish party
official said Kurdish leaders have presented a redrawn map with a
larger Kurdistan to the Iraqi National Assembly for consideration in
the new constitution.
(AP, 7/21/05)
2005 Jul 21, The aid agency
Oxfam said about 3.6 million people face starvation in Niger unless
the international community responds urgently to the food crisis
there.
(AP, 7/21/05)
2005 Jul 21, A truck strike
paralyzed fuel deliveries across Puerto Rico.
(AP, 7/21/05)
2005 Jul 21, Russian and US
officials inaugurated a new U.S-financed command center aimed at
improving Russia's ability to prevent trafficking of nuclear
materials.
(AP, 7/21/05)
2005 Jul 21, Russia reported
its 1st case of bird flu in Siberia’s Novosibirsk region.
(WSJ, 7/22/05, p.A10)
2005 Jul 21, Sudanese security
officers roughed up members of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's
entourage; Rice demanded and got an apology.
(AP, 7/21/06)
2005 Jul 21, Turkish forces
killed 5 Kurdish rebels, including a woman, in a gunbattle in the
southeast.
(AP, 7/23/05)
2005 Jul 21, Venezuelan leaders
condemned a U.S. decision to transmit broadcasts to this South
American country to ensure its citizens receive "accurate news."
(AP, 7/21/05)
2005 Jul 21, In Yemen
protesters clashed with security forces for a 2nd day after the
government reduced subsidies on oil products. The violence in the
capital and elsewhere left four dead and seven injured. 2 days of
rioting left 16 people dead.
(AP, 7/21/05)(SFC, 7/22/05, p.A14)
2005 Jul 22, In Irving, Texas,
Kimberly-Clark Corp., maker of Kleenex tissues and Huggies diapers,
said it plans to cut about 6,000 jobs and sell or close up to 20
manufacturing plants.
(AP, 7/22/05)
2005 Jul 22, Researchers
estimated that deaths of North Atlantic right whales may be
underreported by as much as 83 percent annually. At least eight
whales have died in the last 16 months, and only 350 of the animals
are believed to exist.
(AP, 7/23/05)
2005 Jul 22, George Wallace
(88), stage and screen actor, died in Los Angeles. He played
Commando Cody in the 1952 film serial “Radar Men from the Moon.”
(SFC, 7/28/05, p.B7)
2005 Jul 22, In London a man,
who appeared to be South Asian, was slain by officers at the
Stockwell subway station. Police said the man was challenged and
refused to obey instructions. The next day police identified the man
as Jean Charles de Menezes, a Brazilian electrician, and said he was
not related the bombings and expressed regret for his death. Menezes
was shot in the head 7 times. In 2009 the Metropolitan police agreed
to a compensation deal with the family of de Menezes.
(AP, 7/22/05)(AP, 7/23/05)(Econ, 7/22/06,
p.18)(AFP, 11/23/09)
2005 Jul 22, In Germany a pilot
died when his ultralight plane crashed near the German parliament.
He was questioned over the disappearance of his wife and expressed
"suicidal intentions" before the flight.
(AP, 7/23/05)
2005 Jul 22, Insurgents
targeted two Iraqi police patrols in Baghdad, leaving at least five
people dead.
(AP, 7/22/05)
2005 Jul 22, The Italian
government approved a package of anti-terrorism measures that allow
authorities to take DNA samples from suspects and jail those who
provide explosives training.
(AP, 7/22/05)
2005 Jul 22, Japan's Parliament
approved legislation authorizing the defense chief to shoot down
missiles without permission from the prime minister or Cabinet,
boosting a missile defense system Japan is working on with the
United States.
(AP, 7/22/05)
2005 Jul 22, In Kashmir
separatist militants fighting Indian rule in the country's only
Muslim-majority state said they would not allow minority Hindus who
fled the region after the revolt broke out 16 years ago to return.
(AP, 7/22/05)
2005 Jul 22, In Lebanon a bomb
exploded on a narrow street crowded with bars and restaurants,
wounding 12 people just hours after US Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice visited the area.
(AP, 7/23/05)
2005 Jul 22, Mexican
authorities raided a kidnapping ring that filmed its victims being
held inside a cage and beaten. An abducted businessman was freed and
five people were arrested. The gang operated in Mexico City and
outlying areas in Puebla and Mexico State.
(AP, 7/23/05)
2005 Jul 22, Former Myanmar PM
Khin Nyunt received a 44-year suspended sentence after being
convicted on eight charges including bribery and corruption.
(AP, 7/22/05)
2005 Jul 22, North Korea
offered to abandon its nuclear weapons if the two sides in the
Korean War sign a peace agreement to replace the 1953 cease-fire
that halted hostilities but did not resolve the conflict.
(AP, 7/22/05)
2005 Jul 22, In Pakistan more
than 2,000 supporters of a coalition of radical Muslim groups
rallied in Islamabad to condemn a crackdown on Islamic militants
that has netted more than 200 suspects.
(AP, 7/22/05)
2005 Jul 22, Assailants killed
five tribal elders who had helped Pakistan's army hunt for
al-Qaida-linked militants in a remote, lawless region near the
Afghan border.
(AP, 7/22/05)
2005 Jul 22, Truck drivers in
Puerto Rico ended a three-day strike that paralyzed gasoline
deliveries.
(AP, 7/22/05)
2005 Jul 22, Spain banned
lighting fires in open spaces nationwide until November. This was
Spain’s worst drought since 1947. Spaniards will no longer allowed
to smoke as they take a Sunday stroll in the woods, under new
government rules aimed at curbing the risk of fires such as a recent
one in which 11 firefighters died in Guadalajara.
(Reuters, 7/25/05)(Econ, 7/23/05, p.47)
2005 Jul 22, Taiwan will allow
computer maker Lenovo Ltd. to become the first mainland Chinese
company to establish a subsidiary on the island in a significant
step forward in commercial ties between the two rivals.
(AP, 7/22/05)
2005 Jul 22, At a meeting of
Andean presidents Pres. Chavez proposed Petroandina, under which
oil-producing countries would cooperate on pipelines and refining.
(Econ, 7/30/05, p.33)
2005 Jul 22, Seniat,
Venezuela’s tax authority, presented Harvest Natural Resources with
an $85 million retroactive income tax bill. Royal Dutch Shell
received a bill a week earlier and was seeking talks on its bill.
(WSJ, 7/25/05, p.A13)
2005 Jul 23, Myron Florin (85),
accordionist with Lawrence Welk, died in California.
(WSJ, 7/25/05, p.A1)
2005 Jul 23, In southern
Afghanistan suspected Taliban militants fatally shot a district
judge.
(AP, 7/23/05)
2005 Jul 23, The man shot at
the Stockwell subway station on July 22 was identified as Jean
Charles de Menezes (27) of Brazil. London police acknowledged that
Menezes had nothing to do with recent bombings on the city’s transit
system. Brazil's government demanded an explanation for the fatal
police shooting of a Brazilian citizen on a London subway car.
(AP, 7/24/05)
2005 Jul 23, The Colombian
government offered to buy farmers' illegal crops of coca, in the
latest effort to stem illegal drug production in this South American
nation. Pres. Alvaro Uribe said in a speech that farmers would have
to sign a document promising to never again cultivate illegal crops
in order to get the money. The government would destroy the
purchased crop.
(AP, 7/24/05)
2005 Jul 23, In Egypt a rapid
series of car bombs and another blast ripped through a luxury hotel
and a coffeeshop in the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheik,
killing at least 83 people. The Abu Hafs al-Masri Brigades, a group
citing ties to al-Qaida, claimed responsibility for the bombings.
The previously unknown Mujahedi Masr or "Holy Warriors of Egypt"
group disputed the claims of the Abdullah Azzam Brigades, al-Qaida,
and said five of its own members died carrying out seven explosions.
(AP, 7/23/05)(AP, 7/24/05)(Econ, 7/30/05, p.40)
2005 Jul 23, Kristina Miller
(27) of Peachtree City, Ga., was the only American killed in
the blasts at the Egyptian resort at Sharm el-Sheik.
(AP, 7/27/05)
2005 Jul 23, In Abidjan, Ivory
Coast, unidentified assailants attacked two security force posts,
sparking gunfights that reportedly killed at least four people.
(AP, 7/24/05)
2005 Jul 23, A magnitude-6.0
earthquake shook the Tokyo area, injuring at least 27 people.
(AP, 7/23/05)
2005 Jul 23, In Turkey a bomb
exploded at an Istanbul cafe frequented by tourists, injuring at
least two people.
(AP, 7/23/05)
2005 Jul 23, In Umm Al-Quwain,
UAR, a $3.3 billion deal for the Khor al-Beidah lagoon complex was
signed. A few days later developers announced Umm Al-Quwain's desert
interior would be the site for a new city that could eventually
house as many as 500,000 people.
(AP, 8/7/05)
2005 Jul 23, Zimbabwe President
Robert Mugabe arrived in Beijing for a visit expected to include a
plea for oil and food to aid his state's failing economy.
(AP, 7/23/05)
2005 Jul 24, Lance Armstrong
closed out his amazing career with a 7th consecutive Tour de France
victory.
(AP, 7/24/05)
2005 Jul 24, Four unions said
they would boycott the AFL-CIO convention in Chicago. The Service
Employees and Teamsters said they would quit the group.
(SFC, 7/25/05, p.A1)
2005 Jul 24, In southern
Afghanistan more than a dozen suspected militants attacked a US
patrol, and the resulting firefight left one American soldier dead
and another wounded. A roadside bomb exploded in eastern
Afghanistan, striking a US military convoy and wounding six American
troops.
(AP, 7/24/05)(AP, 7/25/05)
2005 Jul 24, Sir Richard Doll
(92), the British scientist who first established a link between
smoking and lung cancer, died in Oxford, England.
(AP, 7/24/06)
2005 Jul 24, In Egypt an
explosive detonated as it was being carried by Sami Gamal Ahmad
(33), to the tourist area of Kerdassa, a bazaar of souvenir shops
near the Pyramids of Giza. Ahmad was severely injured.
(AP, 7/24/05)
2005 Jul 24, In Ethiopia 6
separate bombings hit across the country's ethnic Somali province. A
5-year-old girl was among those killed in the wave of violence,
which took place before a voter registration drive.
(AP, 7/27/05)
2005 Jul 24, A 7.2 earthquake
hit India's southern Andaman and Nicobar Islands and part of
Indonesia. No tsunami came, and no injuries or damage were reported.
(AP, 7/25/05)
2005 Jul 24, Indian troops in
Kashmir killed 3 innocent teenagers after troops mistook them for
militants. Demonstrations followed among angry Kashmiri Muslims in
Jammu and Kashmir, largely Hindu India's only Muslim-majority state.
(Reuters, 7/25/05)
2005 Jul 24, Iran's state-run
media reported that its hard-line judiciary had acknowledged
widespread human rights violations in prisons, including the use of
torture.
(AP, 7/25/05)
2005 Jul 24, Iraqi police said
a suicide attacker slammed a truck loaded with explosives into sand
barriers outside a Baghdad police station, killing at least 39
people and wounding 30. A US Marine was killed in combat operations
near Rutbah. 4 US troops were killed by an improvised explosive
device (IED) in Baghdad.
(AP, 7/24/05)(SFC, 7/25/05, p.A1)(WSJ, 7/27/05,
p.A1)
2005 Jul 24, In Nepal police
used batons to break up a protest by supporters of the detained
former prime minister, leaving about 15 demonstrators and 10 police
injured.
(AP, 7/24/05)
2005 Jul 24, In northern
Nigeria a long-haul passenger bus skidded off a bridge and tumbled
into a river after the driver fell asleep, and 56 people were
killed.
(AP, 7/24/05)
2005 Jul 24, Palestinian
militants killed two Israeli motorists in the Gaza Strip. Israeli
troops killed 2 of the gunmen. A suicide bomber was caught near an
Israeli communal farm with a belt packed with 11 pounds of
explosives.
(AP, 7/24/05)(WSJ, 7/25/05, p.A1)
2005 Jul 24, Telesur, a new TV
station backed by Venezuela's government, began transmitting in
various countries across Latin America. The station, funded by
Venezuela and also backed by Argentina, Uruguay and Cuba, has drawn
concern in the US Congress, where House members last week approved a
measure to transmit radio and television broadcasts to Venezuela to
ensure citizens receive "accurate news."
(AP, 7/24/05)(Econ, 7/30/05, p.33)
2005 Jul 25, Corporal Dustin
Berg, an Indiana National Guard soldier, pleaded guilty to negligent
homicide in the death of an Iraqi police officer. He was later
sentenced to 18 months in military prison.
(AP, 7/25/06)
2005 Jul 25, The Brotherhood of
Teamsters and the Service Employees Int’l. Union broke from the
AFL-CIO as 1,000 delegates gathered in Chicago for the federation’s
50th annual convention. They formed a coalition called Change to Win
with 5 other unions with a mission to emphasize organizing rather
than supporting like-minded politicians.
(SFC, 7/26/05, p.A1)
2005 Jul 25, Sony BMG Music
Entertainment agreed to pay $10 million to non-profit entities and
to stop paying radio stations to feature its artists. A 1960 federal
law barred record companies from offering payola, undisclosed
financial incentives for airplay.
(SFC, 7/26/05, p.D3)
2005 Jul 25, Hershey Co. of
Pennsylvania announced the acquisition of Scharffen Berger Chocolate
Maker Inc. of Berkeley, Ca.
(SFC, 7/26/05, p.D1)
2005 Jul 25, Intel announced
plans to build a $3 billion computer microprocessor fabrication
plant in Arizona.
(SFC, 7/26/05, p.D1)
2005 Jul 25, San Leandro, Ca.,
police officer Nels Niemi was shot and killed by a convicted
methamphetamine user. Police arrested Irving Alexander Ramirez the
next day in Daly City. In 2007 Ramirez was convicted of first-degree
murder. On Aug 3 he was sentenced to die by lethal injection.
(SFC, 7/27/05, p.A1)(SFC, 5/11/07, p.B1)(SFC,
8/4/07, p.B2)
2005 Jul 25, In Virginia 4
adult Scout leaders from Alaska were killed on the opening day of
their Jamboree when a tent pole apparently struck a power line.
(AP, 7/26/05)
2005 Jul 25, Ford Rainey (96),
stage and screen actor, died in Santa Monica, Ca.
(SFC, 7/28/05, p.B7)
2005 Jul 25, Fighting between
Taliban rebels and U.S. and Afghan forces in Uruzgan province killed
about 50 suspected militants, in the deadliest clashes in weeks
ahead of crucial legislative elections. The fighting killed one US
and one Afghan soldier.
(AP, 7/26/05)(SFC, 7/26/05, p.A3)
2005 Jul 25, In Gonzaga,
Brazil, hundreds of relatives and friends of Jean Charles de
Menezes, the Brazilian shot to death in London after being mistaken
for a terrorist, marched along the cobblestone streets of his
hometown, demanding the arrest of the British police who fired the
fatal shots.
(AP, 7/25/05)
2005 Jul 25, British police
identified 2 suspects in the July 21 bombings: Muktar Said Ibrahim
(27) and Yasin Hassan Omar (24)
(SFC, 7/30/05, p.A11)
2005 Jul 25, A wildlife charity
warned that large carnivorous mice on the British-ruled island of
Gough in the south Atlantic are eating seabird chicks alive in mass
feeding frenzies, threatening several species' survival.
(AFP, 7/25/05)
2005 Jul 25, Indian and
Pakistani trucks laden with goods rolled across the border for the
first time in 50 years.
(AP, 7/27/05)
2005 Jul 25, Indian army said
it had shot dead five militants in Kupwara district of Kashmir when
they were trying to sneak into India from the Pakistani side.
(Reuters, 7/25/05)
2005 Jul 25, In India violence
erupted when about 1,000 angry Honda workers protested the dismissal
of four colleagues in Gurgaon, a suburb of New Delhi.
(AP, 7/26/05)
2005 Jul 25, In Iraq Sunni Arab
members of a committee drafting Iraq's new constitution ended their
boycott, six days after they walked out to protest the
assassinations of two fellow Sunni constitution framers. A US
soldier was killed when a roadside bomb exploded under his vehicle
near Samarra north of Baghdad.
(AP, 7/25/05)
2005 Jul 25, Baghdad was hit by
twin suicide car bombs that killed at least 8 people as Australian
PM John Howard made a surprise visit there.
(AFP, 7/25/05)
2005 Jul 25, Israel expressed
outrage that Pope Benedict XVI failed to condemn terrorist attacks
against Israelis. Pope Benedict urged dialogue with the best
elements of Islam.
(SFC, 7/26/05, p.A3)
2005 Jul 25, An appeals court
in Milan, Italy, issued arrest warrants for six more purported CIA
operatives accused of helping plan the 2003 kidnapping of a radical
Egyptian Muslim cleric.
(AP, 7/26/05)
2005 Jul 25, Magistrates in
Italy impounded BPI’s shares in Antonveneta. 2 days later Consob,
Italy’s stockmarket regulator, froze BPI’s offer for up to 90 days.
[see Jul 12]
(Econ, 8/13/05, p.57)
2005 Jul 25, Nepal's main
political parties rejected an appeal by the country's Maoist rebels
for talks to plan joint opposition to King Gyanendra's seizure of
power, saying the guerrillas should stop killing civilians first.
(Reuters, 7/25/05)
2005 Jul 25, North Korean and
US negotiators held a rare one-on-one meeting in Beijing amid a
flurry of contacts between delegations to the six-nation talks aimed
at persuading the communist nation to relinquish its nuclear
program.
(AP, 7/25/05)
2005 Jul 25, Opposition
lawmakers in the Philippine parliament filed impeachment proceedings
against President Gloria Arroyo, accusing her of vote-rigging and
other allegations.
(AP, 7/25/05)
2005 Jul 25, Saudi authorities
arrested a number of suspected militants in Arar, Medina and Riyadh.
Among those arrested Mohammed Saeed Mohammed al-Sayam al-Umari (25)
was No. 10 on Saudi list of 36 most wanted terrorists.
(AP, 8/27/05)
2005 Jul 26, Discovery and
seven astronauts blasted into orbit on America's first manned space
shot since the 2003 Columbia disaster, ending a painful, 2 1/2-year
shutdown devoted to making the shuttle less risky and NASA more
safety-conscious. Its mission was to resupply the space station and
deliver a new gyroscope and storage platform.
(AP, 7/26/05)(SFC, 7/27/05, p.A1)
2005 Jul 26, Danny Simon (86),
TV comedy writer and older brother of Neil Simon, died in Portland,
Ore.
(SFC, 7/28/05, p.B7)
2005 Jul 26, In Afghanistan
more than 1,000 stone-throwing protesters tried to break into
Bagram, the main U.S. base to free eight detained villagers, and
Afghan troops fired warning shots and used clubs to beat the mob
back. U.S. troops also fired into the air.
(AP, 7/26/05)
2005 Jul 26, In Afghanistan US
military officials moved to defuse tension after a riot outside
their main base by handing 6 villagers, accused of being bombmakers,
over to local authorities.
(AP, 7/27/05)
2005 Jul 26, In Argentina
provincial Sen. Victor Hugo Luna offered a bill that would
confiscate 196,000 acres from US rancher Peter McBride’s Taco Pampa
property in La Paz in order to recognize land rights of local goat
herders. McBride had purchased his 286,000 acres for $500,000.
(WSJ, 8/23/05, p.A9)
2005 Jul 26, A
government-commissioned study said Australia will become warmer and
drier with average national temperatures rising as much as two
degrees Celsius and rainfall decreasing significantly by 2030.
(AFP, 7/26/05)
2005 Jul 26, Chinese health
officials reported that over the last 4 weeks an unidentified
illness has killed 19 farmers and sickened 80 in southwestern China
after they butchered sick pigs or sheep. The pigs in question were
infected with streptococcus bacteria, a common pathogen in humans
and domestic animals.
(AP, 7/26/05)
2005 Jul 26, Six-party nuclear
disarmament talks opened in Beijing after a 13-month boycott by
North Korea, and the communist nation's envoy said his country was
ready to work on eliminating atomic weapons from the Korean
Peninsula.
(AP, 7/26/05)
2005 Jul 26, In Dagestan,
Russia, the head of traffic police in Izberbash was killed at a
traffic stop.
(WSJ, 7/29/05, p.A11)
2005 Jul 26, Investigators have
identified a suicide bomber in the weekend attacks that killed
scores in this Red Sea resort, saying he was an Egyptian with
Islamic militant ties. DNA tests identified him as Youssef Badran,
an Egyptian Sinai resident.
(AP, 7/26/05)
2005 Jul 26, A third previously
unknown Islamist group, Tawhid and Jihad Group in Egypt, claimed
responsibility on the Internet for the bomb attacks on Egypt's Sharm
el-Sheikh resort in which as many as 88 people were killed. It said
it was responsible for bomb attacks that ripped through the resort
town of Taba last October, killing 34 people.
(AP, 7/26/05)(Econ, 7/30/05, p.40)
2005 Jul 26, Pernod Ricard SA
said it has completed its takeover of British rival Allied Domecq
PLC to become the world's second-largest wines and spirits maker.
The acquired brands included Ballantine’s, Malibu and Beefeater.
(AP, 7/26/05)(WSJ, 9/7/05, p.B2)
2005 Jul 26, In India women and
men armed with truncheons and stones attacked police in Gurgaon
where violent clashes between protesting Honda workers and police a
day earlier reportedly injured 700 people.
(AP, 7/26/05)
2005 Jul 26, In Indonesia a 2nd
suspect tried in September's deadly bombing at the Australian
Embassy was convicted and sentenced to four years in prison for
helping transport materials used in the attack. Agus Ahmad (31) told
the South Jakarta District Court he believed six bags given to him
by a friend contained crystal stones, but the three judges did not
believe him.
(AP, 7/26/05)
2005 Jul 26, Al-Qaida in Iraq
said it had condemned to death two Algerian diplomats who were
abducted in Baghdad. A video made public showed the men blindfolded
and in captivity.
(AP, 7/26/05)
2005 Jul 26, Officials said
Jerusalem planners have approved the construction of a new Jewish
neighborhood in the city's Muslim Quarter.
(AP, 7/26/05)
2005 Jul 26, John Goldson (69),
a prominent British hotelier, was killed in Kenya’s central Rift
Valley when he went to investigate a break-in by about seven gunmen
at the lodge outside Naivasha, some 90 kilometers (55 miles)
northwest of Nairobi. In 2006 police arrested Ibrahim Abdi Noor,
believed to be the leader of the gang that shot and killed Goldson.
(AP, 2/6/06)
2005 Jul 26, In Lebanon Samir
Geagea (53), a notorious anti-Syrian Christian warlord, was released
after 11 years in prison.
(AP, 7/26/05)
2005 Jul 26, Myanmar agreed to
forgo its chairmanship of Southeast Asia's bloc next year to avoid a
damaging Western boycott of the group's meetings.
(AP, 7/26/05)
2005 Jul 26, Nepal's former
prime minister and a member of his Cabinet were convicted of
embezzlement by the king's anti-corruption commission and sentenced
to two years in prison.
(AP, 7/27/05)
2005 Jul 26, A boat ferrying
passengers between remote villages sank in a southwestern Nigerian
river, killing at least 18 people.
(AP, 7/28/05)
2005 Jul 26, A Dutch court
sentenced Mohammed Bouyeri (27), the killer of filmmaker Theo Van
Gogh, to life in prison. He was linked to the “Hofstad Group,” some
of whom were accused of wild plans to blow up Schiphol airport, the
Dutch parliament and a nuclear reactor.
(AP, 7/26/05)(Econ, 7/16/05, p.13)
2005 Jul 27, The US House
approved the Central America trade pact, CAFTA, 217-215. It is aimed
at reducing trade barriers among the US, Costa Rica, El Salvador,
Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and the Dominican Republic.
(WSJ, 7/28/05, p.A1)
2005 Jul 27, Ahmed Ressam, an
Algerian who'd plotted to bomb the Los Angeles airport on the eve of
the millennium, was sentenced to 22 years in prison by a judge in
Seattle.
(AP, 7/27/06)
2005 Jul 27, The US charged
Iraqi-born Wasem al Delaema (32), a Dutch citizen, with conspiring
to kill Americans in Iraq and asked the Dutch government to
extradite him for prosecution. Authorities alleged al Delaema was
one of several men calling themselves the Fighters of Fallujah who
plotted attacks near that Iraqi city in October 2003. In 2010 a
Dutch court reduced his sentenced to 8 years and released him.
(AP, 7/30/05)(AP, 10/13/10)
2005 Jul 27, Wal-Mart filed
suit in Arkansas against former Vice Chairman Thomas Coughlin for
alleged fraud using company cards for bogus expenses.
(WSJ, 7/28/05, p.B2)
2005 Jul 27, NASA grounded the
shuttle fleet after admitting a large piece of foam had fallen off
the Jul 26 Discovery launch.
(SFC, 7/28/05, p.A1)
2005 Jul 27, In Miami, Florida,
Arthur Teele Jr., a former city commissioner, committed suicide in
the lobby of the Miami Herald. He had been recently indicted on
federal charges that included mail fraud and money laundering.
Columnist Jim DeFede was fired shortly thereafter after admitting
that he had just taped a conversation with Teele, but without direct
consent.
(SFC, 7/29/05, p.A4)
2005 Jul 27, Robert Wright
(90), composer and lyricist, died in Miami. His work in
collaboration with George Forrest included the Broadway musicals
“Song of Norway” (1944) and “Kismet” (1953).
(SFC, 7/30/05, p.B4)
2005 Jul 27, Environment
Minister Ian Campbell said Australia and the US have been secretly
negotiating a new international pact on greenhouse gas emissions to
replace the Kyoto Protocol, which they refused to sign. The other
participants in the pact to use cleaner energy technologies to curb
climate-changing pollution included China, India, Japan, South
Korea.
(AP, 7/27/05)(SFC, 7/28/05, p.A3)
2005 Jul 27, British police
arrested 4 men in raids in Birmingham including Yasin Hassan Omar,
who was suspected of being a member of the gang that carried out
botched bombings last week in London.
(Reuters, 7/27/05)
2005 Jul 27, It was reported
that some Chinese beer makers used small quantities of formaldehyde
to improve color and prevent sediment from forming during storage.
Major producers did they did not use the additive. The practice was
abandoned in the West.
(WSJ, 7/27/05, p.B9)
2005 Jul 27, In Ethiopia state
media reported that police had arrested 25 people in connection with
a series of bombings that killed five and injured 31 in an apparent
attempt to disrupt elections in an eastern province.
(AP, 7/27/05)
2005 Jul 27, A French court
convicted 62 defendants in a mass pedophilia trial and sentenced
some of them to up to 28 years in prison for their roles in a
network that systematically raped and prostituted children in
western France.
(AP, 7/27/05)
2005 Jul 27, France Telecom
bought an 80% stake in Amena, Spain’s 3rd largest mobile telephone
operator.
(Econ, 7/30/05, p.54)
2005 Jul 27, The heaviest
rainfall ever recorded in India shut down the financial hub Bombay,
snapped communication lines and closed airports. Officials said at
least 633 people had died across India in two months of monsoon
downpours.
(AP, 7/27/05)
2005 Jul 27, There was a
massive fire on an oil platform in India's biggest oil field. Ships
and helicopters rescued more than 350 survivors. 10 people were
confirmed dead with several still missing.
(AP, 7/28/05)
2005 Jul 27, Iran said it will
restart some nuclear activities as soon as August and that it has
fully developed solid-fuel technology in producing missiles, a major
breakthrough that increases the accuracy of missiles hitting
targets.
(AP, 7/27/05)
2005 Jul 27, Iraqi commandos
captured Hamdi Tantawi, an Egyptian said to be an associate of Ayman
al-Zawahiri, al Qaeda's 2nd in command. Iraq's most feared terror
group said it had killed two kidnapped Algerian diplomats.
(AP, 7/27/05)(AP, 7/27/06)
2005 Jul 27, Israeli troops
killed a Palestinian stone-thrower during an arrest raid that caught
a wanted Islamic Jihad militant in this West Bank town.
(AP, 7/27/05)
2005 Jul 27, Bishop Jovan
Vraniskovski in Skopje, Macedonia, was sentenced to at least 18
months in jail for “instigating national and religious hatred.”
(Econ, 9/10/05, p.50)
2005 Jul 27, North Korea said
it would give up its nuclear weapons only after the alleged US
atomic threat is removed from the divided peninsula and relations
with the US are normalized.
(AP, 7/27/05)
2005 Jul 27, Officials reported
that Pakistani security forces have rounded up about 600 suspected
militants and Islamic clerics in a week-long crackdown that followed
the July 7 London attacks.
(AFP, 7/27/05)
2005 Jul 27, In eastern
Pakistan Hashim Qadeer, an Islamic militant who set up the initial
meeting (Jan 23, 2002) between Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel
Pearl and his kidnappers, was arrested. The suspect was a member of
two outlawed militant groups, Harkat-ul Mujahedeen and
Jaish-e-Mohammed.
(AP, 7/28/05)
2005 Jul 27, Rescuers found the
bodies of four South Korean soldiers, a day after they were swept
away by a fast moving river during training exercises near the
border with North Korea.
(AP, 7/27/05)
2005 Jul 27, The UN started
evacuating more than 400 refugees from a camp in Kyrgyzstan and will
fly them to a third country to keep them from being sent home to
Uzbekistan where they fear prosecution. Uzbekistan has been
pressuring Kyrgyzstan to hand over the refugees, and Kyrgyz
officials relented in recent weeks, sending at least 87 of them
back.
(AP, 7/27/05)
2005 Jul 27, A UN envoy
presented her report condemning Zimbabwe's sweeping slum clearance
to the Security Council, despite opposition from China, Russia and
African countries, and called for urgent assistance to help those
who have lost their homes and jobs.
(AP, 7/27/05)
2005 Jul 28, Assistant
Secretary of State David Welch told the US House International
Relations Committee said Iranian cadres are training Hezbollah
fighters in Lebanon.
(AP, 7/28/05)
2005 Jul 28, The Senate
Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee sent a bill by Sen.
Chuck Hagel to the then GOP-run Senate. The legislation would have
regulated and trimmed Freddie Mac and its sister company, Fannie
Mae. Shortly after this Freddie Mac began making payments to DCI, a
Republican consulting firm. DCI undermined support for the bill in a
campaign targeting 17 Republican senators in 13 states. The measure
died at the end of the 109th Congress.
(AP, 10/20/08)
2005 Jul 28, A new clinical
study reported that the herbal remedy echinacea does not ward off
cold symptoms and does not help speed recovery from colds.
(SFC, 7/28/05, p.A1)
2005 Jul 28, Scientists
reported that the variety of tuna, marlin, swordfish and other big
ocean predators has declined up to 50 percent over the past
half-century due to overfishing. The variety of species has dropped
by as much as 50% in the past 50 years.
(AP, 7/28/05)(SFC, 7/29/05, p.A4)
2005 Jul 28, NASA said space
shuttle Discovery had escaped any serious damage from the
potentially deadly piece of foam that broke off from the fuel tank
during liftoff and looked safe to fly home in a week.
(AP, 7/28/06)
2005 Jul 28, Arthur Zankel,
financier and philanthropist, fell to his death from his ninth-floor
apartment on NYC’s Upper East Side. Police called it an apparent
suicide. In 2006 details of his will indicated donations of $120
million that included some $40 million for Skidmore College in
Saratoga Springs, NY, and $22 million to Manhattan’s Carnegie Hall.
(www.nysun.com/article/17769)(WSJ, 6/2/06, p.W2)
2005 Jul 28, Scientists from
China, France, Japan and the USA reported their 1st detection of
antineutrinos from deep within the Earth’s mantle. They used the
KamLAND detector in Japan.
(SFC, 7/28/05, p.A2)
2005 Jul 28, Stephen McCullagh
(29), an assistant scoutmaster from St. Helena, and Boy Scout Ryan
Collins (13) were killed by lightning in Sequoia National Park in
the Sierra Nevada.
(SFC, 8/6/05, p.B2)
2005 Jul 28, The main body of
Canadian soldiers being deployed to Afghanistan has begun arriving
in the treacherous Kandahar region. They're part of what will be a
250-strong provincial reconstruction team, the first such team
Canada has sent to Afghanistan.
(CP, 7/28/05)
2005 Jul 28, A team of
anti-drug investigators, lawyers and judges will start prosecuting
major narcotics cases in Afghanistan, the world's largest opium and
heroin producer, as part of a new UN program.
(AP, 7/28/05)
2005 Jul 28, Anti-terrorist
officers arrested nine men in dawn raids in connection with the
botched July 21 attacks on London's transit system, bringing to 20
the number of people police have in custody, including one of the
alleged bombers.
(AP, 7/28/05)
2005 Jul 28, Chechnya’s Shamil
Basayev, linked to a dozen deadly attacks on civilians, admitted he
was a terrorist in an interview being broadcast on ABC News'
"Nightline." The Kremlin denounced the network's decision to run the
interview, which was conducted by well-known Russian journalist
Andrei Babitsky.
(AP, 7/29/05)
2005 Jul 28, President Hosni
Mubarak announced his bid to run in Egypt's first multicandidate
elections on Sept. 7, promising new legislation to "besiege"
terrorism and replace the country's much-criticized emergency laws.
(AP, 7/28/05)
2005 Jul 28, Egypt's President
Hosni Mubarak called for an extraordinary Arab summit to be held in
Sharm el-Sheikh on August 3, just days after the deadly attacks in
the Red Sea resort.
(AFP, 7/28/05)
2005 Jul 28, DaimlerChrysler
said CEO Juergen Schrempp, architect of the controversial merger
between Daimler-Benz and Chrysler Corp., will step down and turn the
top job over to Chrysler head Dieter Zetsche.
(AP, 7/28/05)
2005 Jul 28, In India
opposition leader Lal Krishna Advani was charged in court with
inciting religious riots that triggered the razing of a mosque in
1992 and left thousands dead.
(Reuters, 7/28/05)
2005 Jul 28, Record-breaking
rains paralyzed Bombay and its surrounding state. B.M. Kulkarni,
head of Maharashtra state's police emergency control room, said that
273 people had died in Mumbai and at least 513 in other parts of the
state.
(AFP, 7/28/05)
2005 Jul 28, An explosion on a
passenger train in northern India killed two people and injured at
least 20 others.
(AP, 7/28/05)
2005 Jul 28, Indonesia brushed
off a call in a UN report for an international tribunal to try
Indonesian and militia leaders blamed for a bloody 1999 rampage in
East Timor.
(AP, 7/28/05)
2005 Jul 28, ICANN transferred
the Internet .iq name to Iraq’s telecommunications regulator.
InfoCom Corp., which sold computers and Web services in the Middle
East, got the .iq assignment in 1997, but was indicted in 2002 for
funneling money to a member of Hamas. InfoCom was convicted in April
2005.
(SFC, 8/6/05, p.C2)
2005 Jul 28, Insurgents
launched coordinated attacks against Iraqi army checkpoints
northeast of Baghdad, killing 6 Iraqi soldiers, police said.
Roadside bombs killed 2 US soldiers. A bomb ignited a train carrying
fuel in the south of Iraq's capital and 2 people were killed. In
western Iraq 2 US Marines were killed by insurgent gunfire and
rocket-propelled grenades. The Marines reported killing 9
insurgents, 5 believed to be Syrians, during an engagement in the
same small village.
(AP, 7/28/05)(WSJ, 7/29/05, p.A1)(AP, 7/29/05)
2005 Jul 28, Jamie Leigh Jones,
a Halliburton/KBR employee in Baghdad, Iraq, was allegedly drugged,
raped and held against her will at Camp Hope by seven KBR employees.
On May 16, 2007, she filed a lawsuit against the company and the
employees which the Department of Justice failed to act upon. On
December 19, 2007, she testified before Congress. The Department of
Justice had been subpoenaed to also testify; they failed to appear
or send a reason for declining to appear. In 2011 Jones (26) lost
her lawsuit against KBR.
(www.jamiesfoundation.org/Jamie.htm)(http://tinyurl.com/2tm4g4)(AP,
7/8/11)
2005 Jul 28, The Irish
Republican Army announced it will renounce violence and resume
disarmament in a dramatic declaration designed to revive Northern
Ireland's peace process.
(AP, 7/28/05)
2005 Jul 28, In the
Indian-controlled portion of Kashmir suspected Islamic militants
raided the village of Dhoob, separated the villagers by religion and
killed 5 Hindus by slitting their throats.
(AP, 7/29/05)
2005 Jul 28, The Concepcion
Volcano on the island of Ometepe in southwestern Lake Nicaragua
erupted at least four times. Concepcion has registered 17 eruptions
since 1883. The last was in 1999.
(AP, 7/28/05)
2005 Jul 28, Pakistan's
President Pervez Musharraf said all the estimated 1,400 foreign
nationals studying in the country's madrassas would have to leave
the Islamic seminaries.
(AP, 7/29/05)
2005 Jul 28, In Panama a 2-day
summit started for 25 members of the Association of Caribbean States
(ACS). Venezuela said it will continue offering crude on favorable
terms, and even in barter trades, to countries in the region.
