Timeline 2005 October - December
Return to home
2005 Oct 1,
The SF Opera premiered “Doctor Atomic” by composer John Adams. The
libretto was by Peter Sellars.
(SSFC, 10/2/05, p.A17)
2005 Oct 1-2005 Oct 2, In SF
financier Warren Hellman sponsored the 5th annual Hardly Strictly
Bluegrass Festival in Golden Gate Park.
(SFC, 10/3/05, p.C1)
2005 Oct 1, In Connecticut
legislation permitting same-sex civil unions took effect.
(SSFC, 10/2/05, p.A5)
2005 Oct 1, In Norman,
Oklahoma, Joel Henry Hinrichs (21), a Univ. of Oklahoma student,
committed suicide using an explosive attached to his body near the
Oklahoma Memorial Stadium, where 84,000 people watched a football
game.
(SFC, 10/3/05, p.A3)(WSJ, 10/13/05, p.B1)
2005 Oct 1, Paul Pena (b.1950),
a blind bluesman, died in SF. The 1999 film "Genghis Blues" won the
audience award at Sundance for best documentary. It was directed by
Roko and Adrian Belic and was about Paul Pena (1950-1955), a blind
bluesman, who journeyed to Tuva to compete in a throat-singing
competition.
(SFC, 10/4/05, p.B5)
2005 Oct 1, A banned Algerian
Islamic group with ties to al-Qaida rejected an amnesty for Islamic
militants, saying in a statement on its Web site that it had no need
for a government peace plan.
(AP, 10/1/05)
2005 Oct 1, It was reported
that Louis Michaud, a Canadian engineer, had developed an
“atmospheric vortex engine” to harness energy from an artificial
tornado.
(Econ, 10/1/05, p.76)
2005 Oct 1, Tens of thousands
of Chinese marked the 56th anniversary of Communist rule in
Beijing's Tiananmen Square with the country enjoying the benefits of
two decades of rapid economic growth but still facing deep-seated
social problems.
(AP, 10/1/05)
2005 Oct 1, China and Japan
ended 2 days of talks with no resolution on their territorial
dispute in the East China Sea, which focused on oil and gas deposits
straddling the border.
(Econ, 10/8/05, p.52)
2005 Oct 1, Riot police
forcibly expelled striking union workers who had blockaded ports in
Corsica and southeastern France for days to protest against the
planned privatization of a state-run ferry operator.
(AP, 10/1/05)
2005 Oct 1, In the Dominican
Rep. 1,719 homicides were reported in the first eight months of the
year, compared to 1,513 during the same period in 2004. At least 25
children have been killed or injured by stray bullets in the same
period. Police estimate guns are used in 75 percent of homicides.
(AP, 10/1/05)
2005 Oct 1, A volcano in
western El Salvador erupted, sending a column of ash 50,000 feet
into the air and killing two farmers buried by chunks of earth and
boiling water that tumbled down the slopes.
(AP, 10/2/05)
2005 Oct 1, In Indonesia bombs
exploded almost simultaneously in two tourist areas of the resort
island of Bali, killing 20 people and wounding nearly 200 others.
Indonesia said suicide bombers carried out the blasts that bore the
hallmark of Islamic militants linked to al-Qaeda. In 2006 Abdul Aziz
(30) was sentenced to eight years in prison for harboring the
alleged mastermind of the bombings. Aziz had also helped set up a
Web site calling on Muslims to wage war against "infidels." Mohammad
Cholili (28) was sentenced to 18 years in prison for helping to
build the bombs. Dwi Widiarto (34) was sentenced to 8 years for
helping make the bombers’ videotaped confessions. Anif Solchanudin
was sentenced to 15 years in prison.
(AP, 10/2/05)(AP, 9/5/06)(AP, 9/7/06)(AP,
9/14/06)
2005 Oct 1, The US military
released about 500 Iraqi detainees from the notorious Abu Ghraib
prison, completing its plan to free a total of more than 1,000 this
week in honor of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
(AP, 10/1/05)
2005 Oct 1, In Iraq US Marines
began a 3-day offensive dubbed Iron Fist that included a sweep of
the insurgency stronghold of Karabila.
(SSFC, 11/13/05,
p.A1)(www.atsnn.com/story/174319.html)
2005 Oct 1, Japan privatized
four debt-ridden public corporations that run the nation's highways,
in the latest of PM Junichiro Koizumi's initiatives to reduce the
size of government.
(AP, 10/1/05)
2005 Oct 1, The outer bands of
Hurricane Otis lashed the coast of western Mexico as the storm
crawled toward the Baja California peninsula, forcing hundreds of
families to evacuate their homes and flooding roads in Cabo San
Lucas.