Thirteen of the 15 members of the narrower Caribbean Community
group, or Caricom, mainly island nations, have already signed onto
Venezuela's oil initiative.
(AP, 7/29/05)
2005 Jul 28, In
Karachaevo-Cherkessia, Russia, 2 police officers were shot to death.
(WSJ, 7/29/05, p.A11)
2005 Jul 28, An official
reported anonymously that Haroon Rashid Aswat (31) has been arrested
in the border town of Livingstone, having crossed into Zambia from
Zimbabwe. Aswat was sought in connection with the July 7 attacks in
London that killed 56 people.
(AP, 7/29/05)
2005 Jul 29, The US Senate
approved the nomination of Karen Hughes, a former political adviser
to President Bush, as the State Department's top public relations
official, and Rep. Christopher Cox to chair the Securities and
Exchange Commission.
(AP, 7/30/05)
2005 Jul 29, Senate Majority
Leader Bill Frist threw his support behind House-passed legislation
to expand federal financing for human embryonic stem cell research,
breaking with President Bush and religious conservatives.
(AP, 7/29/05)
2005 Jul 29, US Congress
approved a $286.4 billion transit bill following a 22-month delay.
(SFC, 7/30/05, p.A1)
2005 Jul 29, The U.S. Army said
it will pull out of 13 bases in southern Germany as part of its
repositioning of American forces around the world.
(AP, 7/29/05)
2005 Jul 29, The United Food
and Commercial Workers with 1.4 million members departed the
AFC-CIO. It planned to focus on recruiting new members along with
the departing Teamsters and Service Employees.
(SFC, 7/30/05, p.C2)
2005 Jul 29, Cabaret singer
Hildegarde (99), whose career spanned almost seven decades, died in
New York.
(AP, 7/29/06)
2005 Jul 29, Al McKibbon (86),
jazz bassist, died in LA. He brought a masterly fusion of jazz and
Latin music to the George Shearing quintet and other groups in the
1940s and '50s.
(AP, 8/6/05)
2005 Jul 29, Scientists
reported that a 10th planet, bigger than Pluto, is farthest-known
object in the solar system. It was currently 9 billion miles away
from the sun, or about three times Pluto's current distance from the
Sun and orbited the Sun once every 560 years. It was temporarily
named 2003 UB313 (Xena). The same scientists reported 2 more objects
in the Kuiper Belt on Sep 8 and named the trio Xena, Santa and
Easterbunny.
(AP, 7/30/05)(Econ, 8/6/05, p.64)(SFC, 9/9/05,
p.A5)
2005 Jul 29, The UN Security
Council unanimously adopted a US-sponsored resolution expanding UN
sanctions against al-Qaida terrorists and Afghanistan's former
Taliban rulers to affiliates and splinter groups.
(AP, 7/29/06)
2005 Jul 29, The UN's cancer
research agency added hormone pills to the list of substances that
can cause cancer.
(AP, 7/29/05)
2005 Jul 29, Thousands of
Bangladeshi Islamic activists staged a noisy protest in the capital
Dhaka after US congressman Tom Tancredo suggested the US might
consider bombing holy sites, including Mecca. Colorado Republican
Tom Tancredo made the comment on July 14 in answer to a radio host's
question about a possible response to any hypothetical nuclear
terrorist attack on the US.
(Reuters, 7/29/05)
2005 Jul 29, London police
raided 2 apartments in West London and arrested three people
connected to the failed July 21 transit bombings.
(AP, 7/29/05)
2005 Jul 29, The British army
began closing or demolishing military installations in the Irish
Republican Army's rural heartland in a rapid response to the IRA's
declaration to renounce violence and disarm.
(AP, 7/29/05)
2005 Jul 29, Xinhua News said
China plans to sign a deal next month to buy 50 Boeing 787
Dreamliner jetliners in a deal worth $6 billion.
(AP, 7/29/05)
2005 Jul 29, The UN Security
Council voted unanimously to extend an arms embargo and other
sanctions against Congo for another year.
(AP, 7/29/05)
2005 Jul 29, The U.N. mission
to Haiti said it will receive 750 more peacekeeping troops to help
control the violence that threatens to undermine fall elections.
(AP, 7/29/05)
2005 Jul 29, In Honduras
Timothy Markey, a US Drug Enforcement Administration agent, was shot
and killed in an apparent robbery attempt at a Roman Catholic shrine
outside Tegucigalpa.
(AP, 7/30/05)
2005 Jul 29, In western India
the death toll from record monsoon rains approached 900.
(AFP, 7/29/05)
2005 Jul 29, Osman Hussain
(27), a Briton with Ethiopian citizenship, was arrested in Rome
after investigators traced his cell phone calls across Europe. He is
accused of trying to attack the Shepherd's Bush subway station in
west London.
(AP, 7/30/05)
2005 Jul 29, A suicide attacker
detonated an explosives belt in a crowd of Iraqi army recruits in
Rabiya near the Syrian border, killing at least 52 and wounding 93.
After the blast, US and Iraqi troops opened fire believing they were
under attack. Some of the army recruits were killed by the gunfire.
(AP, 7/29/05)(SFC, 7/30/05, p.A3)(AP, 7/31/05)
2005 Jul 29, In Kashmir 15
people, including six journalists, were wounded during a fierce
gunbattle between troops and Muslim rebels in Srinagar. Rebels
killed 2 soldiers in a grenade and gun attack on a police patrol.
(AP, 7/29/05)(AP, 7/30/05)
2005 Jul 29, The ASEAN summit
concluded in Vientiane, Laos. Australia agreed to sign a
non-aggression pact with the group in exchange for an invitation to
another summit, where ASEAN hopes to start work on an East Asian
free-trade area.
(Econ, 7/30/05, p.39)
2005 Jul 29, Thousands of
Rwandan prisoners began streaming out of jail, following a
government decision to free 36,000 inmates, the majority of whom
have confessed to taking part in the country's 1994 genocide.
(AP, 7/29/05)
2005 Jul 29, Turkey signed an
accord extending its customs union with the EU to Cyprus and other
new EU members, a key step toward opening membership talks with the
bloc.
(AP, 7/29/05)
2005 Jul 29, A plane with 440
Uzbek refugees left Kyrgyzstan for Romania.
(AP, 7/29/05)
2005 Jul 29, Uzbekistan
notified the State Department that US military aircraft and
personnel must leave Karshi-Khanabad air base, commonly referred to
as K2, that has been an important hub for American military
operations in Afghanistan.
(AP, 7/30/05)
2005 Jul 30, President Bush was
pronounced "fit for duty" after a checkup that showed that the
59-year-old commander in chief, an avid mountain bike rider, had
lost eight pounds since his last physical exam in December 2004.
(AP, 7/30/06)
2005 Jul 30, Rep. William
Jefferson, D-La., received $100,000 at the Ritz-Carlton in
Arlington, Virginia, to use for bribing Abubakar Atiku,
vice-president of Nigeria. Vernon Jackson, a Kentucky businessman,
later admitted to paying over $400,000 in bribes to secure deals for
his telecommunications company in Nigeria and other African
countries. Documents released in 2005 said an FBI informant recorded
a video of the transaction.
(SFC, 5/22/06, p.A3)
2005 Jul 30, In central
Afghanistan thousands of rockets, mortars and anti-aircraft
ammunition have been seized in the largest cache of militant weapons
discovered in months.
(AP, 7/31/05)
2005 Jul 30, In England Anthony
Walker (18), a black teenager who was followed late July 29 through
a Liverpool park by a group of men shouting racist taunts, died
after an attacker embedded an ax in his skull.
(AP, 7/31/05)
2005 Jul 30, The death toll in
China from a mysterious pig-borne disease continued to rise, with
several more cities affected. Sichuan province in southwestern China
has launched a campaign to educate poor, illiterate farmers not to
slaughter sick pigs or eat their meat after an outbreak of swine flu
hit about 100 villages and killed at least 34 people.
(Reuters, AFP, 7/30/05)
2005 Jul 30, In southern China
a brick wall collapsed at a festival, killing seven people and
injuring 22. The wall fell during the opening ceremony of an annual
"torch festival" celebrated by the Yi ethnic minority in Yunnan
province's Yuanyang county.
(AP, 7/31/05)
2005 Jul 30, Leaders of a
Colombian right-wing paramilitary faction, believed to be one of the
most heavily involved in drug trafficking, demobilized their troops
and said they wanted to form a political party. Nearly 700 fighters
in the "Southern Liberators" unit of the paramilitary United
Self-Defense Forces turned in their weapons at a ceremony in
Tamiango.
(AP, 7/30/05)
2005 Jul 30, The CzechTek rave,
attended by some 5000 fans, was broken up by some 1000 riot police.
(Econ, 8/13/05, p.44)(http://czechtek.muzika.cz/)
2005 Jul 30, In Egypt police
and government supporters beat pro-reform activists with batons,
sometimes kicking them as they on lay the ground, during a protest
against President Hosni Mubarak's announcement that he would run for
re-election for a fifth time.
(AP, 7/30/05)
2005 Jul 30, Wim Duisenberg
(b.1935), Dutch-born first chief of the European Central Bank who
helped create the euro currency, was found dead at a home in Faucon,
France.
(AP, 7/31/05)
2005 Jul 30, In India the
discovery of more bodies pushed the death toll from this week's
monsoon floods in Bombay to more than 850. Officials warned it will
likely rise to around 1,000.
(AP, 7/30/05)
2005 Jul 30, In southern Iraq 2
British contractors guarding a consulate convoy were killed by a
roadside bomb. A car bomb exploded near the National Theater in
Baghdad, killing 5 people, including 3 policemen. Assailants in
military garb tried to assassinate a prominent Sunni Arab leader. 5
US soldiers were killed by roadside bombs in two separate incidents
in Baghdad.
(AP, 7/30/05)(AP, 7/31/05)
2005 Jul 30, In Kashmir
militants holed up in buildings on a busy street in Srinagar fired
at security forces during a raid.
(AP, 7/30/05)
2005 Jul 30, Maoist guerrillas
in eastern Nepal kidnapped seven civil servants.
(AP, 7/30/05)
2005 Jul 30, A Russian oil
tanker slammed into a St. Petersburg bridge, leaking diesel oil into
the Neva River.
(AP, 7/30/05)
2005 Jul 30, A Russia newspaper
reported that a strain of bird flu harmful to humans has been found
in an outbreak of the disease in Siberia. The administration of
Novosibirsk ordered the slaughter of 65,000 domestic fowl in 14
villages.
(AP, 7/30/05)(WSJ, 8/2/05, p.A9)
2005 Jul 31, The US Dept. of
Justice released its 1st statistical report on rape behind bars. It
estimated 8,210 allegations of sexual violence in American jails in
2004.
(Econ, 8/6/05, p.25)
2005 Jul 31, The HMAS Brisbane,
a decommissioned U.S.-built Australian naval destroyer (1966-2001),
was scuttled with explosives off the coast of Queensland. The vessel
sank evenly to its resting point about 115 feet beneath the surface
to become an artificial reef and a major diving attraction.
(AP, 7/31/05)
2005 Jul 31, Police arrested
seven people during a raid on an apartment in southern England,
bringing to 21 the number in custody in the relentless hunt for
accomplices in the failed July 21 transit bombings in London.
(AP, 7/31/06)
2005 Jul 31, Jeong Jang shot a
3-under 69 to win the Women's British Open by four strokes.
(AP, 7/31/06)
2005 Jul 31, Police in eastern
Germany found the remains of nine newborn babies buried in a garden
and arrested a woman (39) believed to be their mother.
(AP, 8/1/05)
2005 Jul 31, A Honduran
official said police had arrested Erlan Colindres, a 13-year-old
gang member, and Manuel Romero, his teenaged bodyguard, for the July
29 killing of Timothy Markey, a US Drug Enforcement Administration
agent, during an apparent bungled robbery.
(AP, 7/31/05)
2005 Jul 31, In India
authorities warned residents to remain home after new heavy rains
pounded Bombay and the surrounding state, as the official death toll
from last week's record-breaking monsoon rains hit 910.
(AP, 7/31/05)
2005 Jul 31, Hasan Rowhani,
Iran's top nuclear negotiator, said his European counterparts have
proposed a guarantee that Iran will not be invaded if Tehran agrees
to permanently halt uranium enrichment.
(AP, 7/31/05)
2005 Jul 31, A car bomb
exploded south of Baghdad, killing five civilians and wounding 10,
including two policemen.
(AP, 7/31/05)
2005 Jul 31, In southern Mexico
former soldier Oscar Flores (35) killed his wife, infant nephew and
a police officer in a vicious rampage that left 10 people dead
before being wounded by police and killed by an angry crowd.
(AP, 8/1/05)
2005 Jul 31, Maoist rebels
freed seven government officials they had seized in eastern Nepal,
and all were safe and in good health.
(AP, 7/31/05)
2005 Jul 31, John Garang (60),
Sudan's vice president and former southern rebel leader, died when
the helicopter he was flying in crashed into a mountain in southern
Sudan in bad weather killing him and the other 13 people on board.
(AP, 8/1/05)
2005 Jul, The California
Supreme Court ruled that favoritism could be used as evidence in
cases of sexual harassment.
(Econ, 7/23/05, p.30)
2005 Jul, Pennsylvania
legislators increase their salaries 16 percent to 34 percent to at
least $81,050, more than any state except California, and crafted
the package in secret without debate or public scrutiny. They also
found a way around a constitutional provision barring them from
collecting any salary increase during the term in which it is
approved. Democratic Gov. Ed Rendell signed the bill into law. A
lawsuit was soon filed in state court challenging the legality of
paying the raises early as unvouchered expenses, though no hearing
date has been set. A ruling against the unvouchered expenses would
nullify the entire law, including their raises.
(AP, 8/11/05)
2005 Jul, MyPublicInfo launched
its public information profile (PIP) product, which allowed
Americans to view personal identity information from thousands of
databases across the country for a fee of $79.95.
(Econ, 7/16/05, p.59)
2005 Jul, Disney said it will
be shutting down DisneyToon Studios in Australia, its last remaining
facility creating hand-drawn animation.
(WSJ, 8/9/05, p.D8)
2005 Jul, A paper by Francis
Crick (d.2004) and his collaborator Christof Koch appeared in the
Philosophical Transactions of the royal society. It addressed the
neurological basis of human consciousness. They suggested various
regions of the cortex could be bound together into one cohesive,
conscious experience by the claustrum, a thin sheet of grey matter
beneath part of the cortex.
(Econ, 7/30/05, p.73)
2005 Jul, In Afghanistan 2 US
soldiers punched detainees at a forward operating base in Uruzgan
province. In 2006 Army Spc. James Hayes was reduced to private and
forfeited all pay and allowances for 4 months. Army Sgt. Kevin
Myricks received a reduction in rank and was sentenced to 6 months
confinement.
(SSFC, 1/29/06, p.A3)(AP, 1/30/06)
2005 Jul, It was reported that
Britain had begun developing Connecting for Health (CFH), a planned
information technology upgrade for its National Health Service.
(Econ, 7/23/05, p.52)
2005 Jul, Britain banned
Kenya’s minister Chris Murungaru from visiting Britain. No reason
was given but allegations of corruption in Kenya were believed to be
a major factor.
(Econ, 8/13/05, p.38)
2005 Jul, Li Guang, a teacher
in a teacher in China’s northwestern Changhe township, was sentenced
to death for raping 23 fourth- and fifth-grade students.
(AP, 6/13/07)(AP, 6/13/07)
2005 Jul, Airborne researchers
during the summer counted just 683 hippos on the Congolese side of
Lake Edward, which straddles the Congo-Uganda border. In the 1970s
researchers counted a record 9,600 hippos in the same area. The
reduction of hippos and their dung, due to heavy poaching during
civil strife, caused a severed drop in the population of tilapia
fish.
(WSJ, 11/19/05, p.A1)
2004 Jul, A court in
Saint-Omer, northern France, convicted 10 out of 17 defendants on
pedophilia charges relating to the abuse of 18 children between 1995
and 2000. 6 of the 10 convicted were acquitted in 2005.
(AP, 12/02/05)
2005 Jul, In India officials in
Bangalore began enforcing the “Licensing and Controlling of Public
Entertainment Order.” Bars, cabarets and establishments with live
bands were closed. “The legislature was worried that such places are
corrupting the minds of the young.”
(WSJ, 11/7/05, p.A12)
2005 Jul, VSNL, India’s top
operator of int’l. calls, said it would buy Teleglobe, the world’s
largest int’l. wholesale VOIP carrier. Telecom firms around the
world were reported to be migrating to voice over internet protocol.
(Econ, 7/30/05, p.53)
2005 Jul, Nearly 700 of
the 1,100 bodies brought to Baghdad's central morgue had fatal
gunshot wounds. Iraqi government statistics showed that targeted
killings had almost doubled over the last 12 months despite
increases in the numbers of policemen on the streets and Iraqi
national guard patrols.
(LAT, 9/11/05)
2005 Jul, Israel’s Knesset
passed capital market reforms.
(Econ, 7/30/05, p.68)
2005 Jul, Italian police
arrested two Slovenians who allegedly mailed steroids and other
performance-enhancing drugs to U.S. soldiers in Iraq and other
customers around the world.
(AP, 8/1/05)
2005 Jul, Mali officials
estimated that 4 million people faced starvation in Mali and Niger,
due to drought and locusts from the previous year. 10% of the Mali’s
population faced starvation.
(Econ, 7/30/05, p.41)
2005 Jul, Montenegro agreed to
pay Croatia $460,000 in war compensation for cattle taken by its
soldiers in June, 1991.
(Econ, 7/30/05, p.46)
2005 Jul, US Embassy officials
in Panama said in a confidential diplomatic cable that they had
"credible and compelling information" that Panama Supreme Court
Justice Winston Spadafora took bribes to influence court cases. The
cables were only made public in 2011 by the WikiLeaks organization.
(AP, 6/1/11)
2005 Jul, In Russia the 1st
Logan cars, made by Renault, went on sale. They were made at the
former Moskvitch plant in Moscow.
(Econ, 7/16/05, p.58)
2005 Jul, Unemployment in
Slovakia stood at 15.2%.
(WSJ, 9/21/05, p.A7)
2005 Jul, St. Kitts closed its
state-owned sugar company after annual losses had reached 3% of GDP.
(Econ, 9/24/05, p.45)
2005 Jul, The World Commission
on water estimated that by 2025 half of the world’s 4 billion people
would be living under conditions of severe water stress.
(Econ, 7/30/05, p.73)
2005 Aug 1, President Bush
sidestepped the Senate and installed embattled nominee John Bolton
as ambassador to the United Nations. Bolton would only be able to
serve until the end of the current Congress i.e. December 2006.
(AP, 8/1/05)(Econ, 8/6/05, p.23)
2005 Aug 1, Michael Chertoff,
US Sec. of Homeland Security, said most of 582 alleged gang members
recently arrested in a 2-week nationwide sweep, could be deported
for immigration violations.
(SFC, 8/2/05, p.A3)
2005 Aug 1, The California
State Supreme Court ruled that state businesses must treat same-sex
domestic couples the same as married couples.
(SFC, 8/2/05, p.A1)
2005 Aug 1, Rafael Palmeiro,
Baltimore Orioles star, was suspended for 10 days for use of
steroids. The action raised the possibility of a perjury probe.
(SFC, 8/2/05, p.A1)
2005 Aug 1, The Oregon state
legislature passed the nation’s strictest anti-methamphetamine
measure requiring prescriptions for many over-the-counter cold
medications. Gov. Ted Kulongoski was expected to sign it within 5-10
days. It posed a challenge to the FDA in regulating medicines.
(WSJ, 8/1/05, p.A3)
2005 Aug 1, Al Gore and Joel
Hyatt premiered their current TV cable and satellite channel. In
2008 Current Media planned an IPO to raise $100 million.
(www.current.tv/news/nypost080205.html)(SFC,
1/29/08, p.B1)
2005 Aug 1-2005 Sep 2, An
American man and 11 Chinese citizens were arrested in a counterfeit
medicine scheme that spanned 11 countries and involved millions of
dollars worth of fake drugs.
(AP, 9/8/05)
2005 Aug 1, In Brazil Rep.
Valdemar Costa Neto, president of the government-allied Liberal
Party resigned from Congress, the first lawmaker to step down in a
widening corruption scandal that has plagued the government of
President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
(AP, 8/1/05)
2005 Aug 1, Britain revealed a
two-year plan for slashing its army garrison and base network to
peacetime levels in Northern Ireland in a dramatic, detailed
response to Irish Republican Army peace moves.
(AP, 8/1/05)
2005 Aug 1, In Cambodia 2 men
who said their confessions were coerced by police were convicted of
murder in the death of a prominent labor union leader. Chea Vichea,
the former head of Cambodia's Free Trade Union of Workers, was
gunned down in January 2004 at a roadside newsstand in the capital,
Phnom Penh. The union leader was an outspoken critic of government
corruption and human rights abuses.
(AP, 8/2/05)
2005 Aug 1, In Cristales,
Colombia, more than 2,000 outlawed paramilitary fighters, from the
"Heroes of Granada" faction of the AUC, laid down their arms in
return for amnesty. Commander Diego Murillo, an accused drug lord
indicted on trafficking charges in the US, stood by and watched. In
2008 Murillo (47) was extradited to the US and pleaded guilty to
drug-smuggling charges.
(AP, 8/1/05)(WSJ, 6/18/08, p.A2)
2005 Aug 1, In northern
Colombia a roadside bomb exploded as a police convoy traveled down a
rural highway, killing at least 15 officers.
(AP, 8/2/05)
2005 Aug 1, Egyptian police
cornered a main suspect in the Sharm el-Sheik bombings in his
mountain hideout and killed him in a shootout that also fatally
wounded his wife. The couple's 4-year-old daughter also was wounded.
(AP, 8/1/05)
2005 Aug 1, Iraq announced that
it will begin rationing gasoline over the next few months to cope
with a continuing fuel shortage.
(SFC, 8/2/05, p.A5)
2005 Aug 1, In western Iraq six
US Marines were killed in Haditha. A 7th Marine was killed by a car
bomb in Hit.
(AP, 8/2/05)
2005 Aug 1, Japan said it would
retaliate against America’s abuse of WTO anti-dumping rules with a
15% duty on 15 American products.
(Econ, 8/6/05, p.62)
2005 Aug 1, A prosecutor said
that Kyrgyzstan will send 15 Uzbeks asylum seekers back to their
home country, despite pleas from the United Nations and rights
groups that it violates international treaties on refugees.
(AP, 8/1/05)
2005 Aug 1, In Tonala, Mexico,
assailants threw grenades into a crowded cockfighting ring before
dawn, killing four people and wounding 25 others.
(AP, 8/2/05)
2005 Aug 1, In Nigeria
protesting Akabuka villagers demanding more jobs for their community
forced the Nigerian branch of Total SA to shut down the Obagi
onshore oil field.
(AP, 8/6/05)
2005 Aug 1, King Fahd (83),
Saudi ruler since 1982, died at the King Faisal Specialist Hospital
in Riyadh. He moved Saudi Arabia closer to the US but ruled the
nation in name only since suffering a stroke in 1995. His half
brother, Crown Prince Abdullah, was named to replace him.
(AP, 8/1/05)(Econ, 8/6/05, p.71)
2005 Aug 1, Rioters burned cars
and threw stones in Sudan's capital following news of the death of
VP John Garanga in a helicopter crash. Garang's longtime deputy,
Silva Kiir, was quickly named to succeed him as head of his Sudan
People's Liberation Army and as president of south Sudan. 36 people
died in riots.
(AP, 8/1/05)(AP, 8/2/05)
2005 Aug 1, Trucks loaded with
produce and other merchandise began crossing into Syria from Lebanon
on their way to Gulf countries after Syria eased restrictions that
left them stranded for nearly four weeks in the border area.
(AP, 8/1/05)
2005 Aug 1, The directors of
Turkey's eight privately owned Kurdish language schools announced
they were closing them due to bureaucratic hurdles and Kurdish
demands for the language to be part of the regular school
curriculum.
(AP, 8/1/05)
2005 Aug 2, President Bush
signed a free trade pact with five Central American nations and the
Dominican Republic.
(AP, 8/2/06)
2005 Aug 2, A federal appeals
court ruled that a 117-year-old policy of admitting only
Native Hawaiians to the exclusive Kamehameha Schools amounts to
unlawful racial discrimination.
(AP, 8/3/05)
2005 Aug 2, Seattle pitcher
Ryan Franklin was suspended 10 days for violating baseball's policy
on performance-enhancing drugs.
(AP, 8/2/06)
2005 Aug 2, Belarusian police
arrested two leaders of an ethnic Polish cultural group after
seizing the group's headquarters, raising already heightened
tensions between the neighboring countries.
(AP, 8/2/05)
2005 Aug 2, An Air France jet
skidded off a Toronto runway and burst into flames, prompting 309
passengers and crew to slide down escape chutes. In Dec, 2009, a
Canadian judge approved a C$12 million ($11.4 million) class-action
settlement with 184 passengers of the Air France jet.
(AP, 8/3/05)(Reuters, 12/31/09)
2005 Aug 2, France, Britain and
Germany hardened their tone toward Iran, warning that Tehran risked
triggering an international crisis and could face U.N. sanctions if
it follows through with a threat to resume its nuclear program.
(AP, 8/2/05)
2005 Aug 2, Georgia’s Pres,
Saakashvili said he is counting on US help to facedown Moscow and
reassert control over Abkhazia and Southern Ossetia.
(WSJ, 8/2/05, p.A1)
2005 Aug 2, Forest fires in
Indonesia's Sumatra province covered Kuala Lumpur and 32 other areas
of Malaysia with a smoky haze.
(AP, 8/2/05)
2005 Aug 2, Hassan Moghaddas,
an Iranian judge who sentenced several reformist dissidents to jail,
including hunger-striking reporter Akbar Ganji, was shot dead in his
car by a lone gunman riding a motorcycle.
(Reuters, 8/2/05)
2005 Aug 2, A roadside bomb
targeting a US military convoy exploded at the entrance to a tunnel
in central Baghdad, and at least 29 civilians were wounded. American
freelance journalist Steven Vincent was found shot to death in Basra
after being abducted by armed men. Vincent had been shot multiple
times after he and his Iraqi translator were abducted at gunpoint
hours earlier. He had been writing about the rise of conservative
Shiite Islam and the corruption of the Iraqi police.
(www.nytimes.com/2005/08/03/international/middleeast/03cnd-iraq.html?_r=1)(AP,
8/2/05)(AP, 8/2/06)
2005 Aug 2, North Korea's main
envoy said his country won't give up its nuclear weapons until an
alleged U.S. atomic threat against the communist nation is
eliminated, the first public comments from the North after eight
days of six-party negotiations.
(AP, 8/2/05)
2005 Aug 2, A 3-year old
Palestinian boy was killed and 9 Palestinians were wounded in the
northern Gaza Strip when rockets launched by militants misfired and
landed in Palestinian areas.
(AP, 8/2/05)
2005 Aug 2, The Russian Foreign
Ministry said it will not renew the accreditation of ABC-TV after it
broadcast an interview with a notorious Chechen warlord.
(AP, 8/2/05)
2005 Aug 2, Violent mobs surged
again into the streets of Sudan's capital sparked by the death of
Sudanese vice president and former southern rebel leader John
Garang.
(AP, 8/2/05)
2005 Aug 3, Luis Diaz (67), a
Florida man who spent 26 years in prison on rape charges, was
released after a judge exonerated him because new DNA evidence cast
doubts on his guilt. Authorities believed at the time the former
cook was Miami's infamous "Bird Road rapist" blamed for attacks on
at least 25 women between 1977 and 1979.
(AFP, 8/3/05)
2005 Aug 3, The FBI raided the
Maryland residence of Nigerian Vice President Atiku Abubakar as part
of a probe into whether a US congressman made or approved payments
to officials in West Africa.
(AP, 8/28/05)
2005 Aug 3, NASA astronaut
Steve Robinson successfully pulled 2 protruding gap fillers from the
underside of the shuttle Discovery.
(SFC, 8/4/05, p.A3)
2005 Aug 3, Some 2,000 Afghan
security forces rushed to an eastern province after dozens of
suspected Taliban rebels wearing army uniforms killed 8 police and
soldiers in an attack on a region that has been largely peaceful in
recent months.
(AP, 8/3/05)
2005 Aug 3, British police
charged Ismael Abdurahman (23) of South London, arrested on July 28,
on an offense relating to terrorism.
(SFC, 8/4/05, p.A10)
2005 Aug 3, In Canada 43 of 140
train cars left the tracks at Wabamun, Alberta. Some of the cars
contained bunker fuel oil, used in liquid asphalt and to power
barges and ships. 15 of those cars, as well as a car full of
lubricating oil, began to leak into Wabamun lake.
(CP, 8/5/05)
2005 Aug 3, China's UN
ambassador said the US and China have agreed to work together to
block a plan to expand the powerful UN Security Council.
(AP, 8/3/05)
2005 Aug 3, German shoemaker
Adidas-Salomon AG said it will buy Reebok for $3.8 billion, giving
the company about 20 percent of the US market and the potential to
better challenge leader Nike Inc. on its home turf.
(AP, 8/3/05)
2005 Aug 3, An Iraqi Airways
plane landed at Istanbul airport and then took off again for
Baghdad, inaugurating its Iraq-Turkey route after a 14-year hiatus.
(AP, 8/4/05)
2005 Aug 3, About 1,000 U.S.
Marines and Iraqi forces launched attacks in western Iraq in
operation Quick Strike, aimed at disrupting insurgents and foreign
fighters in the Euphrates River valley. A Marine amphibious assault
vehicle on patrol during combat operations near the Syrian border
hit a roadside bomb. 14 Marines and a civilian interpreter were
killed. A US Marine was killed by small-arms fire in Ramadi.
(AP, 8/3/05)(AP, 8/4/05)(AP, 8/5/05)
2005 Aug 3, A group of
Mauritanian army officers, including Colonel Mohamed Ould Abdelaziz,
announced the overthrow of Pres. Maaouiya Ould Taya. The Military
Council for Justice and Democracy named Col. Ely Mohammed Vall as
temporary leader. Vall installed 17-member ruling junta and a
24-member cabinet of technocrats to govern the country. The junta
promised to create true democratic institutions after a 2-year
transitional period. A quick return to calm indicated acceptance of
Taya's bloodless overthrow. The UN and EU denounced the coup and
Washington called for Taya to be restored to power.
(AP, 8/3/05)(AP, 8/5/05)(WSJ, 8/5/05, p.A7)(WSJ,
3/1/06, p.A7)(Econ, 8/16/08, p.50)
2005 Aug 3, Dutch authorities
seized 5 tons of cocaine, valued at $275 million, hidden in reels of
steel cable in the Port of Rotterdam in what was described as one of
the country's biggest drug busts. 13 suspects (aged 15-50) from the
Netherlands, Colombia, Venezuela, Mexico, Greece and the US, were
arrested later.
(AP, 9/5/05)
2005 Aug 3, UN agencies
increased their appeals to a total of $75 million to help 2.5
million people in desperate need of food in Niger.
(AP, 8/4/05)
2005 Aug 3, Islamic Jihad, a
major Palestinian militant group, declared that it would fire no
more rockets at Israelis through Israel's planned Gaza Strip
withdrawal, after a deadly barrage inadvertently killed a 5-year-old
Palestinian boy.
(AP, 8/3/05)
2005 Aug 3, Southern Sudanese
Arabs fled Juba after ethnic Africans angered by the death of their
popular rebel leader went on a two-day rampage, chasing Arabs in the
street and burning Arab shops and homes. At least 18 people were
killed. Northern and southern Sudanese leaders called for calm
during a third day of clashes in the capital that have killed at
least 84 people since the death of former southern rebel John
Garang. Sudanese President Omar al-Beshir announced the launch of a
committee to probe the death of vice president John Garang.
(AP-Reuters, 8/3/05)
2005 Aug 3, Suriname's
president Ronald Venetiaan easily won re-election in a vote by an
assembly of regional councils, ending a heated battle that had left
the South American country's leadership in limbo for more than two
months.
(AP, 8/3/05)
2005 Aug 3, According to
Amnesty International 2 Yemeni men said they were held in solitary
confinement in secret, underground US detention facilities in an
unknown country and interrogated by masked men for more than 18
months without being charged or allowed any contact with the outside
world.
(AP, 8/4/05)
2005 Aug 4, In Washington DC
Steven Rosen (53) and Keith Weissman (53), former employees of a
pro-Israeli lobbying group, were indicted for passing classified
information to foreign officials beginning in 1999.
(SFC, 8/4/05, p.A11)
2005 Aug 4, Mayor Gavin Newsom
signed a $5.3 billion SF city budget.
(SFC, 8/5/05, p.B4)
2005 Aug 4, Milton Campbell
(70), blues singer, died in Memphis, Ten.
(SFC, 8/5/05, p.B7)
2005 Aug 4, A roadside bomb
exploded near a US military vehicle near the Afghan border with
Pakistan, killing an American service member and wounding another. 2
US service members drowned after their Humvee slid into a river
during an operation targeting insurgents in eastern Afghanistan.
(AP, 8/5/05)
2005 Aug 4, Al-Qaida's No. 2,
Ayman al-Zawahri, threatened more destruction in London in a
videotape aired on Al-Jazeera. He also threatened the United States
with tens of thousands of military dead if it did not withdraw from
Iraq; President Bush responded by saying, "We will stay the course,
we will complete the job."
(AP, 8/4/06)
2005 Aug 4, The Bank of England
cut official interest rates by a quarter of a percentage point to
4.5 percent, noting the risk that already sluggish household
spending and investment growth in Britain could slow further.
(AP, 8/4/05)
2005 Aug 4, India’s Supreme
Court upheld a lower court's death sentence on Mohammed Afzal, a
resident of south Kashmir. Afzal was found guilty of involvement in
the December 2001 parliament raid in which five gunmen killed nine
people before being shot dead.
(AP, 8/5/05)
2005 Aug 4, In Bali a truth
commission set up by Indonesia and East Timor began work, seeking to
deflect growing calls for an international tribunal to probe the
tiny territory's bloody independence vote in 1999.
(AP, 8/4/05)
2005 Aug 4, A car bomb hit
members of a radical Shiite militia in northern Iraq as attacks
nationwide killed at least 11 people. Unidentified gunmen attacked
an Iraqi army patrol in a town north of Baghdad, killing four Iraqi
troops. An American soldier assigned to a unit in Mosul was killed
in action.
(AP, 8/4/05)(AP, 8/6/05)
2005 Aug 4, Israel announced
plans to expand a settlement near Jerusalem even as it prepares to
withdraw from the Gaza Strip.
(AP, 8/4/05)
2005 Aug 4, Eden Natan Zada
(19), an Israeli soldier absent without leave, opened fire while
riding a bus in Shfaram, killing 4 Israeli Arabs and wounding 13. A
video released later shows him being beaten to death by the crowd
immediately after, while he was still on the bus.
(AP, 8/4/05)(SFC, 8/5/05,
p.A1)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eden_Natan-Zada)
2005 Aug 4, A Jordanian
prosecutor said Jordan has arrested 17 militants linked to al-Qaida
who were allegedly plotting to attack U.S. troops and Jordanian
intelligence agents.
(AP, 8/4/05)
2005 Aug 4, In Northern Ireland
some 40 police officers were injured trying to break up a five-hour
riot by Protestant militants who burned 10 cars and a double-decker
bus in Belfast. The mob claimed to be venting their anger over
recent police raids on the homes of Protestant paramilitary figures
in the area. About 15 homes were raided and six men arrested shortly
before the riot began.
(AP, 8/5/05)
2005 Aug 4, North Korea's envoy
to disarmament talks said that Pyongyang insists on retaining the
right to "peaceful nuclear activities," a condition that other
delegates say has deadlocked the talks.
(AP, 8/4/05)
2005 Aug 4, Pakistan's Supreme
Court blocked a proposal by an Islamist-controlled provincial
government to introduce what critics say would be a Taliban-style
judicial system enforced by religious police.
(AP, 8/4/05)
2005 Aug 4, A mini-submarine
carrying seven Russians became caught on an underwater antenna 600
feet below the surface of the Pacific Ocean; the men were rescued
three days later with help from a British vessel.
(AP, 8/4/06)
2005 Aug 4, South Korean
researchers reported their successful cloning of a dog. The puppy
was born 3 months earlier and was the only success of 1,095 embryos.
In 2006 Dr. Hwang Woo Suk’s stem cell work was discredited but the
cloning of Snuppy supported.
(SFC, 8/4/05, p.A15)(WSJ, 12/24/05, p.A1)(WSJ,
1/10/06, p.A1)
2005 Aug 4, The Sudanese Red
Crescent (SRC) said at least 130 people have been killed and around
350 injured after 3 days of violence following the death of former
rebel leader and First Vice President John Garang.
(Reuters, 8/4/05)
2005 Aug 4, In Turkey an
explosion in a trash can in an Istanbul suburb killed a mother and
daughter and injured five others as they left a wedding party.
(AP, 8/4/05)
2005 Aug 5, VP Dick Cheney,
accompanied by former President George H.W. Bush and former
Secretary of State Colin Powell, paid respects to new Saudi King
Abdullah (81).
(AP, 8/5/05)(Econ, 8/6/05, p.10)
2005 Aug 5, US military sources
said a California Army National Guard Unit charged unauthorized
“rent” to Iraqi-owned businesses inside Baghdad’s Green Zone to
raise money for a “soldiers fund.”
(SFC, 8/6/05, p.A3)
2005 Aug 5, The NCAA announced
it would shut American Indian nicknames and images out of postseason
tournaments.
(AP, 8/5/06)
2005 Aug 5, Hunter Kelly (8),
whose battle with a nervous system disease inspired a fundraising
crusade by his father, Football Hall of Famer Jim Kelly, died in
Orchard Park, N.Y.
(AP, 8/5/06)
2005 Aug 5, PM Tony Blair
announced strict new measures that would allow Britain to deport
foreigners who preach hatred, sponsor violence or belong to
extremist groups.
(AP, 8/5/05)
2005 Aug 5, A CN Rail freight
trail derailed about 30 kilometers north of Squamish, BC, sending 9
cars plunging into the Cheakamus River canyon and causing a toxic
spill. One of the derailed cars was loaded with about 51,000 liters
of sodium hydroxide, a highly corrosive liquid.
(AP, 8/6/05)
2005 Aug 5, China’s government
said Ching Cheong, a Hong-Kong based reporter, has been charged with
spying for Taiwan. China accusing him of obtaining huge amounts of
classified information under an alias.
(AP, 8/5/05)
2005 Aug 5, Baidu.com, a
Chinese search engine, went public on Nasdaq and closed up 354% at
$122.54. it was named after a 900-year-old Song Dynasty love poem
about the search for a beautiful woman.
(SFC, 8/6/05, p.C1)(Econ, 8/13/05, p.50)
2005 Aug 5, Haiti’s American
ambassador said the US will provide Haitian police with firearms and
tear gas to aid the fight against militants ahead of elections this
fall.
(AP, 8/5/05)
2005 Aug 5, India's PM Manmohan
Singh took charge of a nationwide program to save the endangered
Bengal tiger, the national animal that experts say is threatened by
poachers and angry villagers.
(AP, 8/5/05)
2005 Aug 5, European
negotiators offered Iran long term support for its civilian nuclear
program, including access to nuclear fuel, in exchange for a binding
commitment not to develop atomic weapons. Iran rejected the offer.
(AP, 8/5/05)
2005 Aug 5, In Indonesia
Denver-based mining giant Newmont went on trial in a high-profile
legal battle over charges its Indonesian unit, Newmont Minahasa
Raya, dumped toxic waste and polluted Buyat Bay in North Sulawesi,
causing health problems to residents.
(AP, 8/5/05)
2005 Aug 5, US and Iraqi troops
repelled a series of coordinated insurgent attacks in southern
Baghdad, killing six rebels and capturing 12. At nearly the same
time, a suicide attacker drove a truck loaded with explosives into a
nearby Iraqi army checkpoint, killing an Iraqi soldier. A suicide
car bomber tried to attack another Iraqi position in the area, but a
US tank fired and hit the car, killing the driver and causing the
car bomb to explode prematurely.
(AP, 8/6/05)
2005 Aug 5, It was reported
that 3 men linked to the Irish Republican Army, who were convicted
of training rebels in Colombia, have returned surreptitiously to
Ireland, eight months after going on the run. Colombia demanded
their extradition.
(AP, 8/5/05)
2005 Aug 5, Police in Kashmir
detained at least 10 protesters as hundreds demonstrated against the
death sentence handed out to a Kashmiri Muslim for a raid on the
country's parliament four years ago.
(AP, 8/5/05)
2005 Aug 5, The UN appealed for
$80 million to fight a food crisis threatening the lives of hundreds
of thousands in Niger.
(AP, 8/5/05)
2005 Aug 5, Russia's
Agriculture ministry said bird flu has been officially confirmed in
two more Russian regions, and the disease may also be spreading in
Northern Kazakhstan.
(AP, 8/5/05)
2005 Aug 5, A Russian Priz
AS-28 mini-submarine carrying 7 sailors snagged on a fishing net and
was stuck 625 feet down on the Pacific floor off the Kamchatka
Peninsula. It had only enough air for crewmen to survive one day.
The US was rushing an unmanned vehicle there to help in rescue
efforts.
(AP, 8/5/05)(SFC, 8/6/05, p.A1)
2005 Aug 5, In southeastern
Turkey Kurdish rebels killed 5 Turkish soldiers in a rocket attack.
(AP, 8/5/05)
2005 Aug 6, Anti-war activist
Cindy Sheehan, whose soldier-son, Casey, was killed in Iraq, began a
weeks-long protest outside President Bush's ranch in Texas.
(AP, 8/6/06)
2005 Aug 6, Robin Cook (59),
former British Foreign Secretary, who quit Prime Minister Tony
Blair's Cabinet in 2003 to protest the Iraq war, died after
collapsing on a Scottish mountain while walking with his wife.
(AP, 8/6/05)(Econ, 8/13/05, p.75)
2005 Aug 6-2005 Aug 7, In Sao
Paulo, Brazil, thieves tunneled 260 feet to a Central Bank vault and
stole some $70 million, in what has been described as the biggest
such robbery ever in Brazil. On Feb 25, 2008, police arrested
Antonio Jussivan Alves dos Santos, the leader of the thieving
gang. In March he was sentenced to nearly 50 years in jail.
(AP, 8/8/05)(AP, 3/6/08)
2005 Aug 6, In Central African
Republic an overloaded boat carrying hundreds of people has sunk on
a river, and at least 13 people were reported dead and dozens more
missing.
(AP, 8/9/05)
2005 Aug 6-2005 Aug 8, Tropical
Storm Matsa hit China’s eastern province of Zhejiang. 13 people were
killed since it hit the mainland as a typhoon. Beijing's Municipal
Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters was preparing to
evacuate as many as 40,000 people in the mountains north of Beijing
as Tropical Storm Matsa approached.
(AP, 8/9/05)
2005 Aug 6, Ibrahim Ferrer
Planas, Cuban singer, died. In 1996 he recorded with Ry Cooder for
the "Buena Vista Social Club" which was followed by his own solo
album.
(Econ, 8/20/05, p.68)
2005 Aug 6-2005 Aug 14,
Helsinki, Finland, hosted the 10th IAAF World Championships. The
International Amateur Athletic Federation was founded in 1912 by 17
national athletic federations who saw the need for a governing
authority, for an athletic program, for standardized technical
equipment and world records.
(www.helsinki2005.fi/index.php?&Lang=eng)
2005 Aug 6, India airlifted
tons of food and medicines to Manipur where tribesmen campaigning
for a separate homeland have blocked roads and cut off supplies for
nearly 2 months. Naga tribesmen living in Manipur began the blockade
on June 19, leading to a severe shortage of food and fuel in the
state's capital Imphal.
(AP, 8/6/05)
2005 Aug 6, India and Pakistan
agreed to set up a telephone hotline to prevent accidental nuclear
conflict and also agreed to notify each other before testing
ballistic missiles.
(AP, 8/7/05)
2005 Aug 6, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
was sworn in as Iran's president, saying he wants peaceful relations
with the world but rejecting outside pressure to change course.
(AP, 8/6/05)
2005 Aug 6, Iran rejected
Europe's proposal for ending the standoff over Tehran's nuclear
program, saying it was "unacceptable" because it did not give the
country the right to enrich uranium.
(AP, 8/6/05)
2005 Aug 6, Sunni Arab members
of the committee drafting Iraq's new constitution rejected Kurdish
demands for a federal state.
(AP, 8/6/05)
2005 Aug 6, In Iraq a US patrol
with Task Force Liberty was hit in the city of Samarra. All the
soldiers were transported to a coalition medical facility where two
of them died from wounds.
(AP, 8/7/05)
2005 Aug 6, Leonardo Rodriguez
Alcaine (b.1919), Mexican trade union leader and a long-serving
legislator of the Revolutionary Institutional Party, died. He
presided over the Workers' Confederation of Mexico (CTM) from July
21, 1997 until his death.
(Econ, 11/12/05,
p.39)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonardo_Rodr%C3%ADguez_Alcaine)
2005 Aug 6, Palestinian judges
and lawyers shut down the Palestinian legal system until further
notice to protest recent attacks against senior legal officials.
(AP, 8/6/05)
2005 Aug 6, In Turkey Lu'ai
Sakra, a Syrian with links to al-Qaida, was arrested for plotting to
slam speedboats packed with explosives into cruise ships filled with
Israeli tourists.
(AP, 8/11/05)
2005 Aug 6, A Tunis Air jet
carrying 35 passengers went down in the sea off the Sicilian coast,
and rescuers were on their way. 16 people were killed, while 23
survived. A bad fuel gauge on the Tuninter plane caused the crash.
On March 23, 2009, the Tunisian pilot who paused to pray instead of
taking emergency measures before crash-landing his plane, was
sentenced to 10 years in jail by an Italian court along with his
co-pilot. Another five employees of Tuninter, a subsidiary of
Tunisair, were sentenced to between 8 and 9 years in jail.
(AP, 8/5/05)(AP, 8/7/05)(WSJ, 9/8/05,
p.A1)(Reuters, 3/24/09)
2005 Aug 7, Peter Jennings
(67), Canadian-born ABC broadcaster, died of cancer. He had
delivered the news to Americans each night in five separate decades.
(AP, 8/8/05)
2005 Aug 7, A British
remote-controlled vehicle cut away undersea cables that snarled a
Russian mini-submarine in deep waters off the Kamchatka Peninsula
allowing it to surface. 7 people trapped for nearly 3 days on the
mini-sub were rescued.
(AP, 8/7/05)
2005 Aug 7, In southern China
rescuers attempted to reach 123 miners trapped in a flooded coal
mine.
(AP, 8/7/05)(AP, 8/9/05)
2005 Aug 7, In India's
northeast Assam state suspected separatist rebels blew up a crucial
oil pipeline and nearby homes, shutting down operations.
(AP, 8/7/05)
2005 Aug 7, In central Iraq a
suicide bomber driving an empty fuel tanker detonated his vehicle
near a police station, killing at least two people. Three Iraqi
soldiers and two Oil Ministry employees were killed in two separate
drive-by shootings in Baghdad.
(AP, 8/7/05)
2005 Aug 7, Israeli Finance
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu resigned from his post to protest next
week's withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and part of the West Bank.
(AP, 8/7/05)
2005 Aug 7-2005 Aug 8, In Nepal
communist insurgents overran about 200 troops 340 miles northwest of
Kathmandu and killed at least 40 soldiers in fierce clashes between
the military and Maoist rebels.
(AP, 8/9/05)(AP, 8/12/05)
2005 Aug 7, Envoys to North
Korean disarmament talks suspended their meetings for three weeks,
deadlocked over the North's insistence on retaining a peaceful
nuclear program.
(AP, 8/7/05)
2005 Aug 7, Thousands of miners
stopped work for the first strike in South Africa's key gold sector
since 1987 after wage negotiations collapsed last week.
(AP, 8/7/05)
2005 Aug 7, Benon Sevan (67),
the former head of the scandal-tainted oil-for-food program,
resigned from the UN hours before he was expected to be accused of
getting kickbacks from the $67 billion operation.
(AP, 8/8/05)
2005 Aug 7, Voters across
Venezuela cast ballots to select thousands of local officials in
elections that could predict how well President Hugo Chavez's
political allies will fare in key congressional elections in
December. Chavez accused the US Drug Enforcement Agency of using its
agents as spies and said he was suspending cooperation with the DEA.
(AP, 8/7/05)(SFC, 8/8/05, p.A3)
2005 Aug 7, Zambia deported
Haroon Rashid Aswat (31), a Briton who has been questioned in
connection with the July 7 London transit bombings and is suspected
of links to al-Qaida.
(AP, 8/7/05)
2005 Aug 8, Pres. Bush signed
the Energy Policy Act. The bill gave billions in tax breaks to
encourage homegrown energy production. Under the new law, effective
March 2007, Daylight Saving Time would begin three weeks earlier
than previously, on the second Sunday in March. DST would be
extended by one week to the first Sunday in November.
(www.energy.ca.gov/daylightsaving.html)(AP,
8/8/06)
2005 Aug 8, After orbiting the
Earth for nearly two weeks, astronauts aboard space shuttle
Discovery were told to circle the planet for another day as bad
weather in Florida forced NASA to delay Monday's scheduled landing.
(AP, 8/8/05)
2005 Aug 8, In California 42
inmates were injured when a simmering dispute between two ethnic
groups erupted into the largest riot at San Quentin State Prison in
23 years.
(AP, 8/9/05)
2005 Aug 8, Crude-oil prices
rallied to a new high above $63 a barrel.
(AP, 8/8/05)
2005 Aug 8, Barbara Bel Geddes
(82), stage and screen actress, died in Maine. She was best known
for her role as the matriarch on the TV series “Dallas.”
(SFC, 8/10/05, p.B7)
2005 Aug 8, John H. Johnson
(b.1919) founding publisher of Ebony (1945), Jet (1951), and Ebony
Man (1985), died in Chicago.
(HN, 11/1/98)(SFC, 8/8/05, p.B4)(AP, 8/8/06)
2005 Aug 8, In southern
Afghanistan one US service member and at least 16 suspected Taliban
rebels were killed in fighting.
(AP, 8/9/05)
2005 Aug 8-2005 Aug 9, In
Afghanistan US airstrikes during operations against militants killed
civilians and wounded others, including an infant according to local
villagers.
(AP, 8/11/05)
2005 Aug 8, Milan Lukic, a
former Bosnia Serb paramilitary leader, was captured in Argentina.
He was wanted by a U.N. tribunal on charges of crimes against
humanity.
(AP, 8/8/05)
2005 Aug 8, The EU head office
gave its clearance for the import of a genetically modified corn
product made by American biotechnology company Monsanto Co. for use
in animal feed.
(AP, 8/8/05)
2005 Aug 8, India and Pakistan
agreed to extend a two-year-old cease-fire in disputed Kashmir, but
did not discuss the question of reducing their military presence
there.
(AP, 8/8/05)
2005 Aug 8, In eastern India
suspected rebels launched renewed attacks overnight on pipelines,
leaving oil operations in the remote region in critical shape.
(AP, 8/8/05)
2005 Aug 8, Health officials in
Indonesia reported 205 children with polio.
(WSJ, 8/9/05, p.A1)
2005 Aug 8, Iran resumed
uranium conversion activities at its Isfahan nuclear facility, a
step that Europeans and the US warned would prompt them to seek UN
sanctions against Tehran.
(AP, 8/8/05)
2005 Aug 8, In Iraq armed men
deposed Baghdad’s Mayor Alaa al-Tamini. They installed Hussein
al-Tahaan, a member of the Badr organization, and governor of
Baghdad province.
(SFC, 8/10/05, p.A3)
2005 Aug 8, Japanese lawmakers
rejected legislation to split up and sell the nation's postal
service, leading PM Junichiro Koizumi to call snap elections next
month. He promised to make the vote a referendum on his reform plan
and pledged to resign if it fails.
(AP, 8/8/05)
2005 Aug 8, In Saudi Arabia
King Abdullah pardoned 4 prominent activists who were jailed after
criticizing the strict religious environment and the slow pace of
democratic reform.
(AP, 8/8/05)
2005 Aug 9, The US Federal
Reserve raised interest rates by a quarter point to 3.5%. It marked
the 10th increase since tightening began in 2004.
(SFC, 8/10/05, p.C1)
2005 Aug 9, The US State
Department said the US will begin issuing electronic passports in
December to help tighten border and identity security.
(AP, 8/9/05)
2005 Aug 9, A three-judge panel
of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta ordered a new
trial after agreeing with defense attorneys who challenged the 2001
convictions five Cuban intelligence agents. All five acknowledged
being Cuban agents but said they were spying on "terrorist" exile
groups opposed to Castro, not the U.S. government.
(AP, 8/10/05)
2005 Aug 9, Charles McCoy Jr.
pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter and 10 other charges in a
series of Ohio highway shootings and was sentenced to 27 years in
prison.
(AP, 8/9/06)
2005 Aug 9, Officials in San
Jose, Ca., opened their new $390 million, 18-story City Hall. It was
designed by Richard Meier with an original budget of $214 million.
(SFC, 8/10/05, p.B4)
2005 Aug 9, In Tennessee inmate
George Hyatte escaped after his wife shot and killed a guard
escorting him outside the Kingston courthouse. A tip from a cabbie
the next day led police to arrest George and Jennifer Hyatte at a
budget motel in Columbus, Ohio.
(SFC, 8/10/05, p.A6)(AP, 8/11/05)
2005 Aug 9, Discovery and its
crew of seven glided back to Earth ending a 14-day test of space
shuttle safety. NASA’s STS 114 flight was shadowed by the ghosts of
Columbia
(AP, 8/9/05)(Econ, 8/13/05, p.68)
2005 Aug 9, Abe Hirschfield,
immigrant multi-millionaire, died in NYC. Hirschfield was born in
Poland but grew up in Israel. His 1986 autobiography was titled “An
Accidental Wedding.”
(SFC, 8/10/05, p.B7)
2005 Aug 9, Matthew McGrory
(32), the deep-voiced 7-foot-plus actor who moved from appearances
on Howard Stern's radio show to a high-profile role as a gentle
giant in the movie "Big Fish," died in Los Angeles.
(AP, 8/10/05)
2005 Aug 9, Judith Rossner
(b.1935) author of "Looking for Mr. Goodbar" (1975), died.
(SFEC, 10/5/97, BR p.4)(SFC, 8/12/05, p.B9)
2005 Aug 9, A roadside bomb
attack in eastern Afghanistan killed a US service member, the fifth
American casualty in a week. Suspected Taliban rebels gunned down an
Afghan woman accused of spying for the coalition.
(AP, 8/10/05)
2005 Aug 9, Qari Amadullah, a
suspected Taliban rebel leader, died in heavy fighting in eastern
Afghanistan. 5 other militants were killed and 3 US soldiers were
wounded during the clash.
(AP, 8/12/05)
2005 Aug 9, Australia’s Foreign
Minister Alexander Downer said Australia and China are negotiating
an agreement to allow Australia to export uranium to China for
peaceful purposes.
(AP, 8/9/05)
2005 Aug 9, In Chechnya gunmen
sprayed bullets at a car in Grozny, killing one person, wounding a
child in the head, and setting the vehicle ablaze.
(AP, 8/9/05)
2005 Aug 9, China’s official
media reported that 123 miners trapped in south China have little
chance of survival. One body was recovered the next day.
(AP, 8/9/05)(AP, 8/11/05)
2005 Aug 9, In Ethiopia the
National Electoral Board released results for the May 15 election.
The ruling coalition captured a majority in parliamentary elections
shadowed by fraud allegations and deadly violence.
(AP, 8/9/05)
2005 Aug 9, Suez, a French
water and power company, announced a $14 billion purchase of 49.9%
of the shares of Electrabel, a Belgian electricity firm.
(Econ, 8/13/05, p.52)
2005 Aug 9, A suicide bomber
struck near a US convoy in Baghdad and gunmen opened fire on police
patrols around the city in attacks that killed at least 16 people.
(AP, 8/9/05)
2005 Aug 9, In Iraq 4 American
soldiers were killed when insurgents attacked their patrol in the
northern city of Beiji, and a car bomb targeting a joint U.S.-Iraqi
patrol in Baghdad killed seven people, including one US soldier.
(AP, 8/10/05)
2005 Aug 9, Murders in Jamaica
reached 1,028, up 25% from 2004.
(Econ, 8/13/05, p.32)
2005 Aug 9, In Pakistan Derik
Cyprian, a former Cabinet minister who disappeared Aug. 2, was found
strangled to death on a dirt road on the outskirts of Lahore.
(AP, 8/9/05)
2005 Aug 9, South Africa’s
Johannesburg Women’s Jail reopened its doors as a museum.
(Econ, 8/13/05, p.74)
2005 Aug 9, In Sudan Lt. Gen.
Salva Kiir Mayardit, the commander of the Sudan People's Liberation
Army was inaugurated as Sudan's first vice president and president
of the new, autonomous southern government.
(AP, 8/9/05)
2005 Aug 9, Francois Dalle
(87), former chief executive of L'Oreal (1957-1984) and credited
with transforming the French cosmetics company into a global giant,
died in Geneva.
(AP, 8/22/05)
2005 Aug 9, Six of Venezuela's
indigenous communities received title to their ancestral lands in a
ceremony that Venezuela's president said reversed centuries of
injustice. An estimated 300,000 Venezuelans belong to 28 indigenous
groups, many living in the country's sparsely populated southeast.
(AP, 8/9/05)
2005 Aug 10, Pres. Bush visited
a Caterpillar plant in Illinois where he signed a $286.4 billion
highway bill. It was the most expensive US public works program to
date.
(WSJ, 8/11/05, p.A1)(Econ, 5/31/08, p.38)
2005 Aug 10, Industry group
figures showed that applications for US home mortgages fell last
week, its third consecutive drop, as refinancing activity waned and
interest rates reached four-month highs.
(AP, 8/10/05)
2005 Aug 10, David Myers (47),
former WorldCom controller, was sentenced to a year and a day in
prison for his high-ranking role in the largest accounting fraud in
U.S. history. Buford Yates, ex-director of general accounting,
received the same sentence.
(SFC, 8/11/05, p.C3)
2005 Aug 10, Tennessee prison
inmate George Hyatte and his wife, Jennifer, surrendered in
Columbus, Ohio, a day after she'd allegedly ambushed two prison
guards at a courthouse, killing one of them, to help her husband
escape. Jennifer Hyatte was later sentenced to life in prison by
agreeing to testify against her husband. George Hyatte, already
facing 41 years of incarceration, awaited trial in the murder of
Wayne Morgan and escaping jail.
(AP,
8/10/06)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingston_courthouse_shooting)
2005 Aug 10, A fire destroyed
an egg facility in Michigan and killed some 250,000 chickens.
(WSJ, 8/11/05, p.A1)
2005 Aug 10, Oil reached record
highs as prices for September delivery touched $65 per barrel and
closed at $64.90.
(SFC, 8/11/05, p.C1)
2005 Aug 10, In Brazil
impeachment proceedings began against Rep. Jose Dirceu, a federal
legislator and a former top Cabinet official, in connection with a
bribery scandal that has rocked President Luiz Inacio da Silva's
Workers' Party.
(AP, 8/10/05)
2005 Aug 10, In Brazil
authorities said they had identified some of the Sao Paulo bank
heist thieves and were looking into the possibility the heist was
pulled off by the First Capital Command, one of Brazil's most
notorious organized crime groups.
(AP, 8/12/05)
2005 Aug 10, The castaway
television thriller "Lost" debuted as the most watched U.S. import
on British television since soap opera "Dallas" captivated fans more
than 20 years ago. The US premier was September 22, 2004.
(AP,
8/11/05)(www.imdb.com/title/tt0411008/episodes#season-1)
2005 Aug 10, Canada won a
ruling against the US under NAFTA ordering the US to drop
punitive duties on Canadian softwood and refund $4 billion already
collected. The US refused to comply and won support from the WTO.
(www.ens-newswire.com/ens/aug2005/2005-08-12-04.asp)(Econ, 9/10/05,
p.38)
2005 Aug 10, In Chile Gen.
Augusto Pinochet's wife and younger son were arrested and charged as
accomplices in a tax evasion case linked to an investigation into
the former dictator's multimillion dollar fortune overseas.
(AP, 8/10/05)
2005 Aug 10, Congolese Vice
President Azeria Ruberwa met with Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni
in the Ugandan capital, Kampala. Ruberwa talked of his government's
concerns about 14 Congolese men, suspected of plotting a coup, who
were in Uganda. Rugunda said 8 men left before the expulsion order.
The other six were given 48 hours to leave.
(AP, 8/24/05)
2005 Aug 10, The Sikorsky 76
helicopter on a scheduled flight from Tallinn to Helsinki, Finland,
went down with 2 pilots and 12 passengers about 3 miles off the
coast of Estonia.
(AP, 8/10/05)
2005 Aug 10, In Haiti police
stormed a volatile slum in Port-au-Prince in an attack on well-armed
gangs that witnesses said left at least five people dead.
(AP, 8/10/05)
2005 Aug 10, Iran removed the
final seals from equipment at a uranium conversion plant as U.N.
inspectors watched, paving the way for Tehran to fully open the
facility despite European and U.S. calls for it to maintain the
suspension of its nuclear program.
(AP, 8/10/05)
2005 Aug 10, Gunmen kidnapped
Brig. Gen. Khudayer Abbas, a senior Iraqi Interior Ministry
official, as he drove his car in central Baghdad. A suicide bomber
killed six people and wounded 14 when he drove a car at a police
patrol in the Ghazaliya district of western Baghdad.
(AP, 8/10/05)(Reuters, 8/10/05)
2005 Aug 10, A UN agency
reported the 1st avian flu appearance in Mongolia and said 80
migratory birds have died near the Siberian border.
(WSJ, 8/11/05, p.A1)
2005 Aug 10, Thomas Devlin (15)
was attacked and stabbed to death as he walked home with friends in
north Belfast.
(http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/issues/violence/deaths2005draft.htm)(AP,
10/20/07)
2005 Aug 10, In the southern
Philippines a series of powerful explosions described as terrorist
attacks ripped through Zamboanga city and injured at least 14
people.
(AP, 8/10/05)
2005 Aug 10, An assailant beat
a Polish envoy near Poland's Moscow embassy, drawing diplomatic
protests over the second such attack in four days.
(AP, 8/11/05)
2005 Aug 10, Russia’s Defense
Ministry said more than 3,450 Russian troops have been killed in
Chechnya since federal forces re-entered the southern Russian region
six years ago.
(AP, 8/10/05)
2005 Aug 10, South Korea
ordered an end to a 25-day strike by unionized pilots at Asiana
Airlines.
(WSJ, 8/11/05, p.A11)
2005 Aug 10, In Venezuela
lawmakers approved a transfer of $14 million (30.6 billion bolivars)
as seed money for a new Treasury Bank to handle government banking
needs.
(WSJ, 8/11/05, p.A11)
2005 Aug 11, President Bush
expressed sympathy for war protesters like Cindy Sheehan, the mother
camped outside his Texas ranch demanding answers for her
solider-son's death, but said he believed it would be a mistake to
bring U.S. troops home immediately.
(AP, 8/11/06)
2005 Aug 11, Scott Sullivan,
former WorldCom finance chief, was sentenced to five years in prison
for his high-ranking role in the largest accounting fraud in U.S.
history.
(AP, 8/11/05)
2005 Aug 11, It was reported
that an anonymous donor will give $25 million to UC Berkeley’s Haas
School of Business to construct a new building for its executive
education program.
(SFC, 8/11/05, p.C1)
2005 Aug 11, Qualcomm announced
that it would buy Flarion for some $600 million in order to gain
access to post-3G network technology.
(Econ, 8/20/05, p.51)
2005 Aug 11, Yahoo agreed to
pay $1 billion in cash and turn over its Chinese operations to
Alibaba in return for a 40% stake in the Chinese e-commerce company.
Jack Ma started Alibaba.com in 1999 to support small business people
in China.
(WSJ, 8/12/05, p.A1,B1)
2005 Aug 11, A team of
scientists from 10 countries reported that they had deciphered the
genetic code of rice.
(SFC, 8/11/05, p.A6)
2005 Aug 11, Scientists
reported the discovery of an asteroid with 2 small moons. Asteroid
87 Sylvia was about 175 miles in diameter and circled the sun
between the orbits of mars and Jupiter.
(SFC, 8/11/05, p.A2)
2005 Aug 11, In Afghanistan a
US service member was killed in Paktika province, the sixth American
fatality in a week. An American soldier was killed and two others
were wounded in an explosives training accident in central Uruzgan
province.
(AP, 8/11/05)(AP, 8/12/05)
2005 Aug 11, Argentina and
Venezuela signed an accord to set up a joint trust fund aimed at
providing export financing to small businesses. Presidents Kirchner
and Chavez signed a series of accords during the Chavez visit that
included an expansion of Venezuelan fuel oil imports. Kirchner
thanked Chavez for the purchase of $500 million of Argentine
government bonds over the last few months.
(WSJ, 8/12/05, p.A7)
2005 Aug 11, In Vienna the
board of governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)
unanimously approved a resolution demanding that Iran suspend all
nuclear activities it resumed earlier this week.
(AP, 8/11/05)
2005 Aug 11, Thirty-five
Bangladeshi children who worked as camel jockeys in the United Arab
Emirates arrived home to an uncertain future as part of a United
Nations-sponsored program. The UAE now plans to use robots to race
camels rather than children.
(AP, 8/11/05)
2005 Aug 11, A one-day strike
by British Airways baggage handlers and other ground staff forced
the cancellation of hundreds of flights to and from Heathrow
Airport.
(AP, 8/11/06)
2005 Aug 11, Brazilian police
said they recovered a small percentage of the currency stolen from
the Central Bank in one of the world's biggest heists. Brazil's
Central Bank released an official statement saying that the amount
stolen was $70 million, instead of the $67.8 million it reported
earlier.
(AP, 8/12/05)
2005 Aug 11, Beijing ordered an
investigation into the cause of a flood at a coal shaft in southern
China. Hopes of finding survivors among the 122 miners still trapped
underground all but disappeared.
(AP, 8/11/05)
2005 Aug 11, El Salvador sent
its fifth contingent of 380 soldiers to Iraq for humanitarian
missions. President Tony Saca said it was in the same spirit as the
countries that helped El Salvador during its 12-year civil war.
(AP, 8/11/05)
2005 Aug 11, Manmohan Singh,
India's first Sikh prime minister, apologized for riots two decades
ago that killed nearly 3,000 Sikhs and were blamed on the Congress.
(AP, 8/11/05)
2005 Aug 11, Indian officials
said waterborne diseases have killed at least 46 people in Bombay in
the past four days following widespread floods in the city last
month.
(AP, 8/11/05)
2005 Aug 11, Indonesian
President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, a former army general, and the
Timorese ex-guerrilla fighter Xanana Gusmao witnessed the signing of
documents appointing the 10 members of the Commission for Truth and
Friendship.
(AFP, 8/11/05)
2005 Aug 11, In Iraq gunmen
killed at least 16 people in attacks across the country, including
one that left a young girl wounded and her parents dead.
(AFP, 8/11/05)
2005 Aug 11, An ex-soldier was
sentenced to eight years in prison for fatally shooting British
activist Tom Hurndall in April, 2003. It was the first case in which
an Israeli soldier was convicted of killing a foreigner during more
than four years of Israeli-Palestinian violence.
(AP, 8/11/05)
2005 Aug 11, Louis-Jodel
Chamblain, a Haitian rebel leader who once led a paramilitary group
accused of killing and torturing thousands of people, was released
from prison.
(AP, 8/12/05)
2005 Aug 11, Lebanese police
arrested Omar Bakri, the Islamic cleric who is being investigated in
Britain for his remarks on the London bombings.
(AP, 8/11/05)
2005 Aug 11, Pakistan test
fired its first cruise missile without warning archrival India under
a new treaty requiring notification of tests involving missiles
capable of carrying nuclear warheads. The Foreign Ministry said the
missile notification agreement formalized by the two nuclear-armed
nations over the weekend did not cover cruise missiles.
(AP, 8/11/05)
2005 Aug 11, Peru's PM Carlos
Ferrero quit unexpectedly in an apparent protest against President
Alejandro Toledo's appointment of an unpopular political ally as
foreign minister.
(AP, 8/12/05)
2005 Aug 11, The two unions
representing 90,000 striking South African gold miners agreed to
accept management's latest offer and return to work, ending the
worst strike in 18 years in the world's largest gold-producing
nation.
(AP, 8/11/05)
2005 Aug 11, A senior South
Korean official said that North Korea has the right to a peaceful
nuclear program, a view conflicting with Washington in its
disagreement with the hard-line Pyongyang regime that has snagged
disarmament talks.
(AP, 8/11/05)
2005 Aug 11, Southern leader
Salva Kiir Mayardit was sworn in as Sudan's 1st vice president.
(AP, 8/11/05)
2005 Aug 11, A judge in
Suriname convicted the son of a former dictator of leading a ring
that trafficked in cocaine, illegal arms and stolen luxury cars,
sentencing him to 8 years in prison.
(AP, 8/11/05)
2005 Aug 11, Uganda police
arrested Andrew Mwenda a day after the KFM radio station he works
for was shut down following threats from President Yoweri Museveni
to close media outlets that report conspiracies about the Garang's
death.
(AP, 8/12/05)
2005 Aug 11, The UN Security
Council voted unanimously to extend its mission in Iraq, reaffirming
its leading role in helping to promote a national dialogue which is
crucial for the country's political stability and unity.
(AP, 8/11/05)
2005 Aug 11, Venezuela's major
newspapers calculated that pro-Chavez candidates won some 47 percent
of city council posts across the country, while opposition
candidates won 17 percent and other independent parties had 18
percent of posts in the Aug 7 elections.
(AP, 8/11/05)
2005 Aug 12, The US Agriculture
Dept. said it expected corn yields to be lower this year in 29 of 33
corn-producing states due to drought in the Midwest. This year’s
drought was more localized and farmers in Iowa, Minnesota and
Missouri had a good year.
(SFC, 8/15/05, p.A2)
2005 Aug 12, Patrick Sheehan
filed for divorce in Solano County, Ca., as his wife, Cindy Sheehan
(48), entered her 2nd week camping outside Pres. Bush’s retreat in
Crawford, Texas. Their son Casey (24) was killed in Iraq in 2004.
(SFC, 8/16/05, p.A3)
2005 Aug 12, It was reported
that Dr. Jan T. Vilcek donated an estimated $125 million to the NYU
School of Medicine through a percentage of future royalties from
sales of Remicade, which treats symptoms of rheumatoid arthritis and
Crohn’s disease.
(WSJ, 8/12/05, p.W1)
2005 Aug 12, Oil for September
delivery closed at a record $66.86 per barrel.
(SFC, 8/13/05, p.A1)
2005 Aug 12, Residents of
Wright, Wyoming, had just 5 minutes warning before a tornado tore
into a mobile home park, killing two people and destroying dozens of
homes.
(AP, 8/13/05)
2005 Aug 12, An Atlas V rocket
at Cape Canaveral, Fla., lifted the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter on a
72 million-mile mission to study Mars.
(SFC, 8/13/05, p.A4)
2005 Aug 12, In Afghanistan
suspected Taliban guerrillas ambushed a vehicle carrying police in
southern Zabul province's Arghandab district, sparking a gunbattle
that killed 3 militants.
(AP, 8/12/05)
2005 Aug 12, Police detained
four men in connection with one of the world's biggest heists and
recovered more than $2 million of the $70 million stolen from
Brazil's Central Bank. The recovered cash was found hidden in 3
pickup trucks that were on a vehicle transporter truck located
several hundred miles from the Central Bank vault in Fortaleza. In
2008 police arrested Jossivam Alves dos Santos, the suspected leader
of the gang which carried out the heist. Less than $10 million of
the money has been recovered.
(AP, 8/13/05)(AP, 2/27/08)
2005 Aug 12, In Brazil Celio
Marcelo da Silva (32), a prison escapee believed to have
masterminded last year's abduction of the mother of a Brazilian
soccer star, was arrested. In 2003 da Silva tunneled his way out of
a Sao Paulo prison where he was serving a 38-year sentence for
murder and robbery.
(AP, 8/13/05)
2005 Aug 12, At least 70,000
travelers were left stranded as British Airways canceled all flights
to and from Heathrow Airport after catering staff, baggage handlers
and other ground crew walked off the job in wildcat strikes at the
height of the summer tourism season.
(AP, 8/12/05)
2005 Aug 12, Liu Jinbao, a
former president of state-owned Bank of China's Hong Kong branch
fired in May, 2003, received a suspended death sentence for
embezzlement in an apparent effort by Beijing to help restore faith
in its scandal-plagued banks as they prepare to sell shares abroad.
Mr. Liu was convicted of embezzling $1.8 million with others plus
and additional amount for himself.
(AP, 8/12/05)(WSJ, 8/15/05, p.A11)
2005 Aug 12, A small boat
overloaded with 113 illegal immigrants capsized and sank in rough
waters off Colombia's Pacific coast. An Ecuadoran fishing boat found
9 survivors 2 days later. In Nov. Ecuadoran police arrested a
married couple for being part of a gang of 11 human traffickers who
charged as much as $12,000 per person for passage to the US.
(AP, 8/18/05)(AP, 11/15/05)
2005 Aug 12, Leaders of Georgia
and Ukraine called for an alliance that would champion democracy in
the former Soviet lands.
(AP, 8/12/05)
2005 Aug 12, A German court
convicted Holger Pfahls, former deputy defense minister, of
accepting illegal payments and evading taxes while serving in the
government of former Chancellor Helmut Kohl.