(AP, 10/2/05)
2005 Oct 1, A new Russian
"public chamber" met for the first time aiming to improve ties
between officials and society. A day earlier the Kremlin announced
the first 42 members of the chamber, an assortment of religious
leaders, Olympic champions, businessmen, trade unionists and others.
The members discussed who else should be included, since they now
have to choose a further 42 people to join their group. They were
also reported to have started to plan their course of action.
(AP, 10/1/05)
2005 Oct 1, A Russian rocket
roared into space in a burst of flame from Baikonur, Kazakhstan,
launching the world's third space tourist, US millionaire scientist
Gregory Olsen, and a U.S.-Russian crew on a two-day trip to the
international space station.
(AP, 10/1/05)
2005 Oct 1, In Yekaterinburg,
Russia, 5 teenagers, ranging in age from 12 to 17, were drunk when
they encountered a 21-year-old Jewish man and attacked him. After
the man fell to the ground, the group took a metal cross from a
grave headstone and stabbed him. A Russian court in 2007 sentenced
the 5 teenagers to prison terms of 5-10 years.
(AP, 2/9/07)
2005 Oct 1,
In South Korea Seoul's Mayor Lee Myung-bak led a ceremony for the
re-opening of the Chonggyechon stream buried beneath an elevated
highway for almost 50 years. Work to restore about 6 km of the
stream began in July, 2003, at a cost of around $350 million. The
stream flows through a narrow park that celebrates the history of
Seoul.
(Reuters, 10/1/05)
2005 Oct 2, In New York the
40-foot boat the Ethan Allen capsized on Lake George over so quickly
that none of the 47 passengers from Michigan could put on a life
jacket. 20 people were killed.
(AP, 10/3/05)
2005 Oct 2, Nipsey Russell
(80), actor and comedian, died in NY. As the "poet laureate of
television," he delivered his signature four-line verse during
frequent guest appearances on TV game shows and talk shows. Russell
launched his TV career in 1961 as Officer Anderson in the series
"Car 54, Where are You?" He also appeared in the 1994 film version.
(AP, 10/4/05)
2005 Oct 2, Playwright August
Wilson (60), whose epic 10-play cycle chronicling the black
experience in 20th-century America included such landmark dramas as
"Fences" and "Ma Rainey's Black Bottom," died of liver cancer.
(AP, 10/3/05)(Econ, 10/8/05, p.94)
2005 Oct 2, Afghan government
forces killed 31 suspected Taliban militants near the eastern border
with Pakistan. In a separate clash militants attacked a truck
carrying supplies for U.S.-led coalition forces in Surobi district
of eastern Paktia province, killing the truck driver. In fighting
that followed, three more militants were killed and two arrested.
Two Afghan army officers were wounded.
(AP, 10/3/05)
2005 Oct 2, Afghan election
officials said ballot boxes from about 4% of the country’s 26,000
polling stations were set aside for investigation on suspicion of
fraud.
(SFC, 10/3/05, p.A8)
2005 Oct 2, The fragmented
political opposition in Belarus chose Alexander Milinkevich (58), a
former US-educated physicist, to challenge President Alexander
Lukashenko in next year's presidential election.
(AP, 10/2/05)
2005 Oct 2, In western Colombia
leftist FARC rebels attacked a police station in an isolated jungle
town, killing at least five police officers.
(AP, 10/3/05)
2005 Oct 2, The US ambassador
urged Colombia to spray weed killer inside the country's spectacular
nature parks to destroy cocaine-producing crops, insisting the
chemicals will not cause widespread damage to the reserves'
ecosystems.
(AP, 10/2/05)
2005 Oct 2, A Dubai-based
newspaper said it stands by a story in which it quoted Iran's
president as saying he might curtail oil sales if his nation is
referred to the UN Security Council for possible sanctions over its
nuclear program.
(AP, 10/2/05)
2005 Oct 2, Voters in the
German city of Dresden cast the last ballots in the inconclusive
national election in what could offer a breakthrough in a bitter
power struggle over who will be the next chancellor. The election
there was postponed for two weeks due to the death of a neo-Nazi
candidate. Conservative challenger Angela Merkel's party gained a
seat in Dresden, the last remaining district in parliamentary
balloting.
(AP, 10/2/05)
2005 Oct 2, Hundreds of U.S.
troops combed through a village near the Syrian border, breaking
into houses and fighting sporadic gun battles with gunmen on the
second day of a new offensive against al-Qaida insurgents. At least
eight militants were killed.
(AP, 10/2/05)
2005 Oct 2, Al-Qaida in Iraq
claimed to have captured two US Marines participating in an
offensive in western Iraq, threatening in a Web statement to kill
them within 24 hours. The US military said the claim appeared to be
fake.
(AP, 10/2/05)
2005 Oct 2, Israel suspended
its offensive into the Gaza Strip following a lull in rocket fire by
Palestinian militants, but it is ready to restart the operation if
attacks resume.
(AP, 10/2/05)
2005 Oct 2, Libya awarded 44
oil exploration permits to predominantly Asian and European
companies after a first batch was awarded earlier this year mainly
to American firms.
(AFP, 10/3/05)
2005 Oct 2, Portuguese Prime
Minister Jose Socrates met Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi in Tripoli,
as Libya continues its bid to warm relations with the West.
(AP, 10/2/05)
2005 Oct 2, Felipe Calderon,
Mexico's former energy secretary, appeared headed toward another
victory in the 2nd round of the ruling National Action Party's
3-part presidential primary.
(AP, 10/2/05)
2005 Oct 2, Moroccan police
began rounding up African refugees. Doctors Without Borders soon
reported that Morocco had dropped about 1,000 people in the desert
and left them there to walk for nearly a week. As a result, the
government established the two holding centers at Touizgue and
Berden for those people to find refuge.
(AP, 10/18/05)
2005 Oct 2, Assailants fired
rockets at a Pakistani army base, killing a soldier and three
government employees in a spate of violence in the lawless tribal
area along the Afghan border.
(AP, 10/3/05)
2005 Oct 2, Hamas gunmen
clashed with Palestinian security forces in the Gaza Strip. A police
commander and a civilian were killed and at least 50 others were
wounded.
(SFC, 10/3/05, p.A8)
2005 Oct 2, Project leader
Exxon Mobil corporation said Russia's massive Sakhalin-1 oil and gas
field started pumping oil off the country's Pacific coast at the
weekend.
(AP, 10/2/05)
2005 Oct 2-2005 Oct 3, In
Colombia suspected leftist rebels (FARC) killed at least 13 coca
harvesters near Vistahermosa as part of a struggle with far-right
paramilitary gangs for control of the lucrative cocaine trade.
(AP, 10/5/05)
2005 Oct 3, President Bush
nominated White House counsel Harriet Miers (b.1945) to the Supreme
Court, turning to a lawyer who has never been a judge to replace
Sandra Day O'Connor and help reshape the nation's judiciary. She
withdrew three weeks later after criticism over her lack of judicial
experience and Republican concerns about her conservatism.
(AP, 10/3/05)(SFC, 10/4/05, p.A1)(AP, 10/3/06)
2005 Oct 3, Representative Tom
DeLay, a powerful ally of President George W. Bush, was indicted on
a new charge of money laundering as his lawyers moved to dismiss a
previous conspiracy indictment filed last week.
(AP, 10/4/05)
2005 Oct 3, The US search for
bodies due to Hurricane Katrina ended with a toll of 964.
(WSJ, 10/4/05, p.A1)
2005 Oct 3, Stellar Management
of NY and Rockpoint Group announced their purchase of the Villas
Parkmerced complex in SF. The 115-acre, 3,221-unit complex sold for
an estimated $700 million. Carmel Properties and JP Morgan had
purchased the property in 1999 for $324 million.
(SFC, 10/4/05, p.C1)
2005 Oct 3, A Russian space
capsule with American tourist Gregory Olsen aboard docked with the
international space station.
(AP, 10/4/06)
2005 Oct 3, The UN ambassadors
of Britain, France and the US sent a letter emphasizing their
continued opposition to a proposal to create a nuclear-weapons free
zone in Central Asia. The letter, sent to the UN ambassadors of the
five Central Asian nations, says that a draft treaty to create the
zone still does not address their biggest concerns and that further
discussions are needed. It calls for consultations "very soon." The
five nations agreed to the draft text for a Central Asian
nuclear-free zone in February. Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan,
Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan had originally put forward a proposal
for a nuclear-weapon free zone in 1997, but divisions both internal
and external over the text have stalled progress. Moscow claims that
a 1992 treaty that Russia signed with Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and
Tajikistan could allow missiles to be deployed in the region.
(AP, 10/4/05)
2005 Oct 3, Australians Barry
J. Marshall and Robin Warren won the 2005 Nobel Prize in medicine
for showing that bacterial infection, not stress, was to blame for
painful ulcers in the stomach and intestine.