(AP, 8/12/05)
2005 Aug 12, Victims of India's
1984 anti-Sikh riots rejected apologies from Premier Manmohan Singh
and vowed to intensify demands for the prosecution of politicians
blamed for the massacre that claimed 4,000 lives.
(AP, 8/12/05)
2005 Aug 12, Suspected Islamic
militants raided a remote mountain village in India's Jammu-Kashmir
state and attacked 2 Hindu families as they dined together, killing
5 people.
(AP, 8/13/05)
2005 Aug 12, In Iraq Sunni Arab
leaders rejected calls for a Shiite federal region to be enshrined
in the constitution.
(AP, 8/12/05)
2005 Aug 12, In Iraq a US
soldier was found dead of a gunshot wound.
(AP, 8/14/05)
2005 Aug 12, Smoke from forest
fires in Indonesia spread to more cities in Malaysia, as millions
prayed in mosques and temples for rain to wash away the hazardous
haze.
(AP, 8/12/05)
2005 Aug 12, Lebanon freed the
radical Muslim cleric Omar Bakri, hours after Britain declared he
would not be allowed to return to its shores.
(AP, 8/12/05)
2005 Aug 12, A Mexican judge
issued an arrest warrant for Gen. Francisco Quiros, accused of
ordering the disappearance of leftist folk singer Rosendo Radilla on
Aug 25, 1974. Quiros was already in prison serving a drug sentence.
(AP, 8/12/05)
2005 Aug 12, New regulations in
Tijuana, Mexico, called for the city to issue electronic cards to
replace pink, pocket-size health history books given to Tijuana's
4,700 registered prostitutes. The new standards were modeled after
those in the Mexican cities of Monterrey and Acapulco.
(AP, 9/16/05)
2005 Aug 12, Peter Hommerson, a
fugitive charged with killing a wealthy Illinois couple on Jan 23,
1996, was captured at a Mexican resort after tourists recognized him
from a crime watch television program.
(AP, 8/12/05)
2005 Aug 12, The Nepali army
said faulty Indian assault rifles were partly responsible for its
heavy death toll in a gun battle with Maoist rebels as troops hunted
for 75 soldiers still missing after the fighting.
(AP, 8/12/05)
2005 Aug 12, In Sri Lanka
foreign minister Lakshman Kadirgamar (73), an ethnic Tamil, was shot
in the head and heart after finishing a swim at his home. Tamil
Tiger rebels denied involvement.
(AP, 8/13/05)
2005 Aug 12, Suriname's Pres.
Ronald Venetiaan (69) was inaugurated to a second term, calling for
national unity following elections that weakened his government's
hold on Parliament and swelled the ranks of a party led by a former
dictator.
(AP, 8/12/05)
2005 Aug 12, Turkish PM Recep
Tayyip Erdogan pledged to give more rights to the Kurdish minority
in a speech in Diyarbakir.
(Econ, 8/20/05, p.40)(http://tinyurl.com/cmzxz)
2005 Aug 12, Venezuela’s Vice
President Jose Vicente Rangel said American citizens could be denied
visas to visit Venezuela in response to a US decision to revoke the
visas of three Venezuelan military officers.
(AP, 8/12/05)
2005 Aug 13, The Pentagon said
for the second time since the Iraq war began, it was replacing body
armor for US troops in Afghanistan and Iraq, citing a need for
better protection.
(AP, 8/13/06)
2005 Aug 13, Khosraw Basheri
(23) claimed a historic title of Mr. Afghanistan in the country’s
first-ever national competition to select a top bodybuilder.
(AP, 8/14/05)
2005 Aug 13, US Marines and
Afghan troops launched an offensive to take a remote mountain valley
from insurgents tied to the deadliest blow on American forces since
the Taliban regime was ousted nearly four years ago.
(AP, 8/14/05)
2005 Aug 13, James Petersen
(51), a Univ. of Vermont anthropology professor on a research trip
to Brazil, was killed while he was being robbed in Iranduba near the
Amazon River. Three suspects were taken into custody.
(AP, 8/14/05)
2005 Aug 13, Britain's
tax-funded National Health Service is unsustainable and should be
scrapped, the country's most senior doctor said, but the country's
largest health union warned that any change to the NHS' founding
principles would lead to a "public outcry".
(AP, 8/13/05)
2005 Aug 13, A chunk of ice
bigger than the area of Manhattan broke from the Ayles Ice Shelf at
Ellesmere Island in Canada's far north. Scientists later said that
it could wreak havoc if it starts to float westward toward
oil-drilling regions and shipping lanes in 2007.
(AP, 12/29/06)
2005 Aug 13, It was reported
that Delhi’s water board (DJB) planned a $246 million water project
with $140 million financed by the World Bank. As in many Indian
cities 16 million people in Delhi suffered chronic water shortages.
(Econ, 8/13/05, p.53)
2005 Aug 13, The death toll in
India from water-borne diseases following floods in Bombay and
surrounding areas two weeks ago rose to at least 125.
(AP, 8/13/05)
2005 Aug 13, In Indian Kashmir
9 people died in fresh fighting. Troops intensified search
operations ahead of India's Aug 15 Independence Day, which
separatists observe as a "black day".
(AFP, 8/14/05)
2005 Aug 13, In Iran at least
17 people were reported killed over the last 3 weeks and many more
wounded during anti-government protests in the western province of
Kurdistan.
(AP, 8/13/05)(SSFC, 8/14/05, p.A15)
2005 Aug 13, In Iraq 3 soldiers
were killed and one other wounded in a roadside bombing near Tuz
Khormato, 95 miles north of Baghdad. Another soldier was killed at
another roadside bombing.
(AP, 8/14/05)
2005 Aug 13, An Italian
newspaper reported that more than 100 Italian troops whose tours in
southern Iraq have ended are not being replaced, apparently marking
the beginning of the country's withdrawal from Iraq ahead of
schedule.
(AP, 8/14/05)
2005 Aug 13, A small plane
carrying tourists crashed in southern Italy, killing at least two
people.
(AP, 8/14/05)
2005 Aug 13, For the first time
in a decade, the founders and top political leaders of Hamas
gathered on the same stage, vowing to go on fighting Israel and
claiming victory for its impending withdrawal from the Gaza Strip.
(AP, 8/13/05)
2005 Aug 13, David Lange
(b.1942), former New Zealand prime minister (1984-1989), died in
Auckland. He was the architect of new Zealand’s anti-nuclear policy.
(WSJ, 8/15/05, p.A1)(http://tinyurl.com/bsgp2)
2005 Aug 13, Fernando Olivera,
Peru's new foreign minister, said he was resigning his post, just
two days after the uproar from his appointment sparked a major
shake-up of President Alejandro Toledo's Cabinet.
(AP, 8/14/05)
2005 Aug 13, Fires at a rate of
400 per day began breaking out in Portugal.
(Econ, 8/27/05, p.42)
2005 Aug 13, Rival militias in
arid southwestern Somalia battled for control over a village with
pastures and wells. Twelve combatants died, and hundreds of
residents fled.
(AP, 8/13/05)
2005 Aug 13, Sri Lanka declared
a state of emergency and deployed troops to search for suspects
Saturday after the assassination of the foreign minister.
(AP, 8/13/05)
2005 Aug 14, Cristeta Comerford
was named the new White House chef, the first woman to hold the
post.
(AP, 8/14/06)
2005 Aug 14, The FBI and
antivirus software companies began to notice that a computer virus
called Zotob had started to spread [see Aug 16].
(WSJ, 11/21/06, p.A13)
2005 Aug 14, It was reported
that the Detroit area had more than 12,000 abandoned homes, a
byproduct of decades of layoffs at the city's auto plants and white
flight to the suburbs.
(AFP, 8/14/05)
2005 Aug 14, Fighting across
southern Afghanistan left 28 suspected Taliban rebels dead. In Zabul
province Afghan forces attacked a group of suspected militants,
killing 16 of them and arresting one. In neighboring Uruzgan
province's Dehrawud district, a gunbattle between Afghan soldiers
and insurgents left five militants dead.
(AP, 8/15/05)
2005 Aug 14, Algerian President
Abdelaziz Bouteflika unveiled a draft charter for peace and national
reconciliation that will be put to a referendum on September 29.
(AFP, 8/14/05)
2005 Aug 14, A land mine
exploded in Chechnya when Russia troops came to the aid of a local
official whose home was under attack by rebels, killing a senior
Russian military officer and four other soldiers.
(AP, 8/14/05)
2005 Aug 14, A Cypriot
airliner, Helios Air 737, crashed into a hill north of Athens,
killing all 121 people on board. An inquiry in 2006 ruled pilots
erred in setting pressurization controls.
(AP, 8/14/05)(WSJ, 10/11/06, p.A1)
2005 Aug 14, Egypt’s Interior
Ministry announced that it had identified those responsible for the
July 23 terrorist attack at Sharm el-Sheik.
(SFC, 8/15/05, p.A3)
2005 Aug 14, In Iraq a US
soldier on a patrol was killed and 3 others wounded in a blast east
of Rutbah, 250 miles west of Baghdad. 30 bodies were found in a
grave south of Baghdad that was 10-14 days old. One insurgent was
killed in the raid that led to the grave and 13 others were
detained.
(AP, 8/14/05)
2005 Aug 14, Israel sealed the
Gaza Strip to Israeli civilians, signaling the start of the historic
withdrawal from the Gaza Strip.
(AP, 8/14/06)
2005 Aug 14, A legal source
said Jordan will charge London-based radical Muslim cleric Abu
Qatada (44) with plotting to stage terrorist attacks when he is
extradited from Britain.
(AFP, 8/14/05)
2005 Aug 14, Kurmanbek Bakiyev,
Kyrgyzstan’s new president, pledged in his inaugural speech that the
former Soviet Central Asian nation, which hosts both US and Russian
military bases, will pursue an independent foreign policy under his
leadership.
(AP, 8/14/05)
2005 Aug 14, Pakistani
President Pervez Musharraf urged the country to reject conservative
religious forces saying they were a hurdle to progress and wanted to
push the country into backwardness.
(AP, 8/14/05)
2005 Aug 14, Security forces
arrested 12 minority Tamils before dawn in connection with the
assassination of Sri Lanka's foreign minister, and a Tamil lawmaker
said only a peace deal could stop such killings in a country many
fear is sliding back to war.
(AP, 8/14/05)
2005 Aug 15, US prosecutors
said 4 former Wall Street brokers have been indicted for a scheme
allowing day traders to eavesdrop on internal communications and
profit by trading ahead of large share orders and subsequent price
movements.
(Reuters, 8/15/05)
2005 Aug 15, Reliant Energy
agreed to pay $135.4 million in cash to California and to forgo
$299.5 million it claims it is owed to settle allegations of energy
manipulation during the energy crises 5 years earlier.
(SFC, 8/16/05, p.D1)
2005 Aug 15, Delta Air Lines
said it is selling its feeder carrier, Atlantic Southeast Airlines,
to SkyWest for $425 million.
(SFC, 8/16/05, p.D3)
2005 Aug 15, Hershey announced
the acquisition of Joseph Schmidt, a SF chocolate maker.
(SFC, 8/16/05, p.D1)
2005 Aug 15, James Dougherty
(84), the retired Los Angeles detective who was the first husband of
Marilyn Monroe, died in San Rafael, Calif.
(AP, 8/15/06)
2005 Aug 15, Bulgaria's three
largest parties formed a coalition under a Socialist prime minister,
resolving seven weeks of stalemate threatening to hold up the Balkan
state's aspirations for EU entry in 2007.
(AP, 8/15/05)
2005 Aug 15, Canada’s CBC
locked out 5,300 of its 9,000 employees following 15 months of
unsuccessful talks with the Canadian Media Guild, a merger of 3
unions.
(Econ, 10/1/05, p.37)
2005 Aug 15, A powerful car
bomb exploded outside a restaurant in Chechnya's capital, killing
two people, including a child, and wounding at least 11 others.
(AP, 8/16/05)
2005 Aug 15, In northeast
Colombia suspected rebels killed two Catholic priests, ambushing
their car with gunfire and explosives as they drove down a country
road.
(AP, 8/15/05)
2005 Aug 15, In Egypt’s the
Sinai Peninsula a crude roadside bomb blasted a vehicle belonging to
international peacekeepers, lightly wounding two Canadians.
(AP, 8/15/05)
2005 Aug 15, Near-simultaneous
attacks and riots at 7 Guatemalan prisons left 31 inmates dead. They
showed the organizational power of Central America's gangs, whose
members communicate between prisons through cell phones and
visitors.
(AP, 8/16/05)
2005 Aug 15, Indonesia and Aceh
rebels signed a peace treaty in Helsinki to end nearly 30 years of
fighting that killed 15,000 people, but rebel leaders voiced concern
about government troops remaining in the region.
(AP, 8/15/05)
2005 Aug 15, Iraq’s parliament
failed to meet a key deadline for finishing a new constitution and
voted to give itself another week on a new draft constitution.
(Econ, 8/20/05, p.37)(AP, 8/15/06)
2005 Aug 15, Israel began to
pull out from the Gaza Strip after 38 years of occupation. Asher
Weisgen (Weisgan), an Israeli settler, murdered four Palestinians
under his employ and wounded a fifth near Shilo in an effort to
prevent Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip. On Sep 27, 2006,
Weisgan was sentenced to 4 consecutive life terms plus 12 years and
ordered to pay $53,000 to the families of those killed and $23,000
to Rauhi Kassab, who survived.
(AP,
8/15/05)(http://dc.indymedia.org/newswire/display/135780/index.php)
2005 Aug 15, Italy’s Interior
Minister said Italy has arrested 141 people in a security swoop
following the bombings in London and Egypt last month and remains at
high risk from an attack by Islamic militants. Expulsion procedures
had begun against 701 people.
(Reuters, 8/15/05)
2005 Aug 15, New Kyrgyz
President Kurmanbek Bakiyev appointed Felix Kulov, a former
opposition politician who was jailed under the country's ousted
Soviet-era leader, as acting prime minister.
(AP, 8/15/05)
2005 Aug 15, Singapore hosted
maritime exercises aimed at stopping shipments of weapons of mass
destruction. The drills are part of the U.S.-led Proliferation
Security Initiative (PSI). Other participants in the Deep Saber
exercises included Australia, Britain, Canada, France, Germany,
Greece, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, New Zealand and Russia and
the US.
(AP, 8/15/05)
2005 Aug 16, Pres. Bush
selected Donald Winter of Northrup Grumman to be Navy secretary and
Michael Wynne, Pentagon aide, as Air Force head.
(WSJ, 8/17/05, p.A1)
2005 Aug 16, The Bush
administration reduced the estimated value of recreation in national
forests from $111 billion to $11 billion. Environmentalists warned
the new Forest Service assessment could be used to justify increased
logging.
(SFC, 8/17/05, p.A4)
2005 Aug 16, Nebraska Gov. Dave
Heineman secured a deal for his state to export $17 million in
agricultural goods to communist Cuba. The first US shipment of great
northern beans to the island since Fidel Castro came to power in
1959.
(AP, 8/16/05)
2005 Aug 16, Several new
computer worms hit systems running MS Windows 2000. On Aug 25
authorities in Morocco arrested Farid Essebar (18) for writing the
Zotob worm. Atilla Ekici (21) was arrested in Turkey for paying
Essebar to write the worm. In 2006 Morocco sentenced Farid Essebar
(19) to 2 years in prison and Achraf Bahlouo (21) to one year for
their role in unleashing the Zotob worm. Ekici’s trial continued in
Turkey.
(SFC, 8/27/05, p.A2)(WSJ, 9/14/06, p.B3)(WSJ,
11/21/06, p.A1)
2005 Aug 16, J.P. Morgan Chase
agreed to pay $350 million to settle claims over the role it played
in the fraud that led to the collapse of Enron in 2001.
(SFC, 8/17/05, p.C3)
2005 Aug 16, Francy Boland
(75), jazz pianist, died in Geneva, Sw.
(SFC, 8/17/05, p.B7)
2005 Aug 16, Vassar Clements
(77), fiddle virtuoso, died in Nashville, Ten. He recorded on more
than 2,000 albums in various styles from bluegrass to classical.
(SFC, 8/17/05, p.B7)
2005 Aug 16, Two helicopters
carrying NATO-led forces to prepare for next month's elections
crashed in the desert in western Afghanistan, killing at least 17
Spanish troops.
(AP, 8/16/05)
2005 Aug 16, It was reported
that scientists in Australia's tropical north are collecting blood
from crocodiles in the hope of developing a powerful antimicrobial
drugs for humans, after tests showed that the reptile's immune
system kills HIV.
(Reuters, 8/16/05)
2005 Aug 16, In Britain an
official investigation contradicted the police account of the July
21 killing of Jean Charles de Menezes, an electrician from Brazil.
(SFC, 8/17/05, p.A12)
2005 Aug 16, Bulgaria's
Parliament overwhelmingly approved historian Sergei Stanishev (39),
the leader of the Socialist Party, as the country's new prime
minister bringing to power his socialist-liberal coalition
government.
(AP, 8/16/05)
2005 Aug 16, A university
professor in Shanghai said is he is offering China's first class on
homosexuality and gay culture and that several hundred students have
applied for the 100 openings.
(AP, 8/17/05)
2005 Aug 16, In Taize, France,
Brother Roger, the 90-year-old founder of an ecumenical religious
community dedicated to peace and reconciliation, was knifed to death
by an apparently deranged Romanian woman at an evening prayer
service attended by 2,500 people. Brother Roger founded the Taize
religious community in 1940 emphasizing the need for all Christians
to come together in peace, love and reconciliation.
(AP, 8/17/05)(WSJ, 8/18/05, p.A1)
2005 Aug 16, A top Indian
official said Indian and Chinese oil firms will sign agreements
aimed at bidding jointly for foreign oil and gas projects and
reducing cut-throat competition.
(AP, 8/16/05)
2005 Aug 16, Iraqi leaders, a
day after failing to meet their deadline, expressed confidence they
would overcome differences over key issues like the role of Islam
and the power of regional governments and finish the new
constitution by next week.
(AP, 8/16/05)
2005 Aug 16, Israeli security
forces clashed with hundreds of opponents of Israel's withdrawal
from the Gaza Strip, arresting dozens of people in the roughest
confrontation between troops and settlers since the start of the
operation.
(AP, 8/16/05)
2005 Aug 16, A 7.2 earthquake
shook northeastern Japan, triggering landslides, sending a shower of
ceiling debris into a crowded indoor swimming pool and shaking
skyscrapers as far away as Tokyo. At least 59 people were reportedly
injured.
(AP, 8/16/05)(WSJ, 8/17/05, p.A1)
2005 Aug 16, North Korean
officials visited South Korea's parliament for the first time in a
symbolic gesture of reconciliation with their democratic rivals.
(AP, 8/17/05)
2005 Aug 16, Peru’s President
Alejandro Toledo swore in a new Cabinet with Pedro Pablo Kuczynski,
the former finance minister, as prime minister and cabinet chief.
(AP, 8/16/05)(WSJ, 8/17/05, p.A9)
2005 Aug 16, Russia's Supreme
Court overturned a lower court decision banning the National
Bolshevik Party, handing a rare victory to the radical youth
organization known for flamboyant acts of political protest.
(AP, 8/16/05)
2005 Aug 16, Russia said an
outbreak of bird flu in Chelyabinsk was dangerous to humans, as
teams of sanitary workers destroyed birds in Siberia in an attempt
to prevent the westward spread of the deadly virus.
(AP, 8/16/05)
2005 Aug 16, A chartered jet
filled with tourists returning home from Panama to the French
Caribbean island of Martinique crashed in western Venezuela, killing
all 160 people on board. The pilot had been attempting an emergency
landing after both engines failed.
(AP, 8/16/05)(WSJ, 8/17/05, p.A1)
2005 Aug 17, Hundreds of
anti-war vigils were held nationwide, part of an effort spurred by
Cindy Sheehan's protest near President Bush's Texas ranch in memory
of her son Casey, who was killed in Iraq.
(AP, 8/17/06)
2005 Aug 17, Researchers from
Greenpeace Int’l reported that toxic waste from electronic devices
discarded in the US and dismantled in China and India was posing a
sever problem around Guiyu, China, and New Delhi, India.
(SFC, 8/17/05, p.C3)
2005 Aug 17, John Bahcall (70),
astrophysicist and force behind the Hubble telescope, died.
(WSJ, 8/22/05, p.A1)
2005 Aug 17, Australian
scientists said that cyclone Ingrid, which lashed northeastern
Australia in March, inflicted damage on 10 per cent of the Great
Barrier Reef.
(AP, 8/17/05)
2005 Aug 17, Nearly 500
homemade bombs planted by suspected Islamic militants exploded
nearly simultaneously across Bangladesh, killing 2 people, including
a young boy, and wounding at least 73. The attacks were later
attributed to Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen (JMB). 7 leaders of JMB were
later arrested and 6 were to be hanged in 2007. In 2008 a court in
northwestern Bangladesh sentenced seven Islamic militants to life in
prison after finding them guilty of carrying the bombings.
(AP, 8/17/05)(Econ, 8/27/05, p.35)(Econ, 2/10/07,
p.40)(AP, 1/31/08)
2005 Aug 17, China announced a
broad crackdown on all media harmful to young people.
(Econ, 8/20/05, p.33)
2005 Aug 17, India’s Andhra
Pradesh state banned a violent Maoist rebel group, two days after
rebels killed 10 people, including a lawmaker and bureaucrat.
(AP, 8/17/05)
2005 Aug 17, In Iraq 3 car
bombs exploded near a bus station and hospital in Baghdad, killing
at least 43 people and wounding 89 in the deadliest attacks in the
capital in weeks. A series of insurgent attacks also killed 11
Iraqis, including six soldiers assigned to protect oil pipelines in
northern Iraq.
(AFP, 8/17/05)
2005 Aug 17, Israeli troops
entered Gaza's largest synagogue to remove hundreds of worshippers,
who had formed long lines and swayed in prayer. A right-wing West
Bank settler opposed to Israel's pullout from the Gaza Strip set
herself on fire in southern Israel, suffering life-threatening burns
on 70% of her body.
(AP, 8/17/05)
2005 Aug 17, Libya called on
the Bulgarian government to negotiate a payment to win amnesty for
five Bulgarian medics and a Palestinian sentenced to death for
allegedly infecting 400 children with the AIDS virus.
(AP, 8/18/05)
2005 Aug 17, Norwegian
officials said 3 unarmed Polish researchers stranded on a remote
Arctic island were rescued by helicopter as polar bears were closing
in on them. The escape took place on an island in Norway's Svalbard
archipelago, about 650 miles from the North Pole.
(AP, 8/17/05)
2005 Aug 17, In Paraguay US
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld met with President Nicanor Duarte
Frutos and was meeting with Minister of Defense Roberto Gonzalez
Segovia, in part, to gauge their views on the escalating involvement
of Cuban President Fidel Castro and Venezuelan President Hugo
Chavez.
(AP, 8/17/05)
2005 Aug 17, Top Republic of
Congo officials were acquitted of genocide and war crimes charges
stemming from the disappearance of 350 refugees who had returned
home during a cease-fire in the country's civil war.
(AP, 8/17/05)
2005 Aug 17, Officials said
Russia is investigating bird deaths in a region west of the Ural
mountains in what could become the 1st case of the deadly bird flu
virus spreading to Europe.
(AP, 8/17/05)
2005 Aug 18, It was reported
that US Defense Dept. data-mining operation, Able Danger, had
identified Mohamed Atta and 3 other Sep 11 hijackers by name in
mid-2000.
(SFC, 8/17/05, p.A5)
2005 Aug 18, Cindy Sheehan,
who'd started an anti-war demonstration near President Bush's Texas
ranch nearly two weeks earlier, left the camp after learning her
mother had suffered a stroke, but told supporters the protest would
go on.
(AP, 8/18/06)
2005 Aug 18, In Kansas BTK
killer Dennis Rader (60) was sentenced to 10 consecutive life terms
after a hearing where family members spoke of their grief and loss
from his 1974-1991 murder spree.
(AP, 8/19/05)(WSJ, 8/19/05, p.A1)
2005 Aug 18, Ohio Gov. Bob Taft
pleaded no contest to charges that he broke state ethics law by
failing to report golf outings and other gifts. A judge found him
guilty and fined him $4,000.
(AP, 8/18/05)
2005 Aug 18, It was reported
that an anthrax outbreak had killed hundreds of cattle in parts of
the Great Plains, forcing quarantines and devastating Dakota
ranchers who worry how they will recover financially. Two ranches in
Texas were quarantined last month after anthrax was found in cattle,
horses and deer.
(AP, 8/18/05)
2005 Aug 18, In Afghanistan a
US Marine and an Afghan soldier were killed during battles with
militants in eastern Kunar province ahead of next month's landmark
elections. 2 American soldiers were killed in the south.
(AP, 8/19/05)
2005 Aug 18, British bank Royal
Bank of Scotland (RBoS) announced that it would lead a consortium to
buy a 10-percent stake in Bank of China for 3.1 billion dollars (2.5
billion euros).
(AP, 8/18/05)
2005 Aug 18, Andronico Luksic
(78), Chilean billionaire, died. His holding included beach resorts
in Croatia, where his father was born.
(SFC, 8/30/05, p.B4)
2005 Aug 18, China and Russia
began unprecedented joint military exercises involving air, sea and
land forces, as commanders from both nations insisted the war games
weren't meant to intimidate other countries.
(AP, 8/18/05)
2005 Aug 18, In rural Colombia
gunmen dragged a Catholic priest out of a classroom and shot him to
death, bringing to 3 the number of clergy killed there this week.
(AP, 8/19/05)
2005 Aug 18, Ecuador’s
president said protests have completely halted national oil
production despite imposition of emergency rule in 2 Amazon
provinces.
(WSJ, 8/19/05, p.A1)
2005 Aug 18, Egyptian police
detained Hassan el-Arishi, a suspected mastermind behind the July 23
deadly attacks in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheik.
(AP, 8/19/05)
2005 Aug 18, Pope Benedict XVI
began his first foreign trip as pontiff, leaving Rome to take part
in the Roman Catholic Church's World Youth Day in Cologne, Germany.
(AP, 8/18/05)
2005 Aug 18, In India the death
toll in an encephalitis outbreak in Uttar Pradesh rose to 90 with
more deaths being reported due to the water-born disease.
(AP, 8/18/05)
2005 Aug 18, In Iraq 4 American
soldiers were killed by a roadside bomb in Samarra, 60 miles north
of Baghdad. Jasim Waheeb, an investigative judge from Baghdad, was
shot to death with his.
(AP, 8/18/05)(SFC, 8/19/05, p.A3)
2005 Aug 18, Israeli forces
stormed the synagogue Neve Dekalim to remove about 1,500 protesters
inside. This was the main synagogue of the Gaza Strip Jewish
settlement and one of the last bastions of resistance to the Gaza
pullout.
(AP, 8/18/05)
2005 Aug 18, The three
IRA-linked fugitives who fled convictions in Colombia surrendered to
Irish police after eight months on the run.
(AP, 8/18/05)
2005 Aug 18, In Nicaragua
Miskito Indian leaders asked government and human rights
investigators to probe allegations that at least 150 of their people
were killed under the Sandinistas during the 1980s.
(AP, 8/18/05)
2005 Aug 18, Nigerian media
quoted Pres. Obasanjo as saying police violations "ranged from
extra-judicial killings to torture and unlawful detention." He
singled out an incident in June in which policemen in the capital,
Abuja, allegedly killed six people returning from a night outing
after branding them armed robbers. Six policemen were charged in the
killings. Among those accused is Danjuma Ibrahim, the second-ranking
policeman in the city.
(AP, 8/23/05)
2005 Aug 18, In Pakistan a
homemade bomb exploded near a polling station as clashes between
supporters of rival candidates in Pakistani municipal elections left
7 dead and 82 injured.
(AP, 8/19/05)
2005 Aug 18, In Peru US Defense
Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, seeking to promote stability in Latin
America, met with Pres. Alejandro Toledo.
(AP, 8/18/05)
2005 Aug 18, Saleh Mohammed
al-Aoofi, Al-Qaida's leader in Saudi Arabia, was killed along with 5
others during clashes with police in the western city of Medina.
Majed Hamed Abdullah al-Haasiri (29), who was No. 14 on a list of 36
most wanted terrorists sought for connection to terror attacks in
the kingdom dating back to 2003, was killed in a shootout with
police in Riyadh.
(AP, 8/18/05)(AP, 8/27/05)
2005 Aug 18, Western Sahara
guerrillas released their last Moroccan prisoners, 404 soldiers held
for up to 20 years from a long-ended war over the barren but
phosphate-rich region.
(AP, 8/18/05)
2005 Aug 18, In Uganda 222 MPs
voted in support at the third reading of the Constitution
(Amendment) (No.3) Bill, 2005, which seeks to remove presidential
term limits, among others. The number exceeded the required
two-thirds by 26 votes.
(www.newvision.co.ug/D/8/12/451331)
2005 Aug 18, A pride of lions
attacked a Japanese woman (50) visiting the Lion and Cheetah Park at
Norton, a Zimbabwe wildlife park. She died the next day.
(AP, 8/21/05)
2005 Aug 19, A Texas jury
awarded Carol Ernst, widow of Robert Ernst, $253 million charging
Merck Corp. liable for the heart-related death of Robert Ernst. $229
million was in punitive damages. Texas caps on punitive damages
reduced that figure to about $26 million; Merck planned to appeal.
(WSJ, 8/22/05, p.A1)(AP, 8/19/06)
2005 Aug 19, Morgan Stanley
said it will start trading Russian stocks, bonds and currency
instruments as early as next month as top investment banks flock to
the country to profit from its soaring markets.
(AP, 8/19/05)
2005 Aug 19, In California
Skylar James Deleon (26), a former child actor, was charged with
luring John Jarvi to Mexico in December of 2003, slitting his throat
and leaving the body by the side of a road. Deleon was already
facing trial for hijacking a yacht and throwing the owners overboard
in Nov 2004.
(Reuters, 8/20/05)
2005 Aug 19, Some 4,430
mechanics at Northwest Airlines, based in Eagan, Minnesota, went on
strike at midnight as a 30-day cooling off period expired. The
airline called for $176 million in concessions including 2,000 job
cuts.
(SFC, 8/20/05, p.A4)(SFC, 8/26/05, p.C3)
2005 Aug 19, An Alabama gas
station owner was run over and killed when he tried to stop a driver
from leaving without paying a $52 gas bill.
(SFC, 8/22/05, p.A3)
2005 Aug 19, Dennis Lynds (81),
mystery writer, died in Santa Barbara, Ca. His Dan Fortune private
eye series, written under the pseudonym Michael Collins, included
some 20 books.
(SFC, 8/26/05, p.B7)
2005 Aug 19, In Algeria Islamic
militants killed six hikers in the forests of Ravin Bleu in the
Batna region, 530 kilometers east of Algiers.
(AP, 8/21/05)
2005 Aug 19, Antonio Palocci,
Brazil’s finance minister, was accused of taking monthly payments
from a rubbish collection firm when he was mayor of Riberao Preta in
Sao Paulo state. The news caused speculators to dump Brazilian
bonds, shares and the real.
(Econ, 8/27/05, p.33)
2005 Aug 19, Indian troops
opened fire on Bangladeshi workers and soldiers to stop them
building a river embankment close to the border. Bangladeshi troops
fired back.
(AP, 8/21/05)
2005 Aug 19, In western
Bangladesh 2 suspected Maoist rebels were killed while a bomb they
were making exploded.
(AP, 8/20/05)
2005 Aug 19, Mo Mowlam (55),
British politician, died after hitting her head in a fall in
Canterbury, England. Her no-nonsense negotiating as Northern Ireland
secretary helped forge the province's landmark peace accord.
(AP, 8/19/05)(AP, 8/19/06)
2005 Aug 19, Pierre Nkurunziza
(40), a former Hutu rebel leader, was chosen by lawmakers as
Burundi's president, culminating an internationally mediated effort
that hopes to bring peace to a central African nation wrecked by a
dozen years of ethnic war.
(AP, 8/20/05)
2005 Aug 19, Eleven Colombian
soldiers were ordered arrested in the killing of an Indian tribal
leader who was dragged from his home and later found shot to death.
(AP, 8/20/05)
2005 Aug 19, The Danish
pump-making company Grundfos said that two of its employees accepted
bribes from Iraqi officials under the United Nations' tainted
oil-for-food program.
(AP, 8/20/05)
2005 Aug 19, Ecuador’s defense
minister quit.
(WSJ, 8/22/05, p.A1)
2005 Aug 19, In Germany Mounir
El Motassadeq (31), a Moroccan man accused of helping the Sept. 11
hijackers was convicted, of membership in a terrorist organization
but was acquitted of direct involvement in the attacks on the US. He
was sentenced to 7 years in prison.
(Reuters, 8/19/05)
2005 Aug 19, Pope Benedict XVI
warned of rising anti-Semitism and hostility to foreigners, winning
a standing ovation from members of Germany's oldest Jewish community
during a visit to a rebuilt synagogue that had been destroyed by the
Nazis.
(AP, 8/19/05)
2005 Aug 19, India’s Wadia
group, an industrial conglomerate best known for its textile brand
Bombay Dyeing, said it will launch a low-cost airline in October and
is in talks with Airbus and Boeing Co. to buy 50 new jets over the
next five to seven years.
(AP, 8/19/05)
2005 Aug 19, In Iraq gunmen in
Mosul abducted and publicly executed 3 Sunni Arab activists working
to encourage voter participation.
(SFC, 8/20/05, p.A7)
2005 Aug 19, Attackers fired at
least three rockets from Jordan, with one narrowly missing a US Navy
ship docked at Aqaba and killing a Jordanian soldier. It was the
most serious militant attack on the Navy since the USS Cole was
bombed in 2000.
(AP, 8/19/05)
2005 Aug 19, A Kurdish rebel
group fighting for autonomy in Turkey's southeast announced a
one-month cease-fire and said it planned to pursue indirect
negotiations with the government.
(AP, 8/20/05)
2005 Aug 20, Northwest Airlines
mechanics went on strike rather than accept pay cuts and layoffs;
Northwest hired replacement workers.
(AP, 8/20/06)
2005 Aug 20, With a deafening
boom, the ashes of gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson were blown
into the sky above Woody Creek, Colo.
(AP, 8/20/06)
2005 Aug 20, Thomas Herrion
(b.1981), San Francisco offensive lineman, collapsed in the locker
room and died in Denver, shortly after the 49ers played the Denver
Broncos in a preseason game. Herrion's was the NFL's first
football-related death since Vikings tackle Korey Stringer died of
heatstroke in 2001.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Herrion)(AP,
8/20/06)
2005 Aug 20, In southern
Afghanistan at least 20 people were killed and 28 others injured
when two buses collided on a highway.
(AFP, 8/20/05)
2005 Aug 20, Bangladesh was hit
by a nationwide strike called by the opposition to protest at a wave
of bombings earlier in the week linked to an Islamic extremist
group.
(AFP, 8/20/05)
2005 Aug 20, Bangladeshi and
Indian border guards negotiated a ceasefire, halting a gunbattle
that flared over disputed construction work along the frontier.
(Reuters, 8/20/05)
2005 Aug 20, Protesters
demanding the closure of an eastern China battery factory they say
is spewing lead into the environment clashed with police, and dozens
of people were injured.
(AP, 8/21/05)
2005 Aug 20, In Colombia a
leftist rebel group acknowledged that its fighters killed two
Catholic priests earlier this week, but said the killing was a
mistake and promised to punish those responsible.
(AP, 8/21/05)
2005 Aug 20, Cuba and Panama
restored diplomatic ties, one year after they were broken off in a
dispute sparked by the decision by Panama's previous president to
pardon four Cuban exiles accused of trying to assassinate Cuban
President Fidel Castro.
(AP, 8/20/05)
2005 Aug 20, In Cuba the Latin
American School of Medical Science, created as a regional initiative
in 1998 after two hurricanes devastated Caribbean and Central
American nations, graduated its first class of 1,500 students.
(AP, 8/21/05)(Econ, 1/27/07, p.35)
2005 Aug 20, A bomb detonated
by remote control killed at least three police officers in the
troubled southern Russian region of Dagestan and wounded several
more.
(AP, 8/20/05)
2005 Aug 20, Hundreds of German
far right extremists marched through Berlin and gathered for a rally
in former Nazi hotbed Nuremberg after a meeting to honor Adolf
Hitler's deputy Rudolf Hess was banned.
(Reuters, 8/20/05)
2005 Aug 20, In Haiti
black-uniformed riot police ordered all participants to lie down and
allowed hooded attackers to hack to death as many as 20 people
during a soccer tournament in the slum of Martissant.
(Econ, 9/3/05, p.36)
2005 Aug 20, Indian troops shot
dead a Hindu fighting for the biggest Islamic separatist rebel group
in Indian Kashmir.
(AFP, 8/20/05)
2005 Aug 20, In Iraq a US
soldier was killed by a roadside bomb in Baghdad.