(AP, 10/3/05)
2005 Oct 3, In southeastern
Bangladesh several bombs went off in crowded court buildings in
Chittagong, Chandpur and Laxmipur towns. 2 people were killed and at
least 25 wounded.
(AP, 10/4/05)
2005 Oct 3, Bishop Luiz Flavio
Cappio (59), a Catholic bishop on a hunger strike to protest plans
to alter the course of a river to irrigate parts of Brazil's arid
northeast, said he was "ready to die" if the project goes forward.
Pres. Lula da Silva, who was born in one of the drought stricken
regions that would benefit from the altered course of the Sao
Francisco River, wrote the bishop a letter saying the $2 billion
project will help 18 million people in northeastern Brazil.
(AP, 10/3/05)
2005 Oct 3, Singer Emilinha
Borba (82), the queen of Brazil's golden age of radio, died of a
heart attack. In 1939, Borba recorded her first record, "Pirulito,"
or "Lollipop," launching her career as a radio singer. Between 1939
and 1964, Borba recorded over 200 songs.
(AP, 10/4/05)
2005 Oct 3, The boards of
pharmaceutical distributor Alliance UniChem PLC and drugstore chain
Boots Group PLC said they had agreed to merge.
(AP, 10/3/05)
2005 Oct 3, In Colombia a bomb
packed inside a pickup truck and apparently meant to target
government forces killed 3 members of a family, including two
children, when it exploded as they passed by in Florida County, a
FARC stronghold.
(AP, 10/4/05)
2005 Oct 3, EU nations reached
a tentative agreement on pursuing full membership talks with Turkey,
diplomats said. A spokesman for the Turkish prime minister denied
reports that Ankara had agreed to the deal.
(AP, 10/3/05)
2005 Oct 3, The EU imposed an
arms embargo on Uzbekistan, cut aid, and suspended a cooperation
accord to punish the increasingly isolated country for refusing to
investigate the violent suppression of an uprising in May.
(AP, 10/3/05)
2005 Oct 3, In El Salvador
heavy rains triggered landslides that killed at least 31 people,
while rising rivers forced the evacuation of dozens of people there
and in neighboring Guatemala.
(AP, 10/3/05)
2005 Oct 3, In France a
widespread transit strike expected to touch on nearly all modes of
public transportation began late at night in protest of the
center-right government's economic and labor policies.
(AP, 10/3/05)
2005 Oct 3, Munich's two-week
Oktoberfest drew to a close, and organizers said more people visited
this year but they drank less beer than in 2004.
(AP, 10/3/05)
2005 Oct 3, India and Pakistan
signed a deal requiring them to notify each other of plans for
ballistic missile tests.
(AP, 10/3/05)
2005 Oct 3, In central India at
least 16 people were killed and dozens injured when six cars of a
speeding passenger train derailed.
(AP, 10/3/05)
2005 Oct 3, In western Iraq 2
US soldiers and a Marine were killed.
(AP, 10/4/05)
2005 Oct 3, More than 300
Africans tore through a razor-wire fence separating Morocco from the
Spanish enclave of Melilla, clashing with police in the latest wave
of undocumented immigrants seeking a foothold in Europe.
(AP, 10/3/05)
2005 Oct 3, The Palestinian
parliament voted that Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas must form a
new government within two weeks.
(AP, 10/3/05)
2005 Oct 3, In northern and
central Portugal 11 wildfires burned out of control amid the
country's worst drought on record.
(AP, 10/4/05)
2005 Oct 3, In Russia Orthodox
priests chanted prayers and believers lighted candles as Patriarch
Alexy II led reburial rites for Gen. Anton Denikin, who fought
against the Red Army during Russia's civil war and is now cast as a
patriot. Denikin, who died in exile in the United States in 1947,
was laid to rest together with Russian philosopher Ivan Ilyin and
the wives of the two men in the historic Donskoy Monastery in
central Moscow.
(AP, 10/3/05)
2005 Oct 3, In Sangju, South
Korea, concertgoers trying to enter a packed stadium sparked a
stampede, killing 11 and injuring 72 others.
(AP, 10/3/05)
2005 Oct 3, Sudan's government
and rebels from the war-ravaged Darfur region agreed to sit down for
face-to-face talks after a week of bickering that had put
discussions on hold.
(AP, 10/3/05)
2005 Oct 3, Switzerland decided
to extradite Russia's former nuclear minister to the US on charges
of stealing up to $9 million that was intended to improve security
of nuclear plants. Russia has been fighting the US extradition
request for Yevgeny Adamov out of fear that he could reveal nuclear
secrets while facing the charges in the United States.