(AP, 8/20/05)
2005 Aug 20, General Mathias
Doue, former head of the Ivory Coast armed forces, said that the
departure of Pres. Laurent Gbagbo is the condition for a return to
peace.
(Econ, 8/27/05, p.40)
2005 Aug 20, Libya will free
131 political prisoners, including members of the Muslim
Brotherhood, said Saif al-Islam, son of Libyan leader Muammar
Gaddafi, who heads a foundation dedicated to improving the country's
image.
(AP, 8/21/05)
2005 Aug 20, Palestinian leader
Mahmoud Abbas signed a decree appropriating Jewish settlement land
and scheduled elections for Jan 25. In a challenge to Abbas, dozens
of masked Hamas gunmen took over Gaza City's central square and
announced they would not stop attacks on Israel, despite Israel's
ongoing withdrawal from the Gaza Strip.
(AP, 8/20/05)(SSFC, 8/21/05, p.A13)
2005 Aug 20, Interfax reported
that health officials in the western Siberian region of Omsk may
have found the virus on a farm with up to 142,000 birds. Outbreaks
were already confirmed in 40 Russian villages across western
Siberia, while 78 other small settlements had suspected cases.
(Reuters, 8/20/05)
2005 Aug 20, The 184-pound
"Unspunnenstein," named after the site of Switzerland's most revered
stone-throwing contest, was stolen from a hotel in the central Swiss
city of Interlaken where it was on display before the competition
scheduled for Sept. 3-4.
(AP, 8/20/05)
2005 Aug 20, Paul Wolfowitz on
his first visit to India as World Bank president said the World Bank
would lend up to $3 billion a year over the next three years to
India for various development programs. The Bank lent $2.9 billion
to India in the financial year to June 2005, more than double $1.4
billion lent the year before, making Asia's third-largest economy
the multilateral lending institution's largest borrower.
(AP, 8/20/05)
2005 Aug 21-2005 Aug 22, US
federal authorities indicted 87 Asians and US citizens on charges of
smuggling counterfeit money, drugs and cigarettes into the US.
(SFC, 8/23/05, p.A3)
2005 Aug 21, Harvard scientists
said they have fused an adult skin cell with an embryonic stem cell
in a potentially dramatic development that could lead to the
creation of useful stem cells without first having to create and
destroy human embryos.
(AP, 8/22/05)(SFC, 8/22/05, p.A2)
2005 Aug 21, Robert Moog
(b.1934), developer of the music synthesizer (1964), died in NC. The
1968 hit record “Switched-On-Bach” by Walter Carlos (Wendy Carlos)
used the Moog synthesizer and Carlos used it to produce the
soundtrack for “A Clockwork Orange” (1971).
(SFC, 8/23/05, p.B5)(WSJ, 8/24/05, p.D10)(Econ,
9/3/05, p.77)
2005 Aug 21, Afghan forces and
US Marines killed more than 40 suspected militants in an operation
against insurgents in the Koregnal Valley, believed responsible for
twin attacks that killed 19 troops in June.
(AP, 8/22/05)
2005 Aug 21, A roadside bomb
killed four US soldiers and wounded three others as they patrolled
southern Afghanistan.
(AP, 8/21/05)
2005 Aug 21, Bangladeshi and
Indian border officials resolved a dispute over embankment building
on a river cutting across their frontier that led to heavy firing by
border troops.
(AP, 8/21/05)
2005 Aug 21, A merchant vessel
rescued 3 people north of Matanzas, Cuba, after 5 days at sea. No
one else was found. 31 people were believed killed in the Florida
Straits in their attempt to reach the US.
(AP, 8/26/05)
2005 Aug 21, Protests in
Ecuador's northeast Amazon region that brought oil production to a
halt were suspended after demonstrators and the government agreed to
a truce.
(AP, 8/21/05)
2005 Aug 21, Egyptian police
arrested 300 people as security forces deployed 2,100 men backed by
armored vehicles in the Sinai Peninsula for a massive sweep through
the rugged desert region in search of terrorists involved in a
series of recent bombings.
(AP, 8/22/05)
2005 Aug 21, Voting in eastern
Ethiopia ended peacefully, as elite forces, pro-government militia
and police patrolled streets to secure the region's delayed
elections. Dr. Berhanu Nega (b.1958) was elected mayor of Addis
Ababa. He was jailed in Kaliti Prison following riots in October
from where he authored a book entitled “Dawn of Freedom.”
(AP,
8/22/05)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berhanu_Nega)(Econ, 10/28/06,
p.56)
2005 Aug 21, Pope Benedict XVI
triumphantly ended his four-day trip to his native Germany,
celebrating an open-air Mass for a million people in Cologne.
(AP, 8/21/06)
2005 Aug 21, Thousands of
troops poured into four Gaza settlements, the final phase of
removing settlers from the coastal strip.
(AP, 8/21/05)
2005 Aug 21, Security forces
arrested 10 suspected militants from Pakistan's North Waziristan
region and recovered weapons, wigs and women's outfits from a fake
madrassa.
(AP, 8/22/05)
2005 Aug 21, In Scotland Rory
Blackhall (11), from Livingston in West Lothian, was found
asphyxiated.
(AFP, 8/23/05)
2005 Aug 22, During a speech in
Salt Lake City, President Bush compared the fight against terrorism
to both world wars and other great conflicts of the 20th century.
(AP, 8/22/06)
2005 Aug 22, The California
Supreme Court ruled that lesbian and gay partners who plan a family
and raise children should be considered legal parents after a
breakup.
(SFC, 8/23/05, p.A1)
2005 Aug 22, Connecticut sued
the federal government seeking relief from a requirement that it
scrap its own education testing program in favor of one the state
said will not help children but will cost millions.
(SFC, 8/23/05, p.A4)
2005 Aug 22, Religious
broadcaster Pat Robertson suggested that American agents assassinate
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to stop his country from becoming
"a launching pad for communist infiltration and Muslim extremism."
Robertson later apologized, saying he had spoken out of frustration.
(AP, 8/23/06)
2005 Aug 22, Harrah’s said it
has agreed to buy the Imperial Palace Hotel & Casino in Las
Vegas for $370 million.
(WSJ, 8/23/05, p.D6)
2005 Aug 22, Scientists
reported the development of a cancer-fighting compound that can
sneak past a protective blood barrier in the brain, enabling it to
fight brain cancer.
(AP, 8/22/05)
2005 Aug 22, A development
agency said nearly half of Asia's 1.27 billion children live in
poverty, deprived of food, safe drinking water, health or shelter.
(AP, 8/22/05)
2005 Aug 22, In southeastern
Bangladesh unusually high tides partially submerged two offshore
islands, forcing nearly 20,000 residents to flee their flooded
homes.
(AP, 8/22/05)
2005 Aug 22, The Greek Orthodox
Church in the Holy Land elected a new patriarch to succeed their
ousted leader, who fell from grace over a controversial east
Jerusalem land deal.
(AP, 8/22/05)
2005 Aug 22, Hours before a
midnight deadline, Shiites and Kurds reached an agreement on a draft
constitution and were trying to persuade Sunni Arabs to go along
with their compromises.
(AP, 8/22/05)
2005 Aug 22, Iraq's oil exports
were shut down by a power cut due to sabotage attacks 2 days
earlier. The shut down darkened parts of central and southern Iraq,
including the country's only functioning oil export terminals.
(AP, 8/22/05)
2005 Aug 22, The last Jewish
settlers left Gaza, making way for the Palestinian government.
(AP, 8/22/06)
2005 Aug 22, In Lebanon a
bombing wounded five people in Beirut.
(AP, 8/23/05)
2005 Aug 22, In southern Nepal
a land mine planted by suspected communist rebels killed at least
four police officers and injured three others.
(AP, 8/22/05)
2005 Aug 22, In Portugal
wildfires fanned by high winds burned out of control, destroying
more than 10 houses on the outskirts of Coimbra, Portugal's
third-largest city, forcing 50 people to leave their homes amid the
country's worst drought in years.
(AP, 8/22/05)
2005 Aug 22, Romania’s PM Calin
Tariceanu reshuffled his center-right government, replacing four
ministers including those in charge of finance and European
integration after criticism of several cabinet members.
(AP, 8/22/05)
2005 Aug 22, South Korea's Kia
Motors Corp. launched an assembly line producing its Spectra model
at a Russian factory.
(AP, 8/22/05)
2005 Aug 22, The brother of Sri
Lankan President Chandrika Kumaratunga was sworn in as foreign
minister to replace Lakshman Kadirgamar, assassinated by suspected
rebels.
(AP, 8/22/05)
2005 Aug 23, President Bush
said he understood the anguish of war protester Cindy Sheehan, but
said fulfilling demands like hers for withdrawal from Iraq would
weaken the US.
(AP, 8/23/06)
2005 Aug 23, The Bush
administration announced new rules for the corporate Average Fuel
Economy (CAFE) standards, first created in the 1970s.
(SFC, 8/24/05, p.A1)
2005 Aug 23, NYC said it will
install 1,000 surveillance cameras and 3,000 motion sensors in its
subways and rail stations in a new deal with Lockheed Martin.
(SFC, 8/24/05, p.A3)
2005 Aug 23, Brock Peters
(b.1927), who gave a heartbreaking performance as the black man
falsely accused of rape in "To Kill a Mockingbird," died. He began
his Hollywood career in the landmark productions of "Carmen Jones"
and "Porgy and Bess."
(AP, 8/24/05)
2005 Aug 23, In Arizona 2
employees were gunned down outside a Wal-Mart store in Glendale, a
Phoenix suburb. In 2009 Ed Liu, the accused gunman, was committed to
a mental hospital instead of a trial on murder charges. Liu
was accused of shooting Patrick Graham (35) and Anthony Spangler
(18) as they collected shopping carts.
(http://tinyurl.com/boc95v)(SSFC, 2/22/09, p.A8)
2005 Aug 23, In Richmond, Ca.,
Glenn Wilson (17) shot and killed Terence Lionel Martin, a
maintenance worker for the West Contra Costa School District, after
Martin tried to break up a fight between Wilson and his pregnant
girlfriend. In 2007 Wilson was convicted of 2nd degree murder and
faced up to 40 years in prison.
(SFC, 12/6/07,
p.B3)(http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4176/is_/ai_n15813134)
2005 Aug 23, In Aruba a court
ruled that lesbian couple has the right to register their marriage
rejecting a government appeal in a case that has exposed a cultural
rift between Holland and its former colony.
(AP, 8/23/05)
2005 Aug 23, Australians who
take drugs into Asia are stupid and should not expect to be bailed
out by the Australian government, PM John Howard said after another
two Australians were detained in Indonesia over drugs.
(Reuters, 8/23/05)
2005 Aug 23, Australia’s
government and moderate Muslim leaders pledged to join forces in the
fight against terrorism and blend Australian values with Islamic
teachings at mosques and schools.
(AP, 8/23/05)
2005 Aug 23, A British woman
who can only move her head, eyes and mouth sailed across the English
Channel and into the record books on board a modified boat she
controlled by sucking or blowing into straws.
(AFP, 8/23/05)
2005 Aug 23, China submitted
legislation to cut income taxes on its poorest workers.
(WSJ, 8/24/05, p.A9)
2005 Aug 23, Egypt's President
Hosni Mubarak vowed to work towards a long-envisaged free trade
agreement with the US as he called for stronger economic ties with
Washington.
(AFP, 8/23/05)
2005 Aug 23, A week of heavy
flooding in Western and Central Europe left at least 26 people dead.
(WSJ, 8/24/05, p.A1)
2005 Aug 23, India’s Lok Sabha
approved legislation which seeks to guarantee 100 days of employment
a year to every rural household across the country.
(AP, 8/23/05)
2005 Aug 23, In India an
apartment building collapse in downtown Bombay, killed 11 people,
injured 17 and left more than a dozen trapped under the rubble.
(AP, 8/23/05)
2005 Aug 23, Iraq's al-Qaida
wing claimed responsibility for the Aug 19 rocket attack that barely
missed U.S. warships docked in the Jordanian port of Aqaba.
(AP, 8/23/05)
2005 Aug 23, A US soldier, an
American contractor and five Iraqis were killed when a suicide
bomber detonated an explosive device in a city north of Baghdad.
(AP, 8/23/05)
2005 Aug 23, Israeli soldiers
cleared 2 militant strongholds without major violence, completing
the country's historic evacuation of 25 settlements in the Gaza
Strip and West Bank.
(AP, 8/23/05)
2005 Aug 23, Japanese
electronics giants Sony and Toshiba said they would go ahead with
incompatible formats for next-generation DVDs after talks to reach a
common standard failed.
(AP, 8/23/05)
2005 Aug 23, Stores across
Japan started taking orders for the Roborior, a watermelon-sized
eyeball on wheels that glows purple, blue and orange. Roborior can
function as a virtual guard dog that can sense break-ins using
infrared sensors, notify homeowners by calling their cellular
phones, and send the owner's cell phone videos from its digital
camera.
(AP, 8/23/05)
2005 Aug 23, Officials said
Nepal's main political parties will hold talks with Maoists on
forming a broad front against King Gyanendra provided the rebels
keep to their promise to stop killing civilians.
(AP, 8/23/05)
2005 Aug 23, TANS Peru Flight
204, a Boeing 737-200 with 100 people on board, split in two after
an emergency landing during a fierce storm, killing at least 41
people. The pilot tried to land in a marsh to soften the impact but
the landing split the aircraft in two. The plane was enroute from
Lima to Pucallpa and landed 20 miles from Pucallpa.
(AP, 8/24/05)
2005 Aug 23, UN officials
called on African ministers meeting in Mozambique to declare TB and
emergency in the area.
(WSJ, 8/24/05, p.A1)
2005 Aug 24, US military said
the Pentagon has ordered 1,500 additional troops to Iraq to provide
security in advance of two upcoming votes.
(AP, 8/24/05)
2005 Aug 24, A federal
commission voted against closing the New London submarine base in
Groton, Conn., and the Portsmouth shipyard in Kittery, Maine.
(AP, 8/24/06)
2005 Aug 24, Religious
broadcaster Pat Robertson apologized for calling for the
assassination of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.
(AP, 8/24/06)
2005 Aug 24, Hawaii planned
caps on rising gas prices effective Sep 1.
(WSJ, 8/25/05, p.A1)
2005 Aug 24, The New York Times
reported that officials in nine northeastern US states have reached
a preliminary agreement to freeze power plant emissions at their
current levels and then reduce them by 10 percent by 2020.
(AP, 8/24/05)
2005 Aug 24, Tropical
Depression 12 strengthened into Tropical Storm Katrina over the
central Bahamas; a hurricane warning was issued for the southeastern
Florida coast.
(AP, 8/24/06)
2005 Aug 24, In Dublin, Ga., a
girl shot, killed and robbed Fredrick Williams (25) and Reante
Stanley (26) after they had given her and a 14-year-old friend a
ride to a motel. The girls stole about $200 from the men. Lakeisha
Davis (15) of Dublin was charged with murder and armed robbery. The
14-year-old, who was not immediately identified, was tried in
juvenile court on a charge of theft. In 2008 Davis was sentenced to
life in prison.
(SFC, 8/26/05,
p.A3)(www.prisontalk.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-143798.html)
2005 Aug 24, In Afghanistan’s
Uruzgan province coalition aircraft killed 5 alleged insurgents
after a firefight with troops on the ground.
(AP, 8/25/05)
2005 Aug 24, The US-led
coalition and Afghan forces killed Payenda Mohammed, a suspected
Taliban commander and three of his fighters in the country's south.
(AP, 8/29/05)
2005 Aug 24, Strong
thunderstorms rolled through Argentina and Uruguay, slowing air
traffic, felling trees and leaving at least eight people dead.
(AP, 8/24/05)
2005 Aug 24, Brazilian police
arrested Francisco Antonio Cadena Collazzos, a Colombian man accused
of being an unofficial ambassador for Colombia's largest rebel
group.
(AP, 8/24/05)
2005 Aug 24, Brazilian
officials said an 80-year-old woman filmed drug traffickers near her
Copacabana beach apartment for two years and delivered 22 films to
police, triggering a massive raid against a slum drug gang. Police
arrested 15 suspected traffickers, including two Rio de Janeiro
state police officers.
(AP, 8/24/05)
2005 Aug 24, Jack Slipper (81),
Scotland Yard detective, died. He pursued one of the fugitives from
Britain's "Great Train Robbery" across many years and two
continents.
(AP, 8/24/05)
2005 Aug 24, Chinese share
prices surged after the government issued new market guidelines and
pledged to push ahead with shareholding reforms.
(AP, 8/24/05)
2005 Aug 24, In southern China
a bus swerved to avoid an oncoming bicycle and veered onto a
roadside crowded with pedestrians in Shenzhen, killing 19 people and
injuring 16.
(AP, 8/24/05)
2005 Aug 24, In northwest
Colombia suspected leftist guerrillas killed at least 14 peasant
farmers who were cultivating coca near Puerto Valdivia.
(AP, 8/25/05)
2005 Aug 24, Government
officials from Ecuador and Venezuela singed a preliminary agreement
by which Venezuela would lend Ecuador a million barrels of crude oil
between September and October. A loan of naphtha and diesel was also
part of the deal.
(WSJ, 8/25/05, p.A7)
2005 Aug 24, Egyptian security
forces besieging parts of rugged northern Sinai clashed with gunmen
and arrested 26 people during a massive search for suspects linked
to the recent attacks in the peninsula.
(AP, 8/24/05)
2005 Aug 24, Israel and Egypt
reached an agreement to have 750 Egyptian troops take control of a
volatile Egypt-Gaza border area from Israeli forces.
(AP, 8/24/05)
2005 Aug 24, A Hong Kong judge
ruled that laws against gay sex, including one that demands a life
sentence for men under 21 who engage in sodomy, are unconstitutional
and discriminatory.
(AP, 8/24/05)
2005 Aug 24, Officials in India
said the death toll from an outbreak of encephalitis in Uttar
Pradesh has increased to 178, with more than 60 deaths reported in
the past five days.
(AP, 8/24/05)
2005 Aug 24, Sunni insurgents
killed 13 people in a series of raids in Baghdad. Sadr fighters
attacked pro-government Badr militia and fighting raged in 5 cities.
(WSJ, 8/25/05, p.A1)
2005 Aug 24, Rumors of a coup
in Myanmar's ruling military junta weakened the Southeast Asian
nation's currency and boosted the price of gold in local trading.
(AP, 8/24/05)
2005 Aug 24, Palestinian
President Mahmoud Abbas said that the Israeli Army is expected to
leave the Gaza Strip by Oct. 4 at the latest.
(AP, 8/24/05)
2005 Aug 24, Jailed Russian
tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky lashed out at the Kremlin and announced
a hunger strike to support his business partner, Platon Lebedev, who
was moved into an isolation cell on Aug 19.
(AP, 8/24/05)
2005 Aug 24, The Global Fund to
Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria said it has suspended grants to Uganda
based on evidence of serious financial mismanagement.
(SFC, 8/25/05, p.A5)
2005 Aug 24, Venezuela
condemned American religious broadcaster Pat Robertson for
suggesting President Hugo Chavez should be killed, saying he
committed a crime that is punishable in the United States.
(AP, 8/24/05)
2005 Aug 24, In Vietnam a man
died of bird flu in Hanoi raising the regional toll to 62.
(WSJ, 9/1/05, p.A13)
2005 Aug 25, The US base
closing commission voted to shut down the Army’s historic Walter
Reed hospital as it endorsed much of Defense Secretary Donald H.
Rumsfeld’s broader plan to streamline support services across the
Army, Navy and Air Force.
(AP, 8/25/06)
2005 Aug 25, California sued 39
pharmaceutical companies for allegedly inflating prices.
(SFC, 8/26/05, p.A1)
2005 Aug 25, in Southern
California summer heat and the loss of key transmission lines forced
power officials to impose rolling blackouts, leaving as many as half
a million people without power for an hour at a time.
(AP, 8/25/05)
2005 Aug 25, Hurricane Katrina
plodded across South Florida and left 4 people dead.
(AP, 8/26/05)
2005 Aug 25, A joint
U.S.-Afghan patrol spotted a rebel observation post and A-10
warplanes and attack helicopters were called in, killing five
suspected militants.
(AP, 8/25/05)
2005 Aug 25, Thousands of
Chinese and Russian troops wrapped up their historic first joint
military exercises with a mock invasion by paratroopers on China's
east coast. The eight-day exercises with 7,000 Chinese troops and
1,800 Russians underscored growing military ties between the former
Cold War enemies.
(AP, 8/25/05)
2005 Aug 25, In China Monsignor
Xie Shiguang (88), the bishop of Mingdong, died of leukemia. He was
first arrested in 1955 by Chinese authorities "because of his
loyalty and obedience to the pope," and released a year later. He
was next arrested in 1958 and stayed in jail until his release in
1980. Xie was also jailed from 1984-1987, and finally for two years
starting in 1990, and was kept under surveillance by authorities
until his death.
(AP, 8/27/05)
2005 Aug 25, Two Egyptian
police officers were killed in a bomb blast in the northern Sinai.
(AFP, 8/25/05)
2005 Aug 25, Haiti recalled its
top diplomat to the Dominican Republic after 3 Haitian migrants were
beaten and burned to death in an attack that has added to growing
tensions between the uneasy Caribbean neighbors.
(AP, 8/25/05)
2005 Aug 25, In India more than
two dozen people died of encephalitis in Uttar Pradesh, taking the
toll from an outbreak in the region over 200.
(AP, 8/25/05)
2005 Aug 25, UNICEF said a
measles outbreak on Indonesia's Sumba island has killed five
children and sickened 711 others.
(AP, 8/25/05)
2005 Aug 25, In an illegal
overflight an American Hermes aircraft crashed 125 miles inside
Iranian territory in the Khoram Abad area.
(AP, 11/8/05)
2005 Aug 25, The bodies of 36
men were discovered in Kut, southeast of Baghdad, on a road leading
to Iran. On Aug 29 a leader of Iraq's largest Sunni political group
blamed Shiite-led security forces for the deaths of 36 Sunnis found
shot in the head and said such acts could have unforeseen
consequences.
(AP, 8/25/05)(SFC, 8/26/05, p.A12)(AP, 8/29/05)
2005 Aug 25, An Israeli
military raid on the West Bank refugee camp of Tulkarem left five
militants dead. Palestinians said at least two of the dead were
unarmed teenagers who were neighbors of the wanted men but didn't
belong to any militant group. An Orthodox Jewish man was stabbed to
death in Jerusalem.
(AP, 8/25/05)
2005 Aug 25, In central Mexico
a rain-swollen river overflowed its banks and flooded the town of
Aguililla, leaving five people dead and five others missing.
(AP, 8/26/05)
2005 Aug 25, Clashes between
rival political gangs in Pakistan left 11 people dead and dozens
more injured as voters went to the polls in the second round of key
local elections.
(AP, 8/25/05)
2005 Aug 25, In Mozambique
regional health ministers unanimously agreed to declare tuberculosis
an African emergency.
(AP, 8/26/05)
2005 Aug 25, African ministers
and international donors unveiled a 1.1-billion-dollar (894 million
euro) strategy to boost catches, build fish farms and develop the
seafood sector after a high-level meeting of the New Partnership for
Africa’s Redevelopment (NEPAD) Fish for All Summit, in Abuja,
Nigeria.
(AP, 8/25/05)(www.nepad.org/)
2005 Aug 25, In the southern
Russian city of Nazran 2 bombs exploded, wounding the
second-highest-ranking official in the mostly Muslim region of
Ingushetia and killing his driver, in what was described as an
assassination attempt.
(AP, 8/25/05)
2005 Aug 25, Two bombs exploded
on a roadside in Ingushetia, wounding the southern Russian
republic's prime minister in an apparent assassination attempt.
(AP, 8/25/05)
2005 Aug 25, In Sweden robbers
toting automatic weapons crashed a tractor through the wall of a
Securitas compound in a Stockholm suburb. Swedish media reported
that the robbers got away with 60 million kronor (euro6.4 million,
US$7.86 million), which would make it one of the largest cash
robberies ever in the country. 2 men, aged 35 and 32, were arrested
Sep 15 in northern Stockholm on suspicion of involvement in the
robbery.
(AP, 9/16/05)
2005 Aug 25, Rescue workers
began evacuating more people from submerged sections of the Swiss
capital as central and southern Europe struggled with the aftermath
of flooding that has killed at least 42 people.
(AP, 8/25/05)
2005 Aug 25, Rebels in northern
Uganda ambushed a truckload of civilians that included school
children and killed 7 people, prompting an army counterattack that
left three rebels dead.
(AP, 8/28/05)
2005 Apr 26, Florida’s Gov.
Bush signed legislation giving people the right to meet “force with
force,” effective Oct 1. Utility crews in South Florida scrambled to
restore power to more than 1 million customers blacked out by
Hurricane Katrina, which continued to churn in the Gulf of Mexico.
(SFC, 4/27/05, p.A5)(AP, 8/26/06)
2005 Aug 26, In SF the new
Int’l. Hotel, with 88 studio and 16 one-bedroom apartments,
re-opened at 848 Kearny Street. Over 50 tenants from the original
“I-Hotel” were evicted Aug 4, 1977. 12 people from the original
hotel were 1st in line as 7,500 applicants vied for apartments.
(SFC, 8/27/05, p.B1)
2005 Aug 26, In eastern
Afghanistan a bomb killed a US service member and wounded four when
it exploded near their armored vehicle in Paktika province.
(AP, 8/27/05)
2005 Aug 26, Fire raced through
a crowded Paris apartment building housing African immigrants,
trapping residents in their sleep and killing 17 people, most of
them believed to be children.
(AP, 8/26/05)
2005 Aug 26, India’s
Maharashtra government planned to ban most plastic bags, blaming
them for choking drains and causing floods a month ago that left
more than 1,000 people dead.
(Reuters, 8/26/05)
2005 Aug 26, In India nearly
5,000 people held a rally as shops and businesses shut down in
Amritsar, the hometown of Sarabjeet Singh facing death by hanging in
Pakistan for allegedly spying. They demanded clemency and his
immediate return home.
(AP, 8/26/05)
2005 Aug 26, In India 24 people
were drowned when flash floods inundated hundreds of villages around
a commercial town in Uttar Pradesh.
(AP, 8/27/05)
2005 Aug 26, In Indian Kashmir
at least 15 people, including three soldiers, were wounded when
suspected Islamist rebels threw five grenades at different places in
Sopore. 4 people, including 2 militants, were killed in separate
shootouts across the region in the past 24 hours.
(AP, 8/26/05)
2005 Aug 26, An Iranian
daredevil died while attempting to break the world record for
jumping over buses on a motorcycle. Javad Palizbanian (44) was
trying to leap over 22 buses parked side-by-side when his motorbike
came down on the 13th bus.
(AP, 8/28/05)
2005 Aug 26, Shiite
negotiators, prodded by Pres. Bush, offered what they called their
final compromise proposal to Sunnis Arabs to try to break the
impasse over Iraq's new constitution.
(AP, 8/26/05)
2005 Aug 26, In Iraq US
warplanes launched multiple airstrikes against a suspected
"terrorist safe house" in the western Anbar province, destroying the
building where up to 50 militants were believed to be hiding.
(AP, 8/26/05)
2005 Aug 26, A Pakistani
military court sentenced five men to death for their roles in a 2003
suicide plot to kill President Gen. Pervez Musharraf.
(AP, 8/26/05)
2005 Aug 26, Jailed Russian
tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky ended his nearly weeklong hunger strike
after hearing that his business partner Platon Lebedev was
transferred from solitary confinement to a regular cell.
(AP, 8/26/05)
2005 Aug 26, In Kazan, Russia,
tens of thousands of Tatars, Russians and others packed the main
square for a gala concert to celebrate the millennial anniversary of
the Volga River city.
(AP, 8/26/05)
2005 Aug 26, The first South
Korean tourists visited historic sites in Kaesong, North Korea, set
to become only the 2nd destination in the communist nation that can
be visited by ordinary citizens of its southern neighbor.
(AP, 8/27/05)
2005 Aug 26, Sri Lanka's
Supreme Court ruled that President Chandrika Kumaratunga's final
term expires in December, ending her controversial 11-year reign and
clearing the way for a vote before November 21.
(AP, 8/26/05)
2005 Aug 26, The UN food relief
agency said that it's battling to feed 90,000 Eritrean and Ethiopian
refugees displaced in eastern Sudan mainly due to a serious funding
shortfall.
(AP, 8/27/05)
2005 Aug 27, President Bush
asked Americans in his weekly radio address to be patient with the
US military mission in Iraq as thousands of pro-Bush and anti-war
demonstrators competed for attention in his tiny hometown of
Crawford, Texas.
(AP, 8/27/06)
2005 Aug 27, US Federal Reserve
Chairman Alan Greenspan said US home prices could fall as the
housing surge "inevitably" slows. He cast doubt on central banks'
ability to sway such asset values.
(Reuters, 8/28/05)
2005 Aug 27, John Dobson,
Connecticut-based telescope inventor, celebrated his 90th birthday
in SF at the Randall Museum.
(SFC, 8/26/05, p.B1)
2005 Aug 27, Coastal residents
jammed freeways and gas stations as they rushed to get out of the
way of Hurricane Katrina, which was headed toward New Orleans.
(AP, 8/27/06)
2005 Aug 27, Sunni negotiator
Fakhri al-Qaisi said that the Sunnis have submitted
counter-proposals on the constitution to the parliament speaker and
will meet later with the U.S. ambassador.
(AP, 8/27/05)
2005 Aug 27, The US military
has released nearly 1,000 prisoners from Abu Ghraib prison after
Iraqi authorities requested that they be set free.
(AP, 8/27/05)
2005 Aug 27, Kyodo News said
Kenichi Shinoda, an ex-gang boss in Nagoya and formerly the
Yamaguchi-gumi's number-two, became the sixth head of the
90-year-old yakuza gang in a ceremony in the western port city of
Kobe. Japan's biggest underworld syndicate, the Yamaguchi-gumi,
formally appointed its new don, marking the first change of power
for the dreaded group in 16 years.
(AP, 8/27/05)
2005 Aug 27, A drive-by
shooting in Kosovo killed two Serbs and wounded two more. Serbia's
PM Vojislav Kostunica blamed the shooting on ethnic Albanians.
(AP, 8/29/05)
2005 Aug 27, North Korea
demanded the US rescind its recent appointment of a special envoy on
human rights in the communist country, warning the position could
hurt international efforts to end the North's nuclear weapons
program. Washington announced last week that Jay Lefkowitz, a former
adviser to President Bush, will be in charge of promoting efforts to
"improve the human rights of the long-suffering North Korean
people."
(AP, 8/27/05)
2005 Aug 27, Stanislaw Dziwisz
(66), Pope John Paul II's longtime aide, was installed as archbishop
of Krakow.
(AP, 8/27/05)
2005 Aug 27, UN member states
agreed to let about 30 nations take the lead in trying to resolve
major differences over an action plan world leaders can adopt at
next month's summit.
(AP, 8/27/05)
2005 Aug 28, In Louisiana Mayor
Ray Nagin ordered an immediate evacuation for all of New Orleans, a
city sitting below sea level with 485,000 inhabitants, as Hurricane
Katrina bore down with wind revved up to nearly 175 mph and a threat
of a massive storm surge.
(AP, 8/28/05)
2005 Aug 28, West Oahu of Ewa
Beach, Hawaii, won the Little League World Series title with a 7-6
win over the defending champions from Willemstad, Curacao.
(AP, 8/28/06)
2005 Aug 28, In Afghanistan 6
rebels died in a clash with Afghan police.
(AP, 8/29/05)
2005 Aug 28, Bangladesh said it
may reduce its work week from 6 to 5 days and raise fuel prices to
control soaring energy costs that have strained its economy.
(AFP, 8/28/05)
2005 Aug 28, A committee of
China’s male-dominated parliament amended the Law on the Protection
of the Rights and Interests of Women. It made sexual harassment of
women unlawful and stipulated that equality between men and women is
a basic state policy.
(Econ, 9/3/05, p.38)
2005 Aug 28, Egyptian
authorities released senior Muslim Brotherhood member Mahmoud Ezzat
after holding him without trial for more than three months. 8 other
jailed members of the banned Muslim Brotherhood also were ordered
freed.
(AP, 8/28/05)
2005 Aug 28, India’s PM
Manmohan Singh, the first Indian premier to visit Afghanistan in
nearly 3 decades, pledged with Afghan President Hamid Karzai to
battle terrorism amid rising violence in the war-battered country.
(AFP, 8/28/05)
2005 Aug 28, In Afghanistan
suspected Taliban rebels killed a candidate running in next month's
legislative elections.
(AP, 8/28/05)
2005 Aug 28, Militants attacked
a joint patrol by Afghan and U.S.-led coalition forces near Kabul,
and an ensuing firefight left one suspected rebel dead and two
others wounded.
(AP, 8/30/05)
2005 Aug 28, The French civil
aviation authority made public for the 1st time a list on its
Internet site of airlines banned to land due to safety reasons. They
included: Air Koryo of North Korea; Air St. Thomas of the U.S.
Virgin Islands; International Air Services of Liberia; Thailand's
Phuket Airlines; and Linhas Aereas de Mocambique and Transairways,
both from Mozambique.
(AP, 8/29/05)
2005 Aug 28, Aasiya Andrabi,
Indian Kashmir's leading female separatist, formed a squad to raid
brothels and appealed to people for help in reporting cases of
adultery.
(AP, 8/28/05)
2005 Aug 28, Iran rejected what
it termed conditional negotiations with Europe over Tehran's nuclear
program and said it wanted instead to have talks with the UN's
international nuclear watchdog agency.
(AP, 8/28/05)
2005 Aug 28, Iraqi negotiators
finished the country's new constitution without the endorsement of
Sunni Arabs who helped prepare it, dealing a blow to the Bush
administration and setting the stage for a bitter campaign leading
up to an October referendum.
(AP, 8/28/05)
2005 Aug 28, A Reuters
television sound technician was killed and a cameraman was injured
while trying to cover a Baghdad gunbattle involving insurgents and
US troops. Police said the men were fired on by American forces. In
2008 a Pentagon report concluded that death of the Reuters
journalist was justified.
(AP, 8/28/05)(WSJ, 6/18/08, p.A1)
2005 Aug 28, In Israel Omri
Sharon, the oldest son of PM Ariel Sharon, was indicted on
corruption charges in connection with 1999 fund-raising activities
for one of his father's election campaigns.
(AP, 8/28/05)
2005 Aug 28, In Israel a
suicide bomber blew himself up outside the central bus station in
Beersheba during morning rush hour, critically wounding two security
guards.
(AP, 8/28/05)
2005 Aug 28, In the Philippines
a bomb stashed in a pack of clothes exploded on a ferry in Basilan
as it was loading passengers, injuring at least 30 people, including
nine children.
(AP, 8/28/05)
2005 Aug 28, A Jewish student
was attacked by 7 young men near the Central Synagogue School in
Kiev, where he studied. He remained in a coma after 2 days and
Ukraine's Pres. Yushchenko condemned the brutal beating and ordered
senior officials to take personal control of the case.
(AP, 8/30/05)
2005 Aug 29, In NYC 8 former
executives of the KPMG accounting firm were indicted for fraud. KPMG
admitted setting up fraudulent tax shelters and agreed to pay $456
million in penalties.
(SFC, 8/30/05, p.C3)
2005 Aug 29, A Connecticut man
known on the Internet as "illwill" pleaded guilty in Manhattan
federal court to charges relating to the theft of the source code to
Microsoft Corp.'s Windows operating software, considered among the
company's crown jewels. William Genovese, Jr. (28) admitted selling
the source code for Windows 2000 and Windows NT 4.0. On January 27,
2006, he was sentenced to 2 years in jail.
(AP,
8/29/05)(www.usdoj.gov/criminal/cybercrime/genovesePlea.htm)
2005 Aug 29, Hurricane Katrina
hit the Gulf Coast near Buras, La., as a Category 3 storm. Katrina
ripped two holes in the curved roof of the Louisiana Superdome,
letting in rain as thousands of storm refugees huddled inside. In
Mississippi many of the 13 floating casinos in Biloxi and Gulfport
smashed historic homes and buildings. The Grand Casino Biloxi
destroyed the historic Hotel Tivoli. Storm surges and winds from
Katrina unleashed at least 40 oil spills and some 193,000 barrels of
oil and other petrochemicals were driven across fragile marshy
ecosystems southeast of New Orleans. The death toll from Katrina
eventually reached at least 1,600. An estimated 300 Louisiana
residents died out of state; some 230 people perished in
Mississippi. Property damage estimates were in the hundreds of
billions of dollars.
(SFC, 9/6/05, p.A1)(WSJ, 9/23/05, p.A1)(WSJ,
3/21/06, p.A1)(AP, 8/29/06)(Econ, 9/6/08, p.36)
2005 Aug 29, In New Orleans 34
people died at a Tenet Healthcare hospital after Hurricane Katrina
knocked out power and the temperature inside the building rose to
more than 100 degrees Fahrenheit (38 degrees Celsius). The
hospital’s windows couldn’t be opened. On July 22, 2011, a
judge approved a $25 million class-action settlement over the deaths
of the patients. The Dallas-based company settled 11 other cases
over Katrina.
(SFC, 7/23/11, p.A4)(http://tinyurl.com/4kbb8dp)
2005 Aug 29, An oil rig tore
free of its moorings as Hurricane Katrina lashed the Alabama coast,
before surging downriver and smashing into a suspension bridge. 92%
of crude and 83% of natural gas production were shut down, as Gulf
of Mexico rigs were evacuated.
(AFP, 8/30/05)
2005 Aug 29-2005 Sep 5, The
annual Burning Man Festival in Nevada planned to introduce BORG2, an
event within the main event concentrating on art projects.
(SSFC, 1/2/05, p.A20)
2005 Aug 29, Jude Wanniski
(b.1936), economist and journalist, died. He coined the term
supply-side economics in 1975 to describe the theory that cutting
personal income tax rates would lead to increased investment and
create economic growth. In 1978 he authored “The Way the World
Works.”
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jude_Wanniski)(WSJ,
9/1/05, p.A1)
2005 Aug 29, Ontario became the
1st province in Canada to ban the pit bull dog. The pit bull was
already banned in several cities across Canada. In the US it was
already banned in Denver, Miami and Cincinnati.
(SFC, 8/30/05, p.A2)
2005 Aug 29, Egypt's
intelligence chief met Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas to shore up
the strained cease-fire with Israel and discuss freedom of movement
across Gaza's borders.
(AP, 8/29/05)
2005 Aug 29, In France
firefighters said 7 people, including 4 children, died in an
apartment fire in Paris.
(AP, 8/30/05)
2005 Aug 29, Thousands of Sunni
demonstrators rallied in Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit to
denounce Iraq's new constitution a day after negotiators finished
the new charter without the endorsement of Sunni Arabs.
(AP, 8/29/05)
2005 Aug 29, In northern Iraq a
US Army helicopter made a forced landing under hostile fire, and one
soldier was killed and another injured.
(AP, 8/29/05)
2005 Aug 29, In Sri Lanka
attackers on a bicycle hurled grenades at a Tamil-language newspaper
office in the capital of Colombo, killing a security guard.
(AP, 8/29/05)
2005 Aug 29, A Swedish nuclear
power plant shut down one of its three reactors because of an
abnormal accumulation of jellyfish in the cooling system.
(AP, 8/29/05)
2005 Aug 29, The Rev. Jesse
Jackson met with President Hugo Chavez in hopes of reducing tensions
between the US and Venezuela after religious broadcaster Pat
Robertson called for the assassination of Chavez.
(AP, 8/30/05)
2005 Aug 30, A US Congressional
study said the US is the largest supplier of weapons to developing
nations, delivering more than $9.6 billion in arms to Near East and
Asian countries last year.
(AP, 8/30/05)
2005 Aug 30, A US federal court
ordered Palestinian Authority assets in the US frozen in order to
pay a $116 million judgement for the 1996 killing of an American in
Israel.
(WSJ, 8/31/05, p.A1)
2005 Aug 30, The death toll in
Mississippi from Hurricane Katrina passed 100. Flooding reached 11
feet in Mobile, Ala. Breaches in at least 2 levees from Lake
Pontchartrain put parts of New Orleans under 20 feet of water. Mayor
Ray Nagin estimated that 80% of New Orleans was flooded. Tourists
snapped pictures of looters in the French Quarter.
(AP, 8/30/05)(SFC, 8/31/05, p.A10)
2005 Aug 30, Afghan and U.S.
ground troops, backed by attack helicopters, raided a Taliban camp
in the mountains of southern Afghanistan, killing nine suspected
militants.
(AP, 8/31/05)
2005 Aug 30, In Australia
protesters demanding an end to the Iraq war and a cut in Third World
debt broke through a steel fence around the Sydney Opera House at
the start of the Forbes Global CEO Conference.
(AP, 8/30/05)
2005 Aug 30, Australia and New
Zealand lobbied the United Nations Security Council to indict
Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe and his government in the
International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity.
(AP, 8/30/05)
2005 Aug 30, Britain announced
plans, the first by any Western country, to ban the downloading and
possession of violent sexual images.
(AP, 8/30/05)
2005 Aug 30, In China tobacco
smugglers from Shangdeng were intercepted by authorities from nearby
Yantang and 2 smugglers ended up killed. Shangdeng residents sacked
the Yantang City Hall in response.
(SFC, 12/9/05, p.A25)
2005 Aug 30, It was reported
that China's top lender, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, is
selling a 10 percent stake to investment bank Goldman Sachs,
American Express and the German insurer Allianz. ICBC is also
shedding $17.3 billion in bad loans to prepare for an overseas
listing.
(AP, 8/31/05)(Econ, 9/3/05, p.67)
2005 Aug 30, In Germany
Berlin's mayor Klaus Wowereit defended his decision to welcome a
leather and fetish enthusiasts to the German capital and accused his
conservative critics of being "small-minded."
(AP, 8/30/05)
2005 Aug 30, India and Pakistan
agreed to release hundreds of fishermen and other civilians in each
other's jails, a goodwill measure that comes as part of a peace
process between the two countries.
(AP, 8/30/05)
2005 Aug 30, US warplanes
launched strikes in western Iraq which killed an al Qaeda militant
named Abu Islam among other fighters. A hospital source said at
least 47 people were killed.
(Reuters, 8/30/05)
2005 Aug 30, Lebanon's PM Fuad
Saniora said the commander of the Presidential Guards, three former
security chiefs and a former lawmaker are suspects in the Feb 14
assassination of former PM Rafik Hariri.
(AP, 8/30/05)
2005 Aug 30, The UN said it was
alarmed by the rising number of disappearances in Nepal's civil war
and blamed both government troops and Maoist rebels. The state
National Human Rights Commission said since 1996 almost 1,000 people
had disappeared in the conflict. The 2005 UN report said no less
than 136 people had disappeared in 2004.
(AP, 8/30/05)(Econ, 11/19/05, p.45)
2005 Aug 30, Nicaragua's
highest court granted former President Arnoldo Aleman conditional
release from house arrest, overturning the ruling of a previous
court.
(AP, 8/30/05)
2005 Aug 30, In the Philippines
impeachment proceedings against President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo
fell into chaos, as opposition lawmakers walked out of a committee
hearing and claimed her backers were unjustly trying to quash the
case.
(AP, 8/30/05)
2005 Aug 30, South Africa's
foreign ministry called a halt to its role as peace mediator in
strife-torn Ivory Coast, saying it was in "no mood" to consider new
demands from rebels threatening to boycott October elections.
(AP, 8/30/05)
2005 Aug 30, South Korea rolled
out its first supersonic trainer jet as President Roh Moo-Hyun vowed
to boost the country's aerospace and defense industries.
(AP, 8/30/05)
2005 Aug 30, UN officials said
the 9 UN agencies involved in the oil-for-food program have agreed
to pay Iraq about $40 million in oil proceeds they received in 2003
to finish their work but never spent.
(AP, 8/30/05)
2005 Aug 30, Zimbabwe lawmakers
endorsed a constitutional overhaul that sharply restricts property
rights and allows Zimbabwe's government to deny passports to its
critics.
(AP, 8/30/05)
2005 Aug 31, The Bush
administration said it will release oil from federal petroleum
reserves to help refiners affected by Hurricane Katrina. New Orleans
Mayor Ray Nagin said there was a significant number of dead bodies
in the water'' following Hurricane Katrina; Nagin ordered virtually
the entire police force to abandon search-and-rescue efforts and
instead stop thieves who were becoming increasingly hostile.
President Bush pledged to do all in our power'' to save lives and
provide sustenance but cautioned that recovery of the Gulf Coast
would take years.
(AP, 8/31/05)(AP, 8/31/06)
2005 Aug 31, At least 25,000 of
Hurricane Katrina's refugees, a majority of them at the New Orleans
Superdome, began traveling in a bus convoy to Houston and will be
sheltered at the 40-year-old Astrodome, which hasn't been used for
professional sporting events in years. New Orleans Mayor Nagin
called for a total evacuation. He said hundreds were dead and
ordered police to stop looters.
(AP, 8/31/05)(SFC, 9/1/05, p.A1)
2005 Aug 31, Theodore Sarbin
(b.1911), noted UC Berkeley psychology professor, died. In 1990 he
co-wrote the report “Gays in Uniform: The Pentagon’s Secret
Reports,” which prompted Pres. Clinton’s policy of “don’t ask, don’t
tell.”
(SFC, 9/3/05, p.B4)
2005 Aug 31, Militants
kidnapped David Addison, a British engineer, and his interpreter
after an attack in western Afghanistan that left at least three
policemen dead. Addison’s body was found Sep 3.
(AP, 9/1/05)(Reuters, 9/3/05)
2005 Aug 31, Joseph Rotblat
(b.1909), Polish-born British physicist and Nobel Peace Prize winner
(1995), died in London. In 1957 he helped found the Pugwash
Conference on science and world affairs.
(SFC, 9/2/05, p.B5)
2005 Aug 31, The Chinese
government signed an agreement with the UN human rights agency to
collaborate on reforming China's legal system in preparation for
adopting a key UN treaty on civil and political rights.
(AP, 8/31/05)
2005 Aug 31, A government
newspaper reported that China is suspending production at 7,000 coal
mines, nearly one-third of the nationwide total, in a safety
crackdown on the accident-plagued industry.
(AP, 8/31/05)
2005 Aug 31, Indonesia's
President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said the government needs to cut
fuel subsidies, in effect raising gasoline prices for the public, to
lift the nation's beleaguered currency and stave off an economic
crisis.
(AP, 8/31/05)
2005 Aug 31, Indonesia released
hundreds of Acehnese rebel prisoners, honoring a major concession in
a recent peace deal and triggering tearful reunions as the former
inmates returned to their tsunami-devastated homeland.
(AP, 8/31/05)
2005 Aug 31, In Iraq panic
engulfed thousands of Shiites marching across a bridge in a
religious procession after rumors spread that a suicide bomber was
about to attack, triggering a stampede that killed over 960 people.
Hundreds of thousands of Shiites had been marching across the
bridge, which links Baghdad's Shiite Kazimiyah district with heavily
Sunni Azamiyah. They were heading for the tomb of Imam Mousa
al-Kadhim (d.799), an 8th century Shiite saint, about a mile from
the span.
(AP,
9/1/05)(http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4203784.stm)
2005 Aug 31, In Iraq a US
soldier was shot to death in Iskandariya.
(SFC, 9/3/05, p.A3)
2005 Aug 31, In the Ivory Coast
a UN peacekeeper was killed in a knife attack in a northern rebel
stronghold of the war-divided country.
(AP, 8/31/05)
2005 Aug 31, A new report said
police last January in Papua New Guinea had collared a teen
suspected of picking the pocket of a soldier and dispensed their own
justice. The officers beat him, slammed his head into a truck and
burned him.
(AP, 9/1/05)
2005 Aug 31, In the Philippines
a congressional committee voted to quash all impeachment complaints
against President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo with the opposition
boycotting.
(AP, 8/31/05)
2005 Aug 31, In Russia Mikhail
Khodorkovsky, the billionaire oil tycoon who was sentenced to nine
years' imprisonment in a politically charged trial this year, said
he will run for a seat in the national parliament.
(AP, 8/31/05)
2005 Aug 31, Some 200 Somalis
and Ethiopians left Somalia's semiautonomous Puntland region in two
boats. Smugglers making the illegal crossing from Somalia to Yemen
forced passengers into the Red Sea at gunpoint 10 miles from the
Yemeni coastline, leaving at least 57 dead and about 100 missing.
(AP, 9/5/05)
2005 Aug 31, A South African
inventor unveiled a new anti-rape female condom that hooks onto an
attacker's penis and aims to cut one of the highest rates of sexual
assault in the world.
(Reuters, 8/31/05)
2005 Aug 31, Conservationists
in South Africa unveiled a $30 million plan to save the great apes
of Africa, which are under threat of extinction from man and
disease. The plan designated 12 sites in five countries for
emergency programs: Cameroon, Gabon, Congo, Central African
Republic, and Equatorial Guinea.
(AP, 8/31/05)
2005 Aug 31, In Spain tens of
thousands of people armed with 100 tons of plum tomatoes took part
in the "Tomatina," joyously splattering each other in the town of
Bunol.
(AP, 8/31/05)
2005 Aug 31, Orhan Pamuk, a
Turkish novelist, was charged with insulting his country's national
character and could face prison. In February Pamuk was quoted as
saying in an interview with a Swiss newspaper magazine:
"Thirty-thousand Kurds and one million Armenians were killed in
these lands and nobody but me dares to talk about it."
(AP, 8/31/05)
2005 Aug 31, Zimbabwe state
television said the country has paid back 120 million dollars of its
300-million-dollar (245-million-euro) debt to the International
Monetary Fund (IMF), which had threatened to expel Harare for
arrears.
(AFP, 8/31/05)
2005 Aug, The Chicago Sun Times
exposed a “hired truck” scandal wherein Chicago paid politically
connected truck owners to do little or no work. A federal
investigation found that many city department hiring practices were
rigged. Federal officials questioned Mayor Richard M. Daley for 2
hours.
(Econ, 9/3/05, p.33)
2005 Aug, Sheik Khalifa, ruler
of Abu Dhabi, signed Law No. 19, which formally abandoned the old
property regime and permitted the sale of freehold rights by
citizens and in certain areas 99-year leases by foreigners.
(WSJ, 10/21/05, p.A10)
2005 Aug, A report, only made
public in 2008, marked confidential and bearing the official seal of
Spain's Defense Ministry charged that Pakistan's spy service was
helping arm Taliban insurgents for assassination plots against the
Afghan government.
(AP, 10/1/08)
2005 Aug, Iraq’s interim
administration under Ibrahim al-Jaafari passed Decree 8750, which
provided for state control of the finances of all of Iraq’s trade
unions.
(Econ, 5/6/06, p.47)
2005 Aug, Researchers in Tokyo
announced their fabrication of flexible webs of plastic the include
temperature and pressure sensors suitable for use a e-skin for
robots.
(Econ, 8/20/05, p.63)
2005 Aug, The UN appealed for
$88 million to feed the people of Malawi. The World Bank said it
would give $30 million.
(Econ, 10/8/05, p.55)
2005 Aug, In Nigeria Amaka
Anajemba was sentenced to 2 1/2 years in prison and ordered to
return $25.5 million of the $242 million she helped to steal from a
Brazilian bank.
(AP, 8/7/05)
2005 Aug, OPEC’s oil output hit
a 26-year peak and began declining.
(WSJ, 3/4/06, p.A2)
2005 Aug, Paraguay’s Pres.
Nicanor Duarte Frutos backed a bill to seize some land and buildings
held by Rev. Sun Myung Moon’s Unification Church.
(Econ, 8/13/05, p.32)
2005 Aug, Saudi Arabia granted
a 15% pay raise to government employees, their 1st pay raise in 22
years.
(Econ, 1/7/06, Survey p.11)
2005 Aug, Mikhail Yevdokimov,
the governor of the Altai region of Siberia, was killed when the
speeding car he was riding in smashed into a tree after colliding
with the car driven by Oleg Shcherbinsky. In 2006 Shcherbinsky was
sentenced to four years in a labor camp for his role in the car
crash. Shcherbinsky had testified that the governor was traveling at
least 125 mph and that he had no time to avoid the collision.
(AP, 2/13/06)
2005 Aug, Turkey sold a 55%
share in Turk Telecom to Saudi Oger and Telecom Italia for $6.55
billion.
(Econ, 9/17/05, p.64}
2005 Aug, In Caracas,
Venezuela, 3 male students were shot to death while dropping off a
friend at her home in a dangerous slum. In 2006 a court sentenced 19
soldiers and five police to prison terms of 10 to 30 years in the
shooting deaths of the 3 students.
(AP, 8/31/06)
2005 Sep 1, The United States
slapped extra curbs on Chinese imports, hours after talks on a
formula to deal with China's surging textile shipments ended in
failure.
(AP, 9/1/05)
2005 Sep 1, New Orleans Mayor
Ray Nagin issued "a desperate SOS" as anger mounted across the
ruined city, with thousands of Hurricane Katrina victims
increasingly hungry, desperate and tired of waiting for buses to
take them out. New Orleans descended into anarchy, as corpses lay
abandoned in street medians, fights and fires broke out and storm
survivors battled for seats on the buses that would carry them away
from the chaos. Fights and trash fires broke out at the hot and
stinking Superdome and anger and unrest mounted across New Orleans,
as National Guardsmen in armored vehicles poured in to help restore
order across the increasingly lawless and desperate city.
(AP, 9/1/05)(AP, 9/1/06)
2005 Sep 1, The California
Senate approved a bill to legalize same-sex marriage.
(SFC, 9/2/05, p.A1)
2005 Sep 1, A SF jury awarded
$27 million to the family of Elizabeth Dominguez (4), who was killed
on Feb 11, 2003, when she was hit by a Muni truck at Potrero Ave and
24th. SF appealed and settled the case in 2008 for $21 million.
(SFC, 9/2/05, p.B1)(SFC, 3/6/08, p.B2)
2005 Sep 1, It was reported
that 13% (64 of 490) of the female students at Timken Senior High
School in, Canton, Ohio are pregnant. One girl, eight months
pregnant, said she believes the school's abstinence-based sex
education program isn't enough.
(AP,
9/1/05)(http://cantonrep.com/index.php?ID=238435)
2005 Sep 1, The Swiss firm
Novartis AG said it is offering $4.5 billion in cash for the
remaining stake in Chiron Corp. to complete its takeover of the
US-based biotech company.
(AP, 9/1/05)
2005 Sep 1, In Afghanistan the
bodies of 2 Japanese tourists were found. The two Japanese teachers,
technical arts teacher Jun Fukusho (44), and female English teacher
Shinobu Hasegawa (30), had been missing for 3 weeks.
(AFP, 9/3/05)
2005 Sep 1, in Afghanistan
Taliban insurgents stabbed to death Mullah Amir Akhund, a
pro-government Islamic cleric, in Helmand province.
(AP, 9/3/05)
2005 Sep 1, Opposition leader
Sali Berisha's coalition was officially declared winner of Albania's
July 3 parliamentary elections, following weeks of delays in
confirming final results.
(AP, 9/1/05)
2005 Sep 1, Al-Qaida's No. 2
made the terror group's first direct claim of responsibility for the
July 7 bombings in London in a videotape.
(AP, 9/1/06)
2005 Sep 1, Nearly 600,000
people were evacuated as Typhoon Talim plowed into southern China,
forcing authorities to shut down schools, highways and airports.
(AP, 9/1/05)
2005 Sep 1, The European
Commission proposed new rules for the 25 European Union nations to
establish common standards on immigration and asylum.
(AP, 9/1/05)
2005 Sep 1, A Hong Kong jury
convicted Nancy Kissel of murdering her wealthy investment banker
husband in Nov, 2003, by drugging him with a milkshake laced with
sedatives and beating him to death in their luxury apartment. She
received a mandatory life sentence.
(AP, 9/1/05)
2005 Sep 1, Iraq hanged three
convicted murderers, the first executions since the 2003 ouster of
Saddam Hussein. 2 US soldiers were killed by a roadside bomb in
Baghdad.
(AP, 9/1/05)(SFC, 9/3/05, p.A3)
2005 Sep 1, In Japan Tokyo’s
Keio University Hospital received a bomb threat linked to demands
that its medical school increase their admissions. 10 other major
university hospitals received similar threats but no explosives were
found.
(AP, 9/5/05)
2005 Sep 1, Libyan authorities
pardoned 1,675 Libyan and foreign prisoners serving time for minor
crimes to mark the 36th anniversary of the revolution, which brought
Colonel Muammar Gaddafi to power.
(AP, 9/3/05)
2005 Sep 1, President Vicente
Fox, in his last state-of-the-nation address, urged citizens to stay
committed to Mexico's newfound democracy and to remind them that
they are in charge of the nation's future.
(AP, 9/2/05)
2005 Sep 1, The foreign
ministers of Israel and Pakistan, a Muslim country that has long
taken a hard line against the Jewish state, met publicly for the
first time, a diplomatic breakthrough that both ministers linked to
Israel's withdrawal from the Gaza Strip.
(AP, 9/1/05)
2005 Sep 1, In Italy a summer
music hit has sparked a war of words between left-wingers and
neo-fascists who claim the Colombian pop song, "La camisa negra"
("The black shirt"), as their anthem.
(AP, 9/1/05)
2005 Sep 1, In Peru Wilbert
Elqui Meza was convicted and sentenced to 30 years in prison for a
2002 car bombing that killed 10 people outside the U.S. Embassy.
Meza was the only one of eight defendants convicted of carrying out
the attack. 2 women received 20-year sentences and a third women was
handed a 25-year sentence for belonging to the Shining Path,
Maoist-oriented rebel group. Four others were acquitted of all
charges.
(AP, 9/3/05)
2005 Sep 1, Typhoon Talim left
Taiwan leaving 3 people killed and 59 injured. Strong winds and
heavy rains, forced offices, schools and financial markets to close.
(AP, 9/1/05)
2005 Sep 1, Turkey insisted
that it has fulfilled conditions for EU membership, as foreign
ministers of the 25-nation group started meeting in Wales to assess
the predominantly Muslim nation's efforts to join the bloc.
(AP, 9/2/05)
2005 Sep 1, Vadim Kouznetsov,
the chair of a powerful UN budget committee, was arrested by the FBI
on money laundering charges. Kouznetsov, who heads the General
Assembly panel that oversees the UN budget, was the 2nd Russian UN
official to be arrested by the FBI for alleged money laundering in
recent weeks. On Aug. 8, Alexander Yakovlev, a Russian who worked in
the UN procurement office, was arrested for allegedly soliciting a
bribe from a company seeking an oil-for-food contract.
(AP, 9/2/05)
2005 Sep 1, The UN said a
cholera epidemic spreading across West Africa has sickened tens of
thousands of people this year and killed nearly 500 amid a long-term
deterioration in health services in one of the world's poorest
regions.
(AP, 9/1/05)
2005 Sep 1, Venezuelan leader
Hugo Chavez offering planeloads of soldiers and aid workers to help
American victims of Hurricane Katrina, while at the same time taking
aim at the US government for its handling of the crisis. He called
Bush "the king of vacations" and noted he had been at his Texas
ranch and when the storm hit and didn't provide leadership.
(AP, 9/1/05)
2005 Sep 2, Pres. Bush made a
tour of damages from Hurricane Katrina in Alabama, Mississippi and
New Orleans. He acknowledged that current relief results were not
acceptable. A National Guard convoy packed with food, water and
medicine rolled into New Orleans to bring relief suffering
multitudes and put down the looting and violence. Scorched by
criticism about sluggish federal help, President Bush acknowledged
the government's failure to stop lawlessness and help desperate
people during a daylong tour of the Gulf Coast. During a live TV
benefit concert, rapper Kanye West went off-script to sharply
criticize Bush.
(SFC, 9/3/05, p.A1)(AP, 9/2/05)(AP, 9/2/06)
2005 Sep 2, FEMA signed a
6-month contract with Carnival Cruise Lines for 3 ships to help in
relief operations from Hurricane Katrina at a cost of $236 million.
(SFC, 9/28/05, p.A12)
2005 Sep 2, In New Orleans
Henry Glover (31) was shot and killed by police, who then burned his
body. In 2010 a US federal grand jury indicted 3 current and 2
former New Orleans police officers in the shooting of Henry Glover
(31). On Dec 9, 2010, former officer David Warner was found guilty
of manslaughter. Officer Gregory McRae was found guilty of burning
Glover’s body in a car.
(SFC, 6/12/10, p.A9)(SFC, 12/10/10, p.A14)
2005 Sep 2, The US Labor
Department reported the August unemployment rate was 4.9%, a
four-year low.
(AP, 9/2/06)
2005 Sep 2, Machinists at
Boeing Co. went on a nearly monthlong strike.
(AP, 9/2/06)
2005 Sep 2, Davis Crippen (75),
technical manual editor, died in Piermont, New York. From 1939 he
had amassed a comic book collection that was valued in the millions.
(WSJ, 8/5/06, p.A1)(http://tinyurl.com/jly4g)
2005 Sep 2, Bob Denver (70), TV
and film star, died. He played the beatnik Maynard G. Krebs on “The
Many Loves of Dobbie Gillis” TV series (1959), and Willie Gilligan
on “Gilligan’s Island” (1964-1967).
(SFC, 9/7/05, p.B7)
2005 Sep 2, The National
Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases awarded the University
of Hawaii a grant of nearly $25 million for the construction of a
regional biocontainment laboratory. The lab will conduct biodefense
and emerging infectious disease research.
(AP, 9/3/05)
2005 Sep 2, Suspected Taliban
gunmen kidnapped a district government chief, a candidate for
legislature and three other people after ambushing their vehicle in
southern Afghanistan.
(AP, 9/3/05)
2005 Sep 2, The African Union
said it is suspending peacekeeper deployments to Sudan's war-torn
western Darfur region for nearly three weeks due to lack of jet fuel
and heavy rains.
(AP, 9/2/05)
2005 Sep 2, A powerful storm
packing winds of up to 70 mph slammed into southern Brazil, killing
and least one person and injuring five others.
(AP, 9/2/05)
2005 Sep 2, Bulgaria said it
has begun preparations to withdraw its 400 troops from Iraq.
(AP, 9/2/05)
2005 Sep 2, The US Embassy in
Cambodia said the US has established a $2 million endowment (DC-Cam)
to assist a Cambodian group researching crimes committed by the
Khmer Rouge government in the late 1970s.
(AP, 9/2/05)
2005 Sep 2, China said it plans
to end a 1998 prohibition on direct sales on Dec. 1, clearing the
way for such companies as Avon Products Inc. to expand into its
booming market for cosmetics and other consumer products.
(AP, 9/2/05)
2005 Sep 2, China’s government
said torrential rains and flooding from Typhoon Talim killed at
least 10 people and left 15 missing in eastern China.
(AP, 9/2/05)
2005 Sep 2, Provisional results
indicated that Ethiopia's ruling party won all 31 seats being
contested in repeat elections following fraud allegations.
(AP, 9/2/05)
2005 Sep 2, EU governments said
Europe will dip into its emergency stocks of gasoline to help the US
through an energy crisis due to Hurricane Katrina.
(Reuters, 9/2/05)
2005 Sep 2, French police
evicted about 140 mainly African squatters, some sobbing or
screaming, from two dilapidated buildings in Paris as authorities
began a sweep of dwellings deemed fire hazards following two deadly
blazes.
(AP, 9/2/05)
2005 Sep 2, Some 5,000 US and
Iraqi troops launched an assault at Tal Afar and at least 30
insurgents were killed.
(SFC, 9/3/05, p.A3)
2005 Sep 2, Israel's vice
premier, Ehud Olmert, said Israel has frozen plans to expand its
largest West Bank settlement and will only revive the project with
US consent.
(AP, 9/2/05)
2005 Sep 2, Premier Silvio
Berlusconi's Cabinet approved a reform program for Italy's central
bank that includes a seven-year fixed term for the Bank of Italy
governor.
(AP, 9/2/05)
2005 Sep 2, Former Nepali PM
Girija Prasad Koirala vowed to intensify anti-king protests, a day
after he won a 3rd term as chief of Nepal's oldest political party,
the Nepali Congress.
(AP, 9/2/05)
2005 Sep 2, Russia's President
Vladimir Putin said the Beslan school siege would be thoroughly
investigated to establish whether official incompetence contributed
to the deaths of 331 hostages.
(AP, 9/2/05)
2005 Sep 2, Two Russian
citizens formerly held at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo
Bay, Cuba, were released from custody after investigators found no
evidence of their involvement in terrorism-related activity.
(AP, 9/2/05)
2005 Sep 2, A bomb exploded in
a pile of garbage in the capital of the southern Russian region of
Dagestan, killing a serviceman and wounding five others who had been
searching for explosives.
(AP, 9/2/05)
2005 Sep 2, In South Korea an
apparent gas explosion sparked a fire at a public bathhouse
building, killing at least five people and injuring 43 others.
(AP, 9/2/05)
2005 Sep 2, A team of South
Korean scientists said they have developed a new technology that
could open the way to make new devices that could replace current
silicon-based semiconductors. The team led by Kim Hyun-Tak of the
Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI) said
they had successfully manufactured a "Mott Insulator, named after
Sir Nevill Mott, a British scientist who won the 1977 Nobel Physics
Prize.
(AFP, 9/2/05)
2005 Sep 2, Syrian troops
clashed with members of the Jund al-Sham Islamic militant
organization in the northern city of Hama. Five militants were
killed.
(AP, 9/3/05)
2005 Sep 3, President Bush
ordered more than 7,000 active duty forces to the Gulf Coast as his
administration intensified efforts to rescue survivors and send aid
to the hurricane-ravaged Gulf Coast in the face of criticism it did
not act quickly enough.
(AP, 9/3/05)
2005 Sep 3, In Nevada over
35,000 people gathered in the Black Rock Desert for the 20th burning
of the Burning Man.
(SFC, 9/3/05, p.A25)
2005 Sep 3, US Chief Justice
William H. Rehnquist (80), 33 years on the Supreme Court died in
Arlington, Va. He oversaw the high court's conservative shift and
presided over the impeachment trial of President Clinton.
(AP, 9/4/05)(Econ, 9/10/05, p.83)
2005 Sep 3, Chinese President
Hu Jintao postponed his official visit to Washington next week due
to Hurricane Katrina.
(AP, 9/3/05)
2005 Sep 3, An Egyptian court
ruled that non-governmental groups will be allowed to monitor the
nation's first multi-candidate presidential election next week.
(AP, 9/3/05)
2005 Sep 3, Volkswagen said it
plans to cut 10,000 jobs from its workforce over the next few years
as it reduces production.
(AP, 9/3/05)
2005 Sep 3, In eastern India 23
policemen and a civilian were killed in a powerful landmine blast
triggered by suspected Maoist rebels in Chhattisgarh state.
(Reuters, 9/6/05)
2005 Sep 3, Insurgents launched
a series of assaults in Baquba, Kirkuk and Samarra, killing at least
28 people.
(AP, 9/3/05)(SSFC, 9/4/05, p.A22)
2005 Sep 3, In Tlacotepec,
Mexico, 75 miles north of Acapulco, fireworks stored at a building
that also illicitly sold gasoline exploded, killing seven people and
injuring four.
(AP, 9/3/05)
2005 Sep 3, Communist rebels in
Nepal said that they were unilaterally suspending attacks for the
next three months.
(AP, 9/3/05)
2005 Sep 3, Hamas' secretive
military wing emerged from hiding, naming commanders and detailing
how they attacked Israelis as part of a competition with the
Palestinian Authority over who will get credit for Israel's pullout
from Gaza.
(AP, 9/3/05)
2005 Sep 3, The Gulf emirate of
Qatar announced it will donate 100 million dollars to relief efforts
for the US victims of Hurricane Katrina. The funds included a $17.5
million grant to Xavier University in New Orleans, which serves
mostly black Americans.
(AFP, 9/3/05)(Econ, 9/9/06, p.48)
2005 Sep 3, It was reported
that Venezuela’s worker co-operatives under Pres. Chavez had
increased from less than 1000 in 1998 to an estimated 67,000.
(Econ, 9/3/05, p.34)
2005 Sep 4, US Health and Human
Services Secretary Michael Leavitt said the death toll from
Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath is in the thousands.
(AP, 9/4/05)
2005 Sep 4, In New Orleans
police killed at least 4 people, who allegedly shot at contractors.
The official Louisiana state death toll due to Hurricane Katrina
stood at 59 but the number was expected to rise to thousands. In
2008 federal officials opened an investigations into shootings on
the Danziger Bridge where 2 people were killed and 4 wounded. In
2010 former Lt. Michael Lohman pleaded guilty to conspiring to
obstruct justice. He and others filed false reports to make the
shootings on the Danziger Bridge seem justifiable. On April 16,
2010, officer Robert Barrios was charged with conspiring to obstruct
justice in relation to the bridge shootings.
(SFC, 9/5/05, p.A1)(SFC, 10/1/08, p.A5)(SFC,
2/25/10, p.A4)(SFC, 4/17/10, p.A4)
2005 Sep 4, European Union and
NATO said the US has asked for emergency assistance, requesting
blankets, first aid kits, water trucks and food for the victims of
Hurricane Katrina.
(AP, 9/4/05)
2005 Sep 4, In southern
Afghanistan 13 suspected Taliban fighters were killed in fighting
with US and Afghan forces in Kandahar province. More than 40
suspected militants were arrested.
(AP, 9/5/05)
2005 Sep 4, In France fire
ripped through a high-rise apartment building south of Paris,
killing 16 people, two of them children. 4 people were detained in
connection with the suspected arson attack. 3 teenage girls
confessed to starting the fire.
(AP, 9/4/05)(AP, 9/5/05)
2005 Sep 4, In Iraq US troops
killed 7 insurgents in Tal Afar, including six who fired at the
Americans from a mosque.
(AP, 9/5/05)
2005 Sep 4, The oil-rich
Persian Gulf state of Kuwait said it will donate $500 million in aid
to U.S. relief efforts after Hurricane Katrina.
(AP, 9/4/05)
2005 Sep 4, In Nepal police
fired tear gas and used bamboo batons to stop pro-democracy
demonstrators from marching into the capital's center, arresting
former PM Girija Prasad Koirala (80) and dozens of other protesters.
(AP, 9/4/05)
2005 Sep 4, Pakistan's
opposition called for a country-wide strike to press their demand
for the resignation of President Pervez Musharraf.
(AP, 9/4/05)
2005 Sep 4, Russian President
Vladimir Putin sacked navy chief Admiral Vladimir Kuroyedov. The
military faced criticism over its handling of a mini-submarine
accident last month.
(AP, 9/4/05)
2005 Sep 4, Saudi Arabia said
it had signed a bilateral free trade agreement with the US.
(www.bilaterals.org/article.php3?id_article=2640)
2005 Sep 4, In eastern Saudi
Arabia police fought running gun battles with al-Qaida militants in
Dammam in clashes that killed two extremists and a police officer.
The militants aimed to attack oil facilities.
(AP, 9/4/05)(WSJ, 2/25/06, p.A1)
2005 Sep 4, In Turkey a group
of nationalist Turks attacked dozens of buses carrying pro-Kurdish
demonstrators with stones, following violent clashes between Kurdish
demonstrators and police in Istanbul.
(AP, 9/4/05)
2005 Sep 5, President Bush
nominated John Roberts (50) to succeed William H. Rehnquist as chief
justice and called on the Senate to confirm him before the Supreme
Court opens its fall term on Oct. 3. Roberts could shape the court
for decades to come. President Bush and Louisiana Gov. Kathleen
Blanco, during a Gulf Coast tour, consoled Hurricane Katrina victims
and thanked relief workers.
(AP, 9/5/05)(AP, 9/5/06)
2005 Sep 5, A nuclear-powered
US Navy submarine collided with a Turkish cargo ship in the Persian
Gulf. Nobody was injured and both ships appeared to suffer only
superficial damage.
(AP, 9/5/05)
2005 Sep 5, Jerry Rice ended an
NFL career that included three Super Bowls and records for most
career receptions, receiving yards and receiving touchdowns.
(AP, 9/5/06)
2005 Sep 5, Taylor Behl (17), a
Virginia Commonwealth University student, disappeared. Her body was
found in Mathews County, about 70 miles east of Richmond, a month
later. Behl’s body was found in a shallow grave with the help of
photos on Benjamin Fawley’s Web site. In 2006 Fawley (39) was
sentenced to 30 years in prison for her death.
(AP, 8/10/06)
2005 Sep 5, In the town of
Soelden, Austria, a 1,500-pound chunk of concrete being used for
construction at a ski resort fell from a helicopter and hit a
gondola cable, hurling dozens of passengers to the ground and
killing 9 Germans. In 2006 the helicopter pilot was convicted of
criminal negligence and sentenced to 15 months in prison.
(AP, 9/5/05)(AP, 6/23/06)
2005 Sep 5, China said the
death toll from last week's Typhoon Talim climbed by 13 to at least
95 on the mainland, with another 30 people missing.
(AP, 9/5/05)
2005 Sep 5, China and the EU
reached an agreement to unblock some 77 million garments held up at
European borders after Chinese textile imports broke through 2005
quota limits.
(AP, 9/5/05)
2005 Sep 5, Suspected rebels
dynamited six energy pylons, leaving more than 2.3 million people in
southwestern Colombia without electricity.
(AP, 9/6/05)
2005 Sep 5, In eastern Congo a
Russian-made airplane crashed in the forest, killing 7, including 3
Russian crew members.
(AP, 9/5/05)
2005 Sep 5, In Egypt an actor
knocked over a candle on a stage filled with billowing paper,
starting a blaze that killed at least 32 people at the Culture
Palace in Beni Suef.
(AP, 9/6/05)
2005 Sep 5, In Egypt a bus in
Abu Swaylim village collided with a car and then plunged into a
canal, killing 7 people, leaving at least 5 missing and presumed
drowned, and injuring 14.
(AP, 9/5/05)
2005 Sep 5, In Indonesia a
domestic jetliner slammed into a crowded neighborhood after taking
off from Medan, bursting into flames and killing at 143 people
including 44 on the ground. 18 passengers survived the crash,
including an 18-month-old boy.
(AP, 9/6/05)(AP, 9/5/06)
2005 Sep 5, Insurgents launched
a surprise attack on Baghdad's heavily guarded Interior Ministry
building, killing two police officers and wounding several others.
In southern Iraq, two British soldiers were killed by a roadside
bomb. In the northern city of Tal Afar, bodies of 3 district leaders
were found. The 3 had turned down demands by insurgents to cooperate
in their fight with US and Iraqi forces. 8 Iraqi civilians,
including 5 children, were killed in fighting there. Another 25
Iraqi civilians died in other incidents in Baghdad, Baqouba and
elsewhere.
(AP, 9/5/05)
2005 Sep 5, Kashmir's main
political separatist alliance started peace talks with the Indian
prime minister, seeking trust and an easing of harsh military
controls in the troubled region.
(Reuters, 9/5/05)
2005 Sep 5, Kosovo President
Ibrahim Rugova (1944-2006), linked for decades to the ethnic
Albanian majority's anti-Serb struggle, said he has lung cancer, but
he pledged to stay in office as the U.N.-run province nears crucial
talks on its future.
(AP, 9/5/05)
2005 Sep 5, Kyrgyzstan
President Kurmanbek Bakiyev said that his Central Asian nation will
allow the US military base on its territory for as long as necessary
to bring stability to Afghanistan, but he also said the rent will
increase.
(AP, 9/5/05)
2005 Sep 5, In Nepal more than
a dozen demonstrators were hurt in violent clashes with police, the
3rd day of protests against King Gyanendra's seizure of power seven
months ago. Authorities released more than 50 pro-democracy
protesters detained over the weekend.
(AP, 9/5/05)
2005 Sep 5, Nigerian unions
dropped a threat to hold a nationwide general strike but instead
vowed to launch a series of mass street rallies to protest against
rising petrol prices.
(AFP, 9/5/05)
2005 Sep 5, An explosion
destroyed a house after nightfall in Gaza City, killing four people
and injuring at least 30. It belonged to a well-known family of
supporters of the Islamic militant group Hamas, but the Israeli
military denied having anything to do with the blast.
(AP, 9/5/05)
2005 Sep 5, UBS said it will
sell three of Switzerland's oldest private banks and asset manager
GAM to Julius Baer for 5.6 billion Swiss francs ($4.6 billion), to
enable it to focus on its own private banking business.
(AP, 9/5/05)
2005 Sep 5, In the Ukraine
Oleksandr Zinchenko, a close aide to President Viktor Yushchenko who
was a chief organizer of the "Orange Revolution" protests, said he
had resigned from the government because of systemic corruption.
(AP, 9/6/05)
2005 Sep 5, A Venezuela
official said a state governor allied to leftist Pres. Hugo Chavez
has ordered troops to seize an abandoned tomato-processing plant
owned by the H.J. Heinz Co.
(AP, 9/5/05)
2005 Sep 6, Pres. Bush said the
US government could end up spending as much as $200 billion to care
for the victims of Hurricane Katrina. President Bush and Congress
pledged to open separate investigations into the sluggish federal
response to Hurricane Katrina and New Orleans' broken levees.
(WSJ, 9/7/05, p.A1)(AP, 9/6/06)
2005 Sep 6, New Orleans Mayor
C. Ray Nagin instructed law enforcement officers and the US military
to evacuate all holdouts for their own safety. He warned that the
fetid water could spread disease and that natural gas was leaking
all over town.
(AP, 9/6/05)
2005 Sep 6, The California
Legislature became the first legislative body in the nation to
approve same-sex marriages, but Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger later
vetoed the bill.
(SFC, 9/7/05, p.A1)(AP, 9/6/06)
2005 Sep 6, The SF Board of
Education voted to invoke a compatibility clause as schools
Superintendent Arlene Ackerman resigned. She said she would remain
until June 30, 2006.
(SFC, 9/7/05, p.B1)
2005 Sep 6, The Wikipedia,
which surged this year to become the most popular reference site on
the Web, was fast overtaking several major news sites as the place
where people swarm for context on breaking events. The online
encyclopedia, based in St. Petersburg, Fla., was written entirely by
volunteers.
(Reuters, 9/6/05)(SFC, 12/6/05, p.A1)
2005 Sep 6, Jack Real (90),
aviation pioneer, died in Ca. He helped develop the Apache
helicopter and wrote the book “The Asylum of Howard Hughes” (2003)
about his friendship with billionaire Howard Hughes.
(SFC, 9/15/05, p.B7)(http://tinyurl.com/7bsk4)
2005 Sep 6, Australia staged a
high seas arrest of a Cambodian-flagged ship with an international
crew suspected of fishing illegally in sub-Antarctic waters.
(AFP, 9/10/05)
2005 Sep 6, In Australia Donna
Fitchett (46) murdered her 2 sons aged 9 & 11. She was first
convicted in 2008 and sentenced to 24 years prison. She appealed her
conviction and was granted a retrial in May, 2010. A jury again
found her guilty after she admitted drugging her sons and then
strangling one and smothering the other. On Sep 1, 2010, she was
sentenced her to 27 years in prison.
(AP, 9/1/10)
2005 Sep 6, In Brazil thousands
of anti-corruption demonstrators rallied in Sao Paulo, demanding
harsh punishment for politicians caught up in a bribery scandal
shaking the administration of President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
(AP, 9/6/05)
2005 Sep 6, China’s state media
reported that Muslim separatists in western China have carried out
260 attacks in the past decade, killing 160 people and injuring 440.
(AP, 9/6/05)
2005 Sep 6,
Eugenia Charles (b.1919), former PM of Dominica (1980-1995), died.
She invited Ronald Reagan to invade Grenada in 1983.
(SFC, 9/8/05, p.B7)(Econ, 9/17/05, p.90)
2005 Sep 6, Dominican Republic
legislators overwhelmingly approved a free-trade agreement with the
US and five Central American countries, rejecting arguments that the
pact would devastate the domestic sugar industry. The other five
countries are Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and
Nicaragua. Costa Rica and Nicaragua had not yet ratified the pact.
(AP, 9/6/05)
2005 Sep 6, In Iraq US Marine
jets attacked two bridges across the Euphrates River near the Syrian
border to prevent insurgents from moving foreign fighters and
munitions toward Baghdad and other cities. 2 US troops were reported
killed in a roadside bombing in Baghdad.
(AP, 9/6/05)(WSJ, 9/7/05, p.A1)
2005 Sep 6, Israel said it its
has authorized construction of 117 homes in one of the West Bank's
largest settlements and approved preliminary plans for another 3,000
housing units there, despite repeated US appeals to freeze
settlement expansion.
(AP, 9/6/05)
2005 Sep 6, Italy's Fiat SpA is
to launch a new version of its Punto, Fiat's most popular model. The
company has sold 6 million Puntos since launching the car in 1993.
In 1997 the Punto became the best-selling car in Europe, with
600,000 models sold.
(AP, 9/5/05)
2005 Sep 6, Nine countries:
Antigua, Belize, Grenada, Guyana, Dominica, Suriname, St. Kitts, St.
Vincent and the Dominican Republic, signed oil deals with Venezuela
in Jamaica. Cuba and Jamaica had previously signed. Chavez urged
Caribbean governments to consider Cuba-style socialism as an
alternative to capitalism.
(AP, 9/11/05)
2005 Sep 6, In Jamaica
opposition-led protests left one person dead.
(WSJ, 9/8/05, p.A1)
2005 Sep 6, Japan said it had
completed the 20-year privatization of the nation's biggest
telecommunications company.
(AP, 9/6/05)
2005 Sep 6, Typhoon Nabi lashed
southern Japan and South Korea driving more than 300,000 people from
their homes. At least 9 people were killed, and 16 people were
missing, including two in South Korea.
(AP, 9/6/05)
2005 Sep 6, Pakistan said it
has sent 9,500 more troops to the border with Afghanistan to prevent
infiltration by militants intent on disrupting Afghan elections
later this month.
(AP, 9/6/05)
2005 Sep 6, Rwanda said Maj.
Gen. Laurent Munyakazi has been arrested on suspicion of playing a
key role in the 1994 genocide in which more than half a million
Tutsis and moderates from the Hutu majority were killed.
(AP, 9/6/05)
2005 Sep 6, Father Guy Theunis,
a Belgian priest, was arrested in Rwanda on suspicion of involvement
in the 1994 genocide. Judicial sources said Theunis was accused of
republishing extracts of items from an extremist magazine known as
"Kangura" which they said incited hatred and violence.
(AP, 9/8/05)
2005 Sep 6, Saudi security
forces stormed a villa in Dammam where Islamic militants were holed
up, ending 3 days of fierce fighting that killed 4 policemen and a
number of militants.
(AP, 9/6/05)
2005 Sep 6, Lars Erik
Petersson, former chief executive of Sweden's largest insurer,
Skandia, was charged with fraud for allegedly handing out large
bonuses to other executives without board approval.
(AP, 9/6/05)
2005 Sep 7, President Bush led
the nation in a final tribute to William H. Rehnquist, remembering
the 16th chief justice as the Supreme Court’s steady leader and a
man of lifetime integrity.
(AP, 9/7/06)
2005 Sep 7, Gov. Arnold
Schwarzenegger said he would veto a bill to legalize same-sex
marriage "out of respect for the will of the people." He cited
Proposition 22, a ballot measure passed in 2000 that defined
marriage in California.
(AP, 9/8/05)(SFC, 9/8/05, p.A5)
2005 Sep 7, Police and soldiers
went house to house in New Orleans to try to coax the last stubborn
holdouts into leaving the storm-shattered city. More than 30
patients were reportedly found dead overcome by floods at the St.
Rita’s nursing home in suburban New Orleans. Police in Gretna,
Louisiana, pushed back victims trying to leave New Orleans on the
Crescent City Connection, and refused passage.
(AFP, 9/8/05)(AP, 9/7/06)(SFC, 9/9/05, p.B10)
2005 Sep 7, Apple Computer Inc.
Chief Executive Steve Jobs introduced a long-anticipated
music-playing cell phone, the Motorola Rokr, and surprised the
faithful with the new iPod nano.
(AP, 9/8/05)(WSJ, 9/8/05, p.B1)
2005 Sep 7, Hundreds of Afghan
refugees attacked a UN refugee agency office in northwest Pakistan
in protest at delays in repatriating them. Pakistan has ordered the
closure of all refugee camps in its semi-autonomous tribal regions
because of security concerns. It originally gave an August 31
deadline but it has since given them until September 15.
(AP, 9/8/05)
2005 Sep 7, In Colombia leftist
rebels and right-wing paramilitary fighters battled in La Esmeralda
village, leaving 15 people dead, including two children, in a fight
over territory and the cocaine trade.
(AP, 9/8/05)
2005 Sep 7, Egyptians voted in
the country's first-ever contested presidential election, but
charges of fraud and a big boycott rally marred balloting that
longtime leader Hosni Mubarak portrayed as a major democratic
reform.
(AP, 9/7/05)
2005 Sep 7, European Union
governments backed a deal to unblock Chinese textiles held at EU
borders, ending a trade dispute that saw some 77 million garments
pile up after imports broke through 2005 limits.
(AP, 9/7/05)
2005 Sep 7, In India the
National Rural Employment Guarantee Act was notified. It guaranteed
all rural households 100 days of employment a year.
(Econ, 3/20/10,
p.50)(www.indiaenvironmentportal.org.in/node/255264)
2005 Sep 7, Iran offered to
send the US 20 million barrels of crude oil to help it overcome the
devastation of Hurricane Katrina if Washington waives trade
sanctions.
(AP, 9/7/05)
2005 Sep 7, Iraqi and US forces
encircled the insurgent stronghold of Tal Afar, and the Iraqi
military announced the arrest of 200 suspected insurgents, most of
them foreign fighters. A roadside bomb struck a convoy of American
security guards in the southern city of Basra, killing four US
contractors. A suicide bomber blew up his explosives-laden car
outside a takeout restaurant in Basra, killing at least 10 people
and wounding 15. US troops rescued American Roy Hallums, held
hostage 10 months.
(AP, 9/7/05) (AP, 9/8/05)
2005 Sep 7, About 100 masked
militants stormed the heavily guarded home of Moussa Arafat (65),
Gaza's former security chief, dragged him out in his pajamas and
killed him in a burst of gunfire days before Israel was to hand over
Gaza. The Popular Resistance Committees, a violent group made up
largely of former members of the Fatah movement of Palestinian
leader Mahmoud Abbas, claimed responsibility.
(AP, 9/7/05)
2005 Sep 7, Investigators
strongly criticized UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, his deputy and
the Security Council for allowing Saddam Hussein to bilk some $10.2
billion from the giant humanitarian operation.
(AP, 9/7/05)
2005 Sep 7, A powerful tropical
storm churned northward through the Sea of Japan, killing at least
16 people and leaving landslides and flooded towns in its wake.
(AP, 9/7/05)
2005 Sep 7, North Korea offered
to return the USS Pueblo, captured in 1968, if a top-level official
agrees to visit.
(WSJ, 9/8/05, p.A1)
2005 Sep 7, In Trinidad Jason
Raymond-Guillen, the 19-year-old son of a newspaper editor, was
seized outside his home by kidnappers who demanded a $2 million
ransom.
(AP, 9/9/05)
2005 Sep 7, Farmers and other
experts said Zimbabwe, once a regional breadbasket, is facing its
worst agricultural season since independence in 1980, with shortages
of seed, fertilizer and equipment threatening next year's harvest
before it even has been planted.
(AP, 9/7/05)
2005 Sep 8, US Congress
hastened to provide an additional $51.8 billion for relief and
recovery from Hurricane Katrina; President Bush pledged to make it
"easy and simple as possible" for uncounted, uprooted storm victims
to collect food stamps and other government benefits. Tropical Storm
Ophelia strengthened into a hurricane as it stalled 70 miles off the
northeast Florida coast. New Orleans was still 60% flooded.
(WSJ, 9/9/05, p.A1)(AP, 9/8/06)
2005 Sep 8, A German military
plane carrying 15 tons of military rations for survivors of
Hurricane Katrina was sent back by US authorities because it did not
have the required authorization.
(AP, 9/10/05)
2005 Sep 8, US grain prices
were reported down as grain elevators along the Mississippi filled
to capacity and grain handling due to Katrina fell to 63%. Early
harvests from Arkansas were particularly hit.
(WSJ, 9/8/05, p.A10)(WSJ, 9/9/05, p.A1)
2005 Sep 8, A symposium at
Western Kentucky University in Bowling Green, Ky., brought together
scholars from 17 states and three countries to discuss bluegrass
music.
(AP, 9/9/05)
2005 Sep 8, News Corp. said it
has signed a $650 million deal to buy IGN Entertainment, a Brisbane,
Ca., network of Web sites for video gaming and other digital
entertainment.
(SFC, 9/9/05, p.C1)
2005 Sep 8, Lewis Platt
(b.1941), former CEO of Hewlett-Packard (1992-1999) and director at
Boeing Corp., died.
(SFC, 9/10/05, p.C1)
2005 Sep 8, Bangladesh police
seized about 200 small bombs, some explosives, dozens of detonators
and leaflets on jihad, or holy war, during a raid on a house in
Dhaka.
(AP, 9/9/05)
2005 Sep 8, Chinese President
Hu Jintao arrived in Canada for his first state visit, celebrating
35 years of diplomatic ties and rapidly expanding trade and energy
agreements with Canada.
(AP, 9/8/05)
2005 Sep 8, El Salvador said
that “Operation International” simultaneous raids this week in El
Salvador, the US, Honduras, Guatemala, and Mexico netted 660
dangerous gang members.
(AP, 9/9/05)
2005 Sep 8, In Egypt President
Hosni Mubarak took an overwhelming early lead in his country's
first-ever contested presidential race in a ballot marred by low
turnout and widespread reports of voter intimidation.
(AP, 9/8/05)
2005 Sep 8, German Chancellor
Gerhard Schroeder and Russian President Vladimir Putin sealed an
agreement to build a Baltic Sea gas pipeline aimed at boosting
Russia's gas sales to Europe and securing uninterrupted energy
supplies for Germany.
(AP, 9/8/05)
2005 Sep 8, Indonesian militant
Abdul Fatah, alias Heri Segu, received a seven-year prison sentence
for his role in plotting last year's suicide bombing at the
Australian Embassy, blamed on a regional terror group linked to
al-Qaida.
(AP, 9/8/05)
2005 Sep 8, In Iraq US jets
dropped 500-pound J-Dam bombs on the insurgent-controlled
neighborhood of Sarai in Tal Afar, where most of the 200,000
population had fled. Iraqi police reported finding 17 bullet-riddled
bodies near Baghdad.
(SFC, 9/9/05, p.A3)
2005 Sep 8, A suicide car
bomber detonated his explosives-laden BMW in the center of Baghdad
targeting a passing convoy of private American security agents.
(AP, 9/8/05)
2005 Sep 8, The UN raised the
alarm about mounting violence in Iraq blamed on pro-government
militias and urged the authorities to look into reports of
systematic torture in police stations.
(Reuters, 9/8/05)
2005 Sep 8, Wyeth Co.
officially opened a $2 billion Irish production facility, a move
that will make the US company the biggest pharmaceutical employer in
Ireland.
(AP, 9/8/05)
2005 Sep 8, A Mexican army
convoy began crossing into the US to bring aid to victims of
Hurricane Katrina.
(AP, 9/8/05)
2005 Sep 8, A UN agency said a
plague of rats caused by snake hunting is threatening thousands of
Miskito Indians with famine in a remote corner of Nicaragua's
jungle, while vampire bats are raising concerns about rabies. The
rat population has boomed in Miskito territories as people hunt more
snakes, the rats' natural predator, for food and for their skins.
(AP, 9/8/05)
2005 Sep 8, In Pakistan Mufti
Mohammed Sabir, a suspected Islamic militant, was arrested in
Karachi after a shootout. He was wanted in connection with making a
car bomb used in a suicide attack May 8, 2002, that killed 15
people, including 11 French engineers.
(AP, 9/8/05)
2005 Sep 8, The Saudi Interior
Ministry said security forces killed five of Saudi Arabia's
most-wanted al-Qaida militants in a three-day battle in an eastern
city earlier this week and arrested 11 other suspects.
(AP, 9/8/05)
2005 Sep 8, Sri Lanka's Tamil
Tiger guerrillas ambushed a police patrol in the island's restive
northeast, killing two constables and wounding six.
(AFP, 9/8/05)
2005 Sep 8, In northeastern
Syria security forces clashed with Islamic militants, killing one
and arresting three others in the country's latest move against a
group accused of planning bomb attacks.
(AP, 9/8/05)
2005 Sep 8, Ukraine President
Viktor Yushchenko dismissed his Cabinet amid swirling allegations of
corruption, saying members of the fragile coalition formed after
last year's Orange Revolution had turned on one another.
(AP, 9/8/05)
2005 Sep 8, In the Virgin
Islands Elena Lin Yee was arrested and charged with impersonating a
US government official and misuse of official documents. Yee used
fake credentials to pose as a US ambassador to Grenada, the wife of
a former US ambassador to the UN and a US ambassador-at-large.
(AP, 9/9/05)
2005 Sep 9, The Bush
administration removed Mike Brown, director of the Federal Emergency
Management Agency, from the Gulf Coast disaster zone and ordered him
back to Washington. FEMA discontinued a debit card program that gave
victims cards worth $2000.
(SFC, 9/10/05, p.A1)
2005 Sep 9, Leandro
Aragoncillo, an FBI intelligence analyst at Fort Monmouth, and a
former official with the Philippines National Police were arrested,
charged in a federal criminal complaint with acting as unregistered
agents of a foreign official and passing classified information to
that official and others in the Republic of the Philippines.
(www.usdoj.gov/usao/nj/publicaffairs/NJ_Press/files/arag0912_r.htm)
2005 Sep 9, A military
spokesman said the US military is tube-feeding more than a dozen of
the 89 terror suspects on hunger strike at the Guantanamo Bay prison
in Cuba.
(AP, 9/10/05)
2005 Sep 9, A Nevada couple
pleaded guilty in San Jose, Calif., to all charges related to
planting a human fingertip in a bowl of Wendy's chili in a scheme to
extort money from the fast food restaurant chain.
(AP, 9/9/06)
2005 Sep 9, In SF a
ribbon-cutting ceremony was held at Octavia Blvd. and Market Street
to mark the opening of Octavia Blvd., and the culmination of a long
battle to rid Hayes Valley of the 1959 Central Freeway.
(SFC, 1/3/07, p.B1)
2005 Sep 9, Hewlett-Packard
introduced a line of TV sets equipped with hard drives and the
ability to connect to wireless networks.
(SFC, 9/9/05, p.C3)
2005 Sep 9, Afghan and
coalition forces killed 30 enemies and captured 60 others during an
operation in Grishk district of Helmand.
(AFP, 9/10/05)
2005 Sep 9, The presidents of
Bolivia, Brazil and Peru inaugurated a $810 million highway project
to connect Brazil's Atlantic coast to Peru's Pacific ports before
the end of the decade.
(AP, 9/9/05)
2005 Sep 9, China deployed a
fleet of 5 warships near a gas field in the East China Sea, a area
that is disputed by China and Japan.
(SSFC, 9/11/05, p.A12)
2005 Sep 9, It was reported
that China Telecom has started blocking access to Skype, a popular
Internet telephone service that is threatening its long-distance
revenue.
(AP, 9/9/05)
2005 Sep 9, Croatia's
government said that army officers can give lessons about the 1991
Serbo-Croat war in elementary schools, despite critics' claims the
move marks a return to communist-style links between schools and the
military.
(AP, 9/9/05)
2005 Sep 9, Pro-government
newspapers trumpeted President Hosni Mubarak's re-election victory
after preliminary results showed he swept Egypt's first contested
race for his job. The turnout was 23%.
(AP, 9/9/05)(Reuters, 9/9/05)
2005 Sep 9, The body that
controls French winemaking said makers of Bordeaux wines have been
told to reduce their output this year by about 12% because of
overproduction and falling prices.
(AP, 9/9/05)
2005 Sep 9, Indian border
guards killed 3 Bangladeshi villagers after they had strayed across
the border near the eastern Bangladesh town of Akhaura. India and
Bangladesh share a 4,095-kilometre (2,539-mile) border, which India
is busy fencing in a bid to cut the level of illegal immigration.
(AP, 9/9/05)
2005 Sep 9, The Baghdad
International Airport, the country's only reliable link to the
outside world, closed in an embarrassing pay dispute between the
government and a British security company.
(AP, 9/9/05)
2005 Sep 9, Italian Premier
Silvio Berlusconi's Cabinet approved a bill to limit the use of
phone taps, legislation prompted after conversations recorded during
a bank takeover investigation were leaked to the media this summer.
(AP, 9/9/05)
2005 Sep 9, Japanese software
company Access Co., maker of the NetFront Internet browser for
mobile devices, said it has agreed to buy PalmSource Inc., maker of
the Palm operating system for handheld computers and cell phones,
for $324 million in cash.
(AP, 9/9/05)
2005 Sep 9, NATO nations agreed
to use alliance ships and aircraft to rush European aid to the US
Gulf Coast in response to an American request for more help to cope
with the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
(AP, 9/10/05)
2005 Sep 9, Latin American and
US officials stepped up pressure against legislative efforts to oust
Nicaraguan President Enrique Bolanos, whose anti-corruption campaign
has driven lawmakers of his own party into alliance with rivals.
(AP, 9/9/05)
2005 Sep 9, In Pakistan 3
suspected foreign militants were arrested after a shootout with
Pakistani forces near Afghanistan. A bystander was killed and her
son wounded by stray bullets during the clash near Miran Shah,
capital of the North Waziristan tribal area.
(AP, 9/10/05)
2005 Sep 9, A magnitude 7.3
earthquake struck off the northeast coast of the Pacific island
nation of Papua New Guinea.
(AP, 9/9/05)
2005 Sep 9, Zimbabwe’s
President Robert Mugabe signed amendments that adopted
constitutional changes that make it easier for the state to seize
private property and prevent opponents from traveling abroad to
criticize his 25-year rule. The constitutional overhaul stripped
landowners of their right to appeal expropriation of their property
by the state and declared all real estate is now on a 99-year lease
from the government.
(AP, 9/12/05)
2005 Sep 10, Cadaver dogs and
boatloads of forensic workers fanned out across New Orleans to
collect the corpses left behind by Hurricane Katrina; cleanup crews
towed away abandoned cars and even began readying a hotel for
reopening.
(AP, 9/10/06)
2005 Sep 10, Clarence
"Gatemouth" Brown (81), the singer and guitarist who built a 50-year
career playing blues, country, jazz and Cajun music, died in his
hometown of Orange, Texas, where he had gone to escape Hurricane
Katrina.
(AP, 9/11/05)
2005 Sep 10, E. Stewart
Williams, Palm Springs architect, died in Palm Springs. He designed
Frank Sinatra’s 1st Palm Springs home in 1947.
(SFC, 11/9/05, p.B11)
2005 Sep 10, Afghan soldiers
reportedly tried to assassinate Rahim Wardak, the country's defense
minister, by shooting at his convoy at Kabul's main airport. Wardak
had already left his vehicle and was unhurt. Nine suspects, all
soldiers, were arrested in the attack. The next day Afghanistan said
the shootout was not an assassination attempt, but an internecine
battle between groups of soldiers.
(AP, 9/10/05)(WSJ, 9/12/05, p.A1)
2005 Sep 10, In Azerbaijan more
than 2,000 orange-clad opposition members rallied in Baku, demanding
that President Ilhan Aliev resign and that authorities ensure that
parliamentary elections in November are free and fair.
(AP, 9/11/05)
2005 Sep 10, Chinese President
Hu Jintao urged Canada to expand its investment in the Asian giant
and pledged to improve living standards in the world's most populous
country.
(AP, 9/11/05)
2005 Sep 10, In the Republic of
Congo a plane crashed north of Brazzaville, killing 13 people.
(AP, 9/10/05)
2005 Sep 10, A defiant Egyptian
opposition ratcheted up the pressure on President Hosni Mubarak,
after he was reelected with the votes of only one-fifth of the
electorate.
(AFP, 9/10/05)
2005 Sep 10, More than 500
U.S.-trained Georgian soldiers left for Iraq as part of a regular
rotation of troops by the former Soviet republic.
(AP, 9/10/05)
2005 Sep 10, Baghdad
International Airport, Iraq's only reliable and relatively safe link
to the outside world, reopened after being closed for a day in a
payments dispute between the government and a British security firm.
(AP, 9/10/05)
2005 Sep 10, It was reported
that the student populations at the Univ. of Rome numbered 180,000;
at the National Univ. of Mexico it was over 200,000; and at Turkey’s
Anadolu Univ. it numbered some 530,000.
(Econ, 9/10/05, Survey p.4)
2005 Sep 10, In Ivory Coast
Guillaume Soro, head of the former rebel New Forces (FN), insisted
that his side no longer recognized South Africa's President Thabo
Mbeki as a mediator. UN Secretary General Kofi Annan admitted that
next month's planned presidential election would have to be
abandoned.
(AP, 9/10/05)
2005 Sep 10, In Northern
Ireland Protestant extremists threw homemade grenades, gasoline
bombs and other makeshift weapons and at least a dozen police and
two civilians were wounded in the latest fury over a restricted
Belfast parade. Most of the rioting took place in Belfast’s ten most
disadvantaged wards.
(AP, 9/11/05)(Econ, 9/17/05, p.57)
2005 Sep 10, Masked gunmen
abducted Lorenzo Cremonesi of the Corriere della Serra daily, an
Italian journalist in the Gaza Strip town of Deir El-Balah. He was
released after a few hours.
(AP, 9/10/05)
2005 Sep 10, In Mexico 7
Guatemala men were caught near the Guatemalan border with six
large-caliber rifles and 1,600 rounds of ammunition. They faced
charges of weapons trafficking.
(AP, 9/30/05)
2005 Sep 10-2005 Sep 13, A
Pakistani army operation in North Waziristan destroyed a major
al-Qaida hide-out. The army arrested 21 suspected militants,
including foreigners, and a government official accused of helping
them in a remote northwestern tribal region near Afghanistan.
(AP, 9/13/05)
2005 Sep 10, Syrian President
Bashar Assad met with leaders of 10 militant Palestinian groups
based in Syria, defying U.S. pressure to crack down on these groups.
Syria's official news agency SANA reported Assad urged the radical
Palestinian leaders, including Khaled Mashaal, the political leader
of the militant Hamas group, to close ranks and continue the
struggle in order to achieve their goal of an independent
Palestinian state.
(AP, 9/10/05)
2005 Sep 10, Zimbabwe President
Robert Mugabe arrived in Cuba, criticizing the International
Monetary Fund, even though the organization a day earlier deferred a
decision for six months on whether to expel the African nation.
(AP, 9/10/05)
2005 Sep 11, Pres. Bush arrived
in New Orleans for a 3rd visit. The airport announced that it will
resume some commercial flights this week and the largest levee
breech was reported closed.
(SFC, 9/12/05, p.A1)
2005 Sep 11, Chris Schenkel
(82), sportscaster, died in Fort Wayne, Ind.
(AP, 9/11/06)
2005 Sep 11, Typhoon Khanun
made a direct hit on Taizhou city in prosperous eastern China after
nearly a million villagers and farmers had been evacuated from
flimsy coastal and hillside huts to safety.
(AP, 9/11/05)
2005 Sep 11, About 5,000 Iraqi
soldiers, backed by a 3,500-strong American armored force, reported
156 insurgents killed and 246 captured. The force discovered a big
bomb factory, 18 weapons caches and the tunnel network in the
ancient Sarai neighborhood of Tal Afar. A US soldier was killed by a
roadside bomb near Samarra. US deaths to date since the start of the
war in March, 2003, numbered 1,897. Britain reported at least 96
dead.
(AP, 9/11/05)(SFC, 9/12/05, p.A3)
2005 Sep 11, A British
serviceman was killed and three injured in a late-morning bomb
attack in Iraq's southern Basra province.
(AP, 9/11/05)
2005 Sep 11, The German firm
Allianz, Europe’s biggest insurer, opted for pan-European status as
part of a merger and restructure.
(Econ, 9/17/05, p.64)
2005 Sep 11, Israel's Cabinet
voted unanimously to end its 38-year occupation of the Gaza Strip,
clearing the way to complete the country's withdrawal from the area
and turn it over to Palestinian control.
(AP, 9/11/05)
2005 Sep 11, Japanese voters
handed PM Junichiro Koizumi's ruling coalition a landslide victory
in elections for the lower house of parliament.
(AP, 9/11/06)
2005 Sep 11, A leading
newspaper said Japan plans to demand a cut in its contributions to
the UN budget from 2007 after the failure of its high-profile
campaign to win a permanent seat on the UN Security Council.
(AP, 9/11/05)
2005 Sep 11, In Jordan 12
Islamic militants screamed praise for the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks as
a Jordanian court jailed them for up to three years for plotting
terrorist strikes against the American and Israeli embassies.
(AP, 9/11/05)
2005 Sep 11, Mexico's ruling
National Action Party gave former Energy Secretary Felipe Calderon a
surprise victory in the first round of its three-part presidential
primary.
(AP, 9/11/05)
2005 Sep 11, A Rwandan
community court charged Guy Theunis (60), a Belgian missionary, with
inciting and planning the 1994 genocide that left more than half a
million people dead.
(AP, 9/12/05)
2005 Sep 12, Michael Brown, the
director of the US Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA),
resigned after being recalled to Washington amid criticism of the
federal response to Hurricane Katrina. Officials reported that 45
bodies were found at Memorial Hospital in New Orleans. This raised
the official death toll from Hurricane Katrina in Louisiana to 280.
(Reuters, 9/12/05)(SFC, 9/13/05, p.A8)
2005 Sep 12, At the start of
his confirmation hearing, US Supreme Court nominee John Roberts
pledged to judge with humility and without fear or favor'' if
approved as the nation's 17th chief justice.
(AP, 9/12/06)
2005 Sep 12, In California
worker error at Toluca Lake caused a power outage in the LA area.
Most of the power was restored within 90 minutes.
(SFC, 9/13/05, p.A3)
2005 Sep 12, Oracle Corp.
confirmed that CEO Larry Ellison would pay $100 million to a charity
to settle charges of insider trading.
(SFC, 9/13/05, p.D1)
2005 Sep 12, EBay has agreed to
buy fast-growing Internet start-up Skype for up to $4.1 billion in
cash and shares, in a move to tap new sources of growth and add free
Web telephone calls to its online auctions. Niklos Zennstrom of
Sweden and Janus Friis of Denmark founded Skype using a programming
team from Estonia.
(AP, 9/12/05)(Econ, 9/17/05, p.69)
2005 Sep 12, Business software
maker Oracle Corp. said it is buying struggling rival Siebel Systems
Inc. for about $5.85 billion, continuing a recent shopping spree
that has eliminated two of its biggest competitors in nine months.
(AP, 9/12/05)
2005 Sep 12, An official said
China will no longer consider death tolls and other relevant
information about natural disasters to be state secrets in a move
aimed at boosting government transparency.
(AP, 9/12/05)
2005 Sep 12, In Colombia
Porfirio Ramirez (42) and his son, Linsen Ramirez (22),
hijacked a Colombian airline. The father in a wheelchair
dodged a checkpoint and smuggled grenades onto a plane. All
passengers and crew were eventually freed unharmed. The elder
hijacker said he hijacked the plane to bring attention to a case in
which he was partially paralyzed by a police bullet during a raid on
his house some 14 years ago and had unsuccessfully sought government
compensation.
(AP, 9/13/05)
2005 Sep 12, An international
environmental group warned that only 887 hippos are left in Congo,
and that they will be extinct in the African country. The latest
aerial survey puts the hippopotamus population in northeastern
Congo's Virunga National Park down to under 1,000 animals, compared
to some 29,000 in 1974.
(AP, 9/12/05)
2005 Sep 12, President Jacques
Chirac, following a weeklong hospital stay, met with India's PM
Singh.
(AP, 9/12/05)
2005 Sep 12, The new Hong Kong
Disneyland theme park on Lantau Island opened. Zeng Qinghong,
China’s vice-president, presided over opening ceremonies.
(SSFC, 9/18/05, p.C2)(Econ, 9/17/05, p.44)
2005 Sep 12, A huge car bomb
exploded outside a popular restaurant in Baghdad's upscale Mansour
neighborhood. At least one person was killed and 17 were wounded.
(AP, 9/12/05)
2005 Sep 12, In Japan PM
Junichiro Koizumi's triumph in parliamentary polls handed the leader
a new mandate to harness his revitalized ruling party and turn
promises into action for a range of sweeping economic reforms.
(AP, 9/12/05)
2005 Sep 12, King Abdullah II
of Jordan paid Pope Benedict XVI a visit, saying he wanted to foster
an honest dialogue between the West and moderate Islam.
(AP, 9/12/05)
2005 Sep 12, In Mexico Chinese
President Hu Jintao promised Mexican leaders that he would crack
down on the millions of dollars worth of Chinese contraband entering
their nation, goods that undermine Mexican businesses ranging from
sandal makers to religious icon sellers.
(AP, 9/12/05)
2005 Sep 12, Armed men broke
into an upscale Amsterdam home and kidnapped Claudia Melchers (37),
the daughter of a millionaire whose fortune came from selling
chemicals, including to Iraq in the 1980s. Her children were left
unharmed.
(AP, 9/13/05)
2005 Sep 12, Protestant
extremists attacked Northern Ireland police and British troops into
a third day, littering streets with rubble and burned-out vehicles
in violence sparked by anger over a restricted parade.
(AP, 9/12/05)
2005 Sep 12, Norwegians lined
up at polling stations in what promised to be a close race between a
governing center-right coalition advocating lower taxes and a
left-leaning opposition that wants to spend more of the Nordic
nation's oil wealth on the welfare system. Jens Stoltenberg, head of
the Labor Party, and 2 allied parties won 87 of the parliament’s 169
seats.
(AP, 9/12/05)(Econ, 9/17/05, p.51)
2005 Sep 12, Pakistan’s
President Pervez Musharraf offered to construct a security fence to
deter incursion of militants and drug merchants from Afghanistan.
(AP, 9/12/05)
2005 Sep 12, Joyous Gazans
flooded into empty Jewish settlements and Palestinians climbed ropes
and clambered over walls to the Egyptian side of Rafah to join a
chaotic celebration of the end of 38 years of Israeli military rule
over the Gaza Strip. Palestinians set fire to abandoned synagogues.
(AP, 9/12/05)
2005 Sep 12, Samsung
Electronics of South Korea unveiled the world's first 16-gigabit
NAND flash memory chip, a device the firm said will usher in a new
era in data storage.
(AP, 9/12/05)
2005 Sep 12, Syria consented to
a UN investigator's request to question top officials about the
assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, a
probe that increases the pressure on an increasingly isolated
Damascus.
(AP, 9/12/05)
2005 Sep 12, Turkey sold a 51%
stake in Tupras, an oil refinery, for $4.1 billion to a consortium
of Koc Holding and Royal Dutch/Shell.
(Econ, 9/17/05, p.64)
2005 Sep 12, A senior UN
official said traffickers have been shifting to the manufacture of
amphetamine-type drugs in Asia as cultivation and production of
heroin drops sharply.
(AP, 9/13/05)
2005 Sep 12, Uzbekistan,
increasingly hostile toward foreign non-governmental organizations
it accuses of fomenting revolution in the ex-Soviet state, shut a
second US charity in four days.
(AP, 9/13/05)
2005 Sep 13, Pres. Bush said he
accepted responsibility for shortcomings in the federal government’s
response to Hurricane Katrina.
(SFC, 9/14/05, p.A1)
2005 Sep 13, Pres. Bush met
briefly with Chinese Pres. Hu Jintao in NYC on the sidelines of the
opening session of the UN General Assembly. Bush sought China's help
to stop nuclear weapons programs in North Korea and Iran and won a
pledge from President Hu Jintao to step up pressure on Pyongyang.
(SFC, 9/14/05, p.C1)(AP, 9/13/06)
2005 Sep 13, It was reported
that nearly 40 more detainees have joined a hunger strike at the
Guantanamo Bay prison camp for terror suspects, bringing the total
to 128.
(AP, 9/13/05)
2005 Sep 13, Louisiana
authorities charged the owners of a New Orleans area nursing home
with negligent homicide in the deaths of 34 patients in the wake of
Hurricane Katrina. The state death toll was raised to 423.
(SFC, 9/14/05, p.A10)
2005 Sep 13, The New Orleans
Airport resumed commercial operations.
(AP, 9/14/05)
2005 Sep 13, In Afghanistan the
bodies of 7 men, killed by suspected Taliban rebels, were found in
the central Afghan province of Uruzgan, along with the cards that
entitled them to vote in upcoming parliamentary and provincial
elections.
(AP, 9/14/05)
2005 Sep 13, Sredoje Lukic, a
top Bosnian Serb war crimes suspect, surrendered to the Serb
authorities in Bosnia. He was indicted by a UN tribunal in 2000 for
some of the worst atrocities in the Bosnian war.
(AP, 9/13/05)
2005 Sep 13, Julio Cesar Turbay
(89), former Colombian President (1978-1982), died. He negotiated
the release in 1980 of dozens of diplomats held hostage by leftist
rebels for 61 days.
(AP, 9/13/05)
2005 Sep 13, Iwan Darmawan
Mutho, alias Rois (30), an Indonesian Islamic militant, vowed
revenge after he was sentenced to death for plotting a deadly
bombing at the Australian embassy which was allegedly funded by
Osama bin Laden.
(AP, 9/13/05)
2005 Sep 13, US forces along
the Euphrates River attacked the insurgent stronghold of Haditha,
capturing a militant with ties to al-Qaida in Iraq and killing four
others.
(AP, 9/13/05)
2005 Sep 13, The Dutch
government said it plans to open an electronic file, effective Jan
1, 2007, on every child at birth as a tool to spot and protect the
troubled kids of the future.
(AP, 9/13/05)
2005 Sep 13, Negotiations aimed
at ending North Korea's nuclear weapons program resumed in Beijing
after a monthlong recess, but prospects for progress were uncertain
as Pyongyang remained insistent on its right to use civilian atomic
technology.
(AP, 9/13/05)
2005 Sep 13, Norway's PM Kjell
Magne Bondevik, who presided over four years of unprecedented
prosperity fueled by high oil prices, said he will resign after a
left-wing opposition bloc won parliamentary elections.
(AP, 9/13/05)
2005 Sep 13, Tens of thousands
of people filled the center of Gaza City for the biggest Hamas
demonstration ever seen here, celebrating Israel's pullout and
listening to Hamas leaders vowing to continue the fight until
Israelis leave the rest of the Palestinian areas.
(AP, 9/13/05)
2005 Sep 13, The customs chiefs
at Moscow's international airport and the Pacific port of Nakhodka
were suspended pending a smuggling investigation. Sheremetyevo
Airport chief Igor Volkov and Nakhodka port chief Alexei Kotlyarov
were suspended for a month.
(AP, 9/15/05)
2005 Sep 13, The UN General
Assembly approved a watered-down, 35-page reform document after
months of hard bargaining. The current text refers the issue back to
the president of the General Assembly for further negotiations “with
the aim of establishing the mandate, modalities, functions, size,
composition, membership, working methods and procedures for the
council.”
(AP, 9/14/05)(http://tinyurl.com/lfzje)
2005 Sep 13, Venezuelan
President Hugo Chavez extended a preferential oil trade deal to 13
Caribbean countries in what he says is part of a plan to challenge
U.S. economic domination of the region. The plan includes a $50
million fund to pay for social programs across the Caribbean,
similar to those Chavez has started at home with rising oil profits.
(AP, 9/14/05)
2005 Sep 13, The World Bank
proposed a new accounting method that includes natural and human
wealth.
(www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=30267)
2005 Sep 14, A US federal judge
in Sacramento ruled that requiring children to recite a Pledge of
Allegiance that contains the phrase “under God” in public schools is
unconstitutional.
(SFC, 9/15/05, p.A1)
2005 Sep 14, The US Coast
Guard, acting on Colombian intelligence, intercepted a ship towing
an unmanned submarine-like vessel that held more than 2 tons of
cocaine. Separately, 2.5 tons of cocaine were discovered hidden in
the oil tanks of a ship docked in the Colombian Pacific port of
Buenaventura.
(AP, 9/15/05)
2005 Sep 14, The Port of New
Orleans resumed commercial operations. Officials said damage to
agriculture in the Gulf states due to Hurricane Katrina has topped
$3 billion.
(AP, 9/14/05)(SFC, 9/15/05, p.C1)
2005 Sep 14, Delta Airlines and
Northwest Airlines, America’s 3rd and 4th largest airlines, filed
for bankruptcy.
(Econ, 9/17/05, p.59)
2005 Sep 14, Robert Wise (91),
film editor turned director, died of heart failure. He was nominated
for seven Academy Awards, had hits in a variety of genres and worked
with Orson Welles on "Citizen Kane." But he gained his greatest
acclaim and four Oscars, with the big-budget productions of "West
Side Story" and "The Sound of Music." In 1996 he became the 26th
recipient of the American Film Institute’s life achievement award.
(AP, 9/15/05)(SFC, 9/16/05, p.B8)
2005 Sep 14, In Afghanistan
about 40 gunmen attacked a police post in the mountainous Char-Chilo
district of Uruzgan province. Police killed three of the attackers
and arrested one after a two-hour gunbattle. A bomb exploded along a
road frequently traveled by U.S.-led and Afghan army forces near
Tirin Kot, the provincial capital, blowing up a civilian vehicle and
killing three passengers.
(AP, 9/15/05)
2005 Sep 14, In Australia the
CSIRO (Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization)
Total Wellbeing Diet book was reported to have already sold 370,000
copies. Publishers targeted sales of one million to the country of
just 20 million people.
(AP, 9/14/05)
2005 Sep 14, Brazil’s police
arrested 43 people during raids on clandestine rings sneaking an
increasing number of Brazilians into the United States, Europe and
Mexico.
(AP, 9/15/05)
2005 Sep 14, Britain declared
that the Ulster Volunteer Force, a major outlawed Protestant group
in Northern Ireland, has abandoned its 11-year-old truce and is an
enemy of the peace once again.
(AP, 9/14/05)
2005 Sep 14, Chile’s Supreme
Court stripped Gen. Augusto Pinochet of immunity from prosecution,
paving the way for a trial of the former dictator for his alleged
role in the disappearance and killing of 15 dissidents during his
1973-90 regime.
(AP, 9/15/05)
2005 Sep 14, Egypt said it had
found an arms-smuggling tunnel under the Gaza border, and
Palestinians crossing the frontier were warned to return by sunset
when passport controls will be reimposed.
(AP, 9/14/05)
2005 Sep 14, In NYC Iranian
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad blasted US unilateralism, militarism
and privilege and called for the UN to promote spirituality. The
conservative Muslim leader advanced unusual broad concepts,
including recommendations that the UN "institutionalize justice at
the international level" and ensure all members have "equal rights."
(AP, 9/16/05)
2005 Sep 14, A leading Shiite
lawmaker said Iraq's draft constitution has been finalized and will
be sent to the United Nations to be printed.
(AP, 9/14/05)
2005 Sep 14, More than a dozen
explosions ripped through Baghdad in rapid succession, killing at
least 160 people and wounding 570 in a series of attacks that began
with a suicide car bombing that targeted laborers assembled to find
work for the day. Al-Qaida in Iraq claimed responsibility.
(AP, 9/14/05)(SFC, 9/15/05, p.A3)
2005 Sep 14, Gunmen wearing
military uniforms surrounded a village north of Baghdad and executed
17 men.
(AP, 9/14/05)
2005 Sep 14, In Nepal police
fired tear gas and beat protesters with batons as 7,000 people
poured into the center of the Nepalese capital in continuing
pro-democracy rallies.
(AP, 9/14/05)
2005 Sep 14, In Pakistan gunmen
on a motorcycle murdered a minority Shiite Muslim in Quetta before
fleeing.
(AP, 9/14/05)
2005 Sep 14, Former Russian PM
Mikhail Kasyanov said he plans to run in the 2008 presidential
election. He urged Russia's fragmented opposition to unite or face
at least another decade of undemocratic rule.
(AP, 9/14/05)
2005 Sep 14, In Geneva the UN
refugee and food agencies' chiefs made a joint appeal to donors for
more money to alleviate shortages of survival rations for people
displaced by war across Africa.
(AP, 9/14/05)
2005 Sep 14, Taiwan failed for
the 13th straight year to get a seat at the United Nations, a move
that has been blocked annually since 1993 by archrival China and its
allies.
(AP, 9/14/05)
2005 Sep 14, In NYC UN
Secretary-General Kofi Annan appealed to world leaders marking the
60th anniversary of the United Nations to help restore confidence in
the world body. He also said that UN members had failed to achieve
the profound reform the global organization needed on its 60th
anniversary. President Bush urged compassion for the needy and
pressed the global community to "put the terrorists on notice" by
cracking down on any activities that could incite deadly attacks.
(AP, 9/14/05)
2005 Sep 15, Pres. Bush gave a
speech from New Orleans outlining government plans to rebuild the
region devastated by Hurricane Katrina, as the disaster death toll
passed the 700 mark. His proposals included the creation of a “Gulf
Opportunity Zone” and “Worker Recovery Accounts.”
(AP, 9/15/05)(SFC, 9/16/05, p.A1)
2005 Sep 15, The US government
agreed to stockpile $100 million worth of inoculations against bird
flu under a contract with French vaccine maker Sanofi-Pasteur.
(SFC, 9/16/05, p.A4)
2005 Sep 15, In the 4th and
final day of Senate confirmation hearings on John Roberts’
appointment as chief justice, Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY) said “You
may very well possess the most powerful intellect of any person to
come before the Senate for this position.”
(SFC, 9/16/05, p.A1)
2005 Sep 15, The American
Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (Fincen) branded
Banco Delta Asia of Macau as a willing pawn for the North Korean
government to engage in corrupt financial activities. This cause a
$38 million run on the bank. The ploy persuaded other lenders to
sever ties with North Korea and dealing a significant blow to North
Korea’s financial system.
(Econ, 9/24/05, p.90)(WSJ, 2/13/06, p.A7)
2005 Sep 15, California’s Gov.
Schwarzenegger signed a bill to reduce obesity in schools.
(SFC, 9/16/05, p.A1)
2005 Sep 15, New York Attorney
General Eliot Spitzer announced indictments against 8 former senior
executives of Marsh & McLennan for bid rigging and price fixing
in the insurance industry.
(SFC, 9/16/05, p.C1)
2005 Sep 15, The Massachusetts
state Legislature voted to override Gov. Mitt Romney's veto of a
measure that will expand access to emergency contraception.
(AP, 9/15/05)
2005 Sep 15, Yahoo introduced a
search feature for instant answers at www.next.yahoo.com.
(SFC, 9/15/05, p.C2)
2005 Sep 15, Hurricane Ophelia
weakened slightly as it crawled along the North Carolina coast.
Early indications were that the storm had not caused the severe
flooding many feared.
(AP, 9/15/05)
2005 Sep 15, Guy Green (91),
who won an Academy Award for cinematography for the 1946 film "Great
Expectations," died of heart and kidney failure at his Beverly Hills
home.
(AP, 9/16/05)
2005 Sep 15, Producer Sid Luft
(89), who was credited with reviving the career of his then-wife,
Judy Garland, died in Santa Monica, Calif.
(AP, 9/15/06)
2005 Sep 15, Suspected Taliban
gunmen in Helmand province shot and killed Abdul Hadi, a candidate
in Afghanistan's legislative elections after dragging him from his
house.
(AP, 9/16/05)
2005 Sep 15, British police
arrested Governor Diepreye Alamieyeseigha, leader of the oil-rich
southern Nigerian state of Bayelsa, as part of a money laundering
investigation.
(AP, 9/16/05)
2005 Sep 15, China’s Pres. Hu
Jintao spoke at the UN and called for a “harmonious world.”
(Econ, 11/19/05, p.23)
2005 Sep 15, Colombian
authorities seized $4.5 million worth of counterfeit American
currency during a raid on a clandestine printing workshop in south
Bogota. The network had been sending the money to Ecuador and
Venezuela, where the U.S. dollar is widely accepted as legal tender.
(AP, 9/15/05)
2005 Sep 15, In the eastern
Indian state of Bihar a fire engulfed three illegal firecracker
factories in a village, killing at least 30 people.
(AP, 9/15/05)
2005 Sep 15, In northeastern
India a fire broke out in a damaged oil well, and Russian experts
were summoned to inspect the site.
(AP, 9/15/05)
2005 Sep 15, Separatist rebels
in Indonesia's Aceh province started handing over weapons to
international monitors.
(AP, 9/15/05)
2005 Sep 15, Iran's Pres.
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Iran is willing to provide nuclear
technology to other Muslim states. Hours later, European nations
renewed an offer of economic incentives if the Mideast nation would
halt its uranium enrichment.
(AP, 9/15/05)
2005 Sep 15, Iraq’s PM Ibrahim
al-Jaafari, speaking at a news conference in Dearborn, Mich.,
condemned the latest round of bombings that left scores of his
countrymen dead, and vowed that his government's "rational,
political struggle" would prevail over "criminal acts."
(AP, 9/15/05)
2005 Sep 15, Two suicide car
bombers struck within a minute of each other and a half-mile apart
in southern Baghdad, killing 7 policemen and raising the day's death
toll from blasts in the capital to at least 31.
(AP, 9/15/05)
2005 Sep 15, A US Marine was
killed in an “indirect fire explosion” at Camp Ramadi in the western
province of al-Anbar.
(AP, 9/16/05)
2005 Sep 15, Israel called for
wider meetings with Arab nations and said efforts were under way to
arrange summit talks with Qatar, a day after Qatar urged the Arab
world to open up to the Jewish state following its Gaza Strip
withdrawal.
(AP, 9/15/05)
2005 Sep 15, Israel's Supreme
Court upheld the legality of Israel's West Bank security barrier,
rejecting a ruling by the International Court of Justice that the
barrier violates Palestinian rights and should be torn down. It also
ruled that part of the barrier imposed major hardship on Palestinian
villagers and must be rerouted.
(AP, 9/15/05)(SFC, 9/16/05, p.A7)
2005 Sep 15, A Russian Su-27
fighter bomber crashed in Lithuania during a flight across the
former Soviet republic to the Russian Baltic enclave of Kaliningrad.
(AP, 9/15/05)
2005 Sep 15, A fire engulfed
Mexico's most famous fireworks market, setting off a chain of
explosions in Tultepec, a town northeast of the nation's capital.
The fire destroyed hundreds of open-air stands just ahead of
Independence Day celebrations.
(AP, 9/15/05)
2005 Sep 15, North Korea said
it won't give up its nuclear weapons without receiving a reactor for
generating power, stalling six-nation talks on Pyongyang's atomic
programs.
(AP, 9/15/05)
2005 Sep 15, Russia launched
experimental broadcasts of a 24-hour English-language satellite TV
news channel aimed at polishing its image abroad and presenting
foreign audiences with its view of the world.
(AP, 9/15/05)
2005 Sep 15, The Saudi
government ordered a Jiddah chamber of commerce to allow female
voters and candidates.
(AP, 9/16/05)
2005 Sep 15, In Serbia a judge
ordered the arrest of the wife of former Yugoslav President Slobodan
Milosevic for failing to attend her corruption trial in Belgrade.
(AP, 9/15/05)
2005 Sep 15, The UN General
Assembly adopted the concept of “responsibility to protect” (R2P)
during its World summit in NYC.
(Econ, 6/28/08, p.51)(http://tinyurl.com/669gvu)
2005 Sep 15, Venezuelan Pres.
Hugo Chavez took Pres. Bush to task in front of a global summit for
waging war in Iraq without UN consent and won rousing applause for
his critique.
(AP, 9/16/05)
2005 Sep 16, President Bush
ruled out raising taxes to pay the massive costs of Gulf Coast
reconstruction in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, saying other
government spending had to be cut to pay for the recovery effort.
(AP, 9/16/06)
2005 Sep 16, The Univ. of
Michigan’s preliminary index of US consumer sentiment fell to 76.9
from 89.1 last month.
(SFC, 9/17/05, p.C1)
2005 Sep 16, Gordon Gould
(d.2005), laser pioneer, died. In 1957 as a Columbia Univ. doctoral
student, Gould came up with a process for concentrating visible
light as opposed to microwaves of a maser. He was the 1st to use the
term laser.
(Econ, 6/11/05, TQ p.28)(WSJ, 9/20/05, p.A1)
2005 Sep 16, In London the
Property Derivatives Interest Group (PDIG) was launched. It aimed to
spread information on using property derivatives to buy and sell
exposure to the property market without having to buy or sell the
actual property.
(Econ, 9/17/05, p.78)
2005 Sep 16, In Brazil federal
prosecutors charged six men accused of stealing $70 million from
Brazil's Central Bank last August in one of the world's biggest bank
robberies. 3 men were arrested shortly after the robbery, and
another 3 were still at large.
(AP, 9/17/05)
2005 Sep 16, Mike Tyson arrived
in Chechnya to open a boxing match.
(WSJ, 9/17/05, p.W12)
2005 Sep 16, It was reported
that a mutating strain of stem rust fungus, dubbed Ug99, was
spreading across East Africa and threatened crops worldwide. It was
1st discovered in Ugandan wheat crops in 1999.
(SFC, 9/17/05, p.B8)
2005 Sep 16, The French civil
aviation authority DGAC said it has banned flights by Cameroon
Airlines for an indefinite period, citing safety concerns.
(AFP, 9/16/05)
2005 Sep 16, The Greek
government said it would give cash bonuses to Greek mothers who have
more than two babies, in an effort to boost the country's birth rate
as the population ages.
(AP, 9/16/05)
2005 Sep 16, In Haiti
investigative Judge Cluny P. Jules decided that former PM Yvon
Neptune and 29 others should stand trial for the February 2004
massacre in the western town of St. Marc. A list of calls from
Neptune's cell phone showed that he had spoken for at least 350
minutes with the alleged perpetrators of the killings from Feb. 7 to
Feb 13, when the killings were either being organized or taking
place at St. Marc.
(AP, 9/21/05)
2005 Sep 16, India's government
ordered the state railway to accomplish the seemingly impossible:
revamp the network, one of the world's largest, and get rid of the
bugs, rats, filth and surly workers.
(AP, 9/19/05)
2005 Sep 16, Indonesia's ailing
airline PT Garuda Indonesia said it signed a $2 billion deal with
aircraft manufacturer Boeing Co. to upgrade the company's fleet.
(AP, 9/16/05)
2005 Sep 16, A suicide car
bomber struck as worshippers were leaving a Shiite mosque in the
northern Iraqi town of Tuz Khormato killing 11 people. Militants
killed at least 14 more people across the country as the
Sunni-dominated insurgency pressed its "all-out war" to destabilize
the country.
(AP, 9/16/05)(SFC, 9/17/05, p.A3)
2005 Sep 16, In Iraq 3 US
soldiers were killed near Baghdad.
(SFC, 9/20/05, p.A14)
2005 Sep 16, Israeli PM Ariel
Sharon met with Jordan's King Abdullah II, their first talks in
months and a further sign of warming relations between the Jewish
state and the Arab world after Israel's Gaza withdrawal.
(AP, 9/16/05)
2005 Sep 16, Premier Silvio
Berlusconi declared Italy's mission in Iraq "an absolute and total"
success, and said Italy would continue to reduce its military
presence there.
(AP, 9/16/05)
2005 Sep 16, Italian officials
said they have captured Paolo Di Lauro (52), an alleged top boss of
the Camorra crime syndicate, dealing what they said was a serious
blow to organized crime in the Naples area.
(AP, 9/16/05)
2005 Sep 16, In Osaka Susumu
Kitagawa (58), convicted of robbing, raping and killing two women in
the 1980s, was executed. This was Japan's first hanging of the year.
His execution left 74 people on death row in Japan.
(AP, 9/16/05)
2005 Sep 16, In Lebanon a
powerful bomb exploded in a Christian neighborhood of eastern
Beirut, killing at least one person and wounding 23.
(AP, 9/16/05)
2005 Sep 16, The Lithuanian
government denied Moscow's requests to hand over a Russian pilot
whose fighter jet crashed in the NATO member's territory after
violating its airspace, saying it must first complete an
investigation.
(AP, 9/16/05)
2005 Sep 16, The Volcano of
Fire in western Mexico blasted ash and gas three miles high, with an
explosion that was heard in villages 10 miles from the crater.
(AP, 9/16/05)
2005 Sep 16, In Nepal police
arrested 87 journalists as they gathered in Kathmandu to protest
media restrictions while thousands of pro-democracy activists
demonstrated elsewhere in the city to demand an end to absolute
royal rule. About 200 of those protesters were also arrested.
(AP, 9/16/05)
2005 Sep 16, North Korea
announced the introduction of the Stalinist country's first credit
card, but just how it would work was unclear.
(AP, 9/16/05)
2005 Sep 16, South Korea and
North and South Korea pledged to work to ensure peace and reduce
military tensions on their divided peninsula.
(AP, 9/16/05)
2005 Sep 16, Thousands of
Palestinians broke through Egyptian and Palestinian Authority lines
on the Gaza border, pouring into Egypt in defiance of government
attempts to secure the frontier.
(AP, 9/16/05)
2005 Sep 16, A cargo steamer
overturned and sank in the Russian far northern river port of
Dudinka. The steamer, licensed for 33 tons, was carrying 92 tons of
fruit and vegetables. It was not licensed to carry passengers, but
up to 10 people aside from the 5-man crew could have been aboard.
(AP, 9/16/05)
2005 Sep 16, UN Sec.-Gen. Kofi
Annan announced that a group of six US-based foundations is
committing $200 million over five years to support universities in 7
African countries (Ghana, Kenya, Mozambique, Nigeria, South Africa,
Tanzania and Uganda) including a project to significantly improve
Internet access. The Rockefeller, Carnegie, Ford and MacArthur
foundations were extending their involvement in an earlier project,
while the Andrew W. Mellon and William and Flora Hewlett Foundations
began participating for the first time.
(AP, 9/16/05)
2005 Sep 16, The UN said the
hole in the ozone layer above Antarctica has grown to near record
size this year, suggesting 20 years of pollution controls have so
far had little effect.
(AP, 9/16/05)
2005 Sep 16, A 3-day UN summit,
billed as the largest gathering of world leaders in history, ended
and achieved far less than U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan had
hoped. The final document represented the lowest common denominator
that all 151 member states could agree on after months of
negotiations.
(AP, 9/17/05)
2005 Sep 16, Venezuelan
President Hugo Chavez said he has documentary evidence that the
United States plans to invade his country. Chavez, interviewed on
ABC's "Nightline," said the plan is called "Balboa" and involves
aircraft carriers and planes.
(AP, 9/17/05)
2005 Sep 16, Zimbabwe's Pres.
Mugabe said that his government will take a stake in privately
operated mining enterprises, but he does not intend to nationalize
the industry as he has commercial farmland.
(AP, 9/16/05)
2005 Sep 17, US Secretary of
State Condoleezza Rice told Libya the US was committed to closer
relations with its former enemy, which promised to work harder to
fight terrorism.
(AP, 9/17/05)
2005 Sep 17, Dow Jones, under
chief executive Peter Kann, launched a new “Weekend” edition of the
Wall Street Journal. Over 30 members of the Bancroft family owned
30% of Dow Jones shares and 62% of its voting rights.
(Econ, 9/17/05, p.63)
2005 Sep 17, A Chicago commuter
train was going almost 60 mph above the speed limit just before it
derailed, killing two people and injuring dozens.
(AP, 9/18/05)
2005 Sep 17, The UN urged
Afghans to defy rebel violence and turn out in large numbers to vote
in landmark legislative elections. Fierce battles near the capital
and elsewhere killed nine militants and three policemen.
(AP, 9/17/05)
2005 Sep 17, Chile’s Pres.
Lagos signed a reform of the constitution that deleted what he
called “authoritarian enclaves” left in place from the dictatorship.
(Econ, 9/17/05,
p.38)(www.americas.org/item_21936)
2005 Sep 17, In China the
13-part TV series “Wise Man Takes All” premiered. It was backed by
Vincent Lo, a Hong Kong and Chinese property tycoon, who modeled it
after rival Donald Trump’s “The Apprentice.”
(Econ, 9/17/05, p.67)
2005 Sep 17, A French special
forces soldier was killed and one was seriously wounded when their
vehicle struck a mine while patrolling in southern Afghanistan.
(AP, 9/18/05)
2005 Sep 17, Germany’s 172nd
Oktoberfest opened and will run to Oct 3.
(AP, 5/17/05)
2005 Sep 17, The Indonesian
government signed a contract with state oil company Pertamina and US
oil giant Exxon Mobil Corp to develop Cepu block.
(AP, 9/17/05)
2005 Sep 17, The US military
said that coalition forces in Mosul had arrested two alleged leaders
of the al-Qaida in Iraq terrorist group. The military also said that
Iraqi forces and US troops killed two insurgents and captured six in
the city of Tal Afar.
(AP, 9/17/05)
2005 Sep 17, In Iraq a suicide
car bomb wrecked three vehicles in a US convoy near Abu Ghraib
prison, and insurgents fired seven mortar shells at the jail and
used grenades to damage three armored vehicles in another American
convoy in the area.
(AP, 9/17/05)
2005 Sep 17, A car bomb near an
outdoor market in a Shiite village east of Baghdad killed at least
30 people. At least 40 people were killed across Iraq.
(SSFC, 9/18/05, p.A14)
2005 Sep 17, In Iraq insurgents
assassinated Faris Nasir Hussein, a Kurdish member of parliament.
(AP, 9/18/05)
2005 Sep 17, In Japan DPJ
(Democratic Party of Japan) members, stunned by the loss of a third
of their 177 seats in the lower house of parliament, chose Seiji
Maehara (43) as their new leader.
(Econ, 9/24/05, p.50)
2005 Sep 17, PM Helen Clark's
ruling Labor Party pulled slightly ahead in New Zealand's general
election, despite a surge in support for the conservative
opposition. A new political party representing New Zealand's Maori
won 4 of 7 Parliament seats set aside for indigenous people in
elections dominated by an opposition party's vow to scrap Maori
privileges.
(AP, 9/17/05)
2005 Sep 18, "Everybody Loves
Raymond" won the Emmy for best comedy in its final season;
first-year hit "Lost" was named best drama.
(AP, 9/18/06)
2005 Sep 18, Former US
president Bill Clinton sharply criticized George W. Bush for the
Iraq War and the handling of Hurricane Katrina, and voiced alarm at
the swelling US budget deficit.
(AP, 9/19/05)
2005 Sep 18, Tropical Storm
Rita formed southeast of the Florida Keys.
(AP, 9/18/06)
2005 Sep 18, Joel Hirschhorn
(67), songwriter, died. He shared 2 best theme Oscars with Al Kasha:
one for “The Morning After” from The Poseidon Adventure (1972); the
other for “We May Never Love Like This Again,” from the film “The
Towering Inferno” (1974).
(SFC, 9/21/05,
p.B6)(www.imdb.com/title/tt0072308/)
2005 Sep 18, Afghans chose a
legislature for the first time in decades, embracing their newly
recovered democratic rights and braving threats of Taliban attacks
to cast votes in schools, tents and mosques. The turnout was
reported to be a disappointing 50%. 19 polling stations were
attacked by Taliban insurgents and a dozen people were killed. Women
won seats in 13 of the 34 provinces. The Hazara underclass claimed
43 seats out of 249, despite being 9-13% of the population.
(WSJ, 9/23/05, p.A1)(Econ, 9/24/05, p.17)(Econ,
10/22/05, p.46)(Econ, 2/17/07, p.45)
2005 Sep 18, Exit polls showed
conservative challenger Angela Merkel's party leading in German
parliamentary elections but falling short of the majority she needed
to form a center-right coalition as the nation's first female
chancellor. Merkel's bloc won the most votes in elections, but fell
short of a clear mandate to govern.
(AP, 9/18/05)(AP, 9/18/06)
2005 Sep 18, In Indonesia the
main zoo Jakarta was shut down after 19 of its birds died of the
avian influenza that has killed four people in the sprawling
country.
(AP, 9/18/05)
2005 Sep 18, Iran said that it
has no plans to resume uranium enrichment soon but warned that it
might change its mind if the International Atomic Energy Agency asks
the UN Security Council to consider sanctions against the Islamic
Republic.
(AP, 9/18/05)
2005 Sep 18, Iraq's parliament
signed off on revisions to the country's draft constitution as a
leading lawmaker declared that acceptance of the new charter was a
matter for the people.
(AP, 9/18/05)
2005 Sep 18, In Iraq police
found 20 bodies shot to death and dumped in the Tigris River north
of the capital, where there was no major violence for the first time
in five days. 4 more were found handcuffed and shot in east Baghdad.
(AP, 9/18/05)
2005 Sep 18, Armed Shiite
militiamen from the outlawed Mahdi Army demonstrated in central
Basra after British soldiers arrested their local leader on charges
of terrorism. British forces confirmed they had arrested "three
prominent individuals".
(AP, 9/19/05)(Econ, 9/24/05, p.55)
2005 Sep 18, Fakher Haider
(38), an Iraqi journalist working for The New York Times, was
abducted him from his home in the southern city of Basra by men
claiming to be police officers. His body was found the next day.
(AP, 9/19/05)
2005 Sep 18, Yegor Yakovlev
(75), a journalist whose weekly Soviet newspaper became a flagship
of openness during the glasnost era of Mikhail Gorbachev, died.
(AP, 9/23/05)
2005 Sep 18, At least 2.2
million people die of work-related accidents and diseases around the
world each year, the UN International Labour Organization said in a
report, adding that the estimate was 10 percent higher than in 2002.
The report was to be released at the 17th World Congress on Safety
and Health at Work in Orlando, Florida, which runs to Sep 22.
(AP, 9/18/05)
2005 Sep 18, Leaders from
developing nations took the speaker's platform on the second day of
the annual UN General Assembly debate to criticize rich countries
for not doing enough to ease the plight of the world's poorest
people.
(AP, 9/19/05)
2005 Sep 19, The US government
has told a Texas court that Pope Benedict XVI should be given
immunity from a lawsuit accusing him of conspiring to cover up the
sexual molestation of three boys by a seminarian. Assistant U.S.
Attorney General Peter Keisler said that, as pope, Benedict enjoys
immunity as the head of a state, the Vatican. He said that allowing
the lawsuit to proceed would be "incompatible with the United
States' foreign policy interests."
(AP, 9/20/05)
2005 Sep 19, Officials ordered
residents evacuated from the lower Florida Keys as Tropical Storm
Rita headed toward the island chain, threatening to grow into a
hurricane with a potential 8-foot storm surge.
(AP, 9/19/05)
2005 Sep 19, New Orleans Mayor
C. Ray Nagin, facing pressure from Washington and Hurricane Rita on
the way, halted his campaign to repopulate his city and ordered the
few residents and business owners who had returned to leave again.
Mandatory evacuation would begin Sep 21.
(AP, 9/20/05)(SFC, 9/20/05, p.A1)
2005 Sep 19, A new report by
the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies
said that of the estimated 3,000 foreign fighters in Iraq, the
largest number, about 20 percent, comes from Algeria, followed by
Syria and Yemen with about 18 percent and 17 percent, respectively.
About 15 percent come from Sudan, 12 percent from Saudi Arabia, 5
percent from Egypt, and the rest from other countries.
(AP, 9/20/05)
2005 Sep 19, L. Dennis
Kozlowski (58), former Tyco International Ltd. CEO, was sentenced 8
1/3 to 25 years in prison for looting the company of hundreds of
millions of dollars. Tyco's former finance chief, Mark Swartz (44)
received the same sentence. NY State Supreme Court Justice Michael
Obus ordered the defendants to pay a total of $134 million in
restitution to Tyco. In addition, the judge fined Kozlowski $70
million, and Swartz $35 million.
(AP, 9/20/05)(SFC, 9/20/05, p.D1)
2005 Sep 19, The Secular
Coalition for America, a new lobbying organization “whose purpose is
to amplify the diverse and growing voice of the nontheistic
community in the US,” began operations with former Nevada State
Senator Lori Lipman Brown as director/lobbyist.
(www.open.org/~lloydk/HAS/NL2005/news11.htm)
2005 Sep 19, The MacArthur
Foundation announced the 25 winners of its genius awards.
(SFC, 9/20/05, p.B1)
2005 Sep 19, Researchers
reported that partially paralyzed mice recovered following stem cell
shots.
(SFC, 9/20/05, p.A4)
2005 Sep 19, NASA administrator
Michael Griffin said a $104 billion program to return to the moon by
2018 would feature new “Crew Exploration Vehicles,” to replace the
shuttle fleet.
(SFC, 9/20/05, p.A1)
2005 Sep 19, In SF Arkelylius
Collins (20) was murdered at Third and Kirkwood in a hail of
gunfire. Terrel Rollins (22) was injured. In 2006 Daniel Dennard
(21) and Deonte Bennett (21), members of the Oakdale Mob, were
indicted on charges of murder. Rollins was killed on May 4, 2006,
and Dennard was released. On July 19, 2008, Dennard was shot and
killed on Bayshore Blvd. not far from where Rollins had been
murdered. In 2009 Bennett was arrested and charged in an alleged
murder for hire plot.
(SFC, 3/2/06, p.B2)(SFC, 7/21/08, p.A1)(SFC,
1/22/09, p.B8)
2005 Sep 19, In Ohio Katelind
Caudill (13) was shot and killed by Melvin Keeling (43) because she
told authorities her best friend was being molested. Keeling fled
the Cincinnati area. He was also sought for the killing of 2
convenience store clerks, Lisa Kendall (29) and Kendora Furr (38) at
the Family Express store in Remington, Indiana. On Sep 28 more than
a dozen investigators on the Keeling task force combed the woods in
Gary, Indiana and found the fugitive's wallet, ID and other personal
items a few blocks from where Keeling abandoned his van. Tracking
dogs also followed Keeling's scent from the wooded area to nearby
train tracks. He was an apparent suicide.
(SFC, 9/22/05,
p.A6)(www.amw.com/fugitives/brief.cfm?id=34686)
2005 Sep 19, Rescue teams
searched for two Argentine men whose snowmobile plunged into a deep
ice crevasse in Antarctica over the weekend, but hopes of pulling
them out alive were fading.
(AP, 9/19/05)
2005 Sep 19, Mark Latham,
former head of Australia’s Labor Party, published “The Latham
Diaries,” the story of the Labor Party from 1996-2005, and a
sobering account of the state of Australian democracy 100 years
after Federation.
(www.mup.unimelb.edu.au/catalogue/0-522-85215-7.html)
2005 Sep 19, Belgium issued an
international arrest warrant for Chad's former leader Hissene Habre,
charging him with atrocities during his 1982-90 rule. Habre, who
lives in exile in Senegal, is being pursued under Belgium's
"universal jurisdiction" laws, which allow for prosecutions for
crimes against humanity wherever they were committed.
(AP, 9/29/05)
2005 Sep 19, Brazil issued its
1st int’l. bond in its own currency. Brazil’s export boom had driven
the real upwards against the dollar.
(Econ, 9/24/05, p.90)
2005 Sep 19, In a statement
aired on a pan-Arab TV station, Al-Qaida deputy Ayman al-Zawahri
said his terror network had carried