(AP, 10/3/05)
2005 Oct 4, President Bush
defended his Supreme Court nominee, Harriet Miers, from suggestions
by some skeptical Republicans that she was not conservative enough,
and insisted Miers shared his strict-constructionist views. Miers
ended up withdrawing.
(AP, 10/4/06)
2005 Oct 4, Americans John L.
Hall and Roy J. Glauber and German Theodor W. Haensch won the 2005
Nobel Prize in physics for work that could lead to better
long-distance communication and more precise navigation worldwide
and in space.
(AP, 10/4/05)
2005 Oct 4, The US Mint
unveiled the design for a new Jefferson nickel called the Jefferson
1800, designed by Jamie Franki. It will begin circulating in 2006.
(SFC, 10/5/05, p.A7)
2005 Oct 4, The DJIA fell 94.37
to 10,441.11.
(SFC, 10/5/05, p.C1)
2005 Oct 4, Insurance claims
for Hurricane Katrina were estimated at $34.4 billion in personal
and commercial property loss claims.
(SFC, 10/5/05, p.C1)
2005 Oct 4, Hurricane Stan
slammed into Mexico’s Gulf coast.
(AP, 10/4/06)
2005 Oct 4, Philadelphia
selected EarthLink to run its municipal wireless system.
(SFC, 10/5/05, p.C1)
2005 Oct 4, According to the
IMF major oil producers were now a bigger source of funds for
financial markets and US creditors than China, Japan and the rest of
Asia.
(WSJ, 10/4/05, p.A1)
2005 Oct 4, Google and Sun
Microsystems announced an alliance to promote each other’s products.
(SFC, 10/5/05, p.A1)
2005 Oct 4, It was reported
that phthalate chemicals, used in a wide variety of products from
toys to cosmetics, had been found to block the action of fetal
androgens in rodents. Androgen hormones are critical in developing
males.
(WSJ, 10/4/05, p.A1)
2005 Oct 4, In Afghanistan a
bomb exploded near a key crossing point on the Afghan-Pakistan
border, killing three people and wounding 20. Authorities blamed
Taliban insurgents.
(AP, 10/5/05)
2005 Oct 4, In London Russia’s
Pres. Putin met with EU leaders for talks on expanding cooperation
in the fight against crime, including terrorism, and strengthening
trade ties.
(AP, 10/4/05)
2005 Oct 4, A Bosnian Serb
panel said it identified more than 17,000 people with varying levels
of blood on their hands for abetting the 1995 Srebrenica massacre.
(WSJ, 10/5/05, p.A1)
2005 Oct 4-2005 Oct 5, In
Canada Toronto's chief medical officer said 4 more residents of a
nursing home for the elderly have died of an unknown respiratory
illness, bringing the number fatally infected by the disease to 10.
Officials said Legionnaires’ disease was the likely cause as the
deaths rose to 16.
(AP, 10/5/05)(SFC, 10/7/05, p.A3)
2005 Oct 4, China’s state media
reported that raging floodwaters spawned by Typhoon Longwang along
the southeastern coast swept away 59 paramilitary police officers
and washed away two buildings at a military training school.
(AP, 10/4/05)
2005 Oct 4, In Colombia a judge
ordered the re-arrest of a man in a wheelchair who hijacked a
Colombian airliner, but said he could remain under house arrest due
to his failing health.
(AP, 10/4/05)
2005 Oct 4, Colombia granted
political asylum to former Ecuadorian President Lucio Gutierrez, who
has said he faces treason charges in his homeland.
(AP, 10/4/05)
2005 Oct 4, Croatia began
delayed EU membership talks, after UN chief war crimes prosecutor
Carla del Ponte endorsed Zagreb's cooperation with her court.
(AFP, 10/4/05)
2005 Oct 4, French President
Jacques Chirac said that Turkey would need to undergo a "major
cultural revolution" before entering the EU, and he reiterated that
France would hold a referendum on admitting Ankara to the bloc.
(AP, 10/4/05)
2005 Oct 4, It was reported
that French Attorney Jean-Marc Goldnadel had launched
classaction.fr, a French Web site that lets users sign up to
lawsuits online for as little as 12 euros ($14.50). President
Jacques Chirac had announced the introduction of class action suits
earlier in the year.
(AP, 10/4/05)
2005 Oct 4, In India's
northeast 11 people, including five villagers hacked to death by
rival tribesmen, were reported killed. Separatist insurgencies have
raged in Manipur and Assam states for the past two decades.
(AP, 10/4/05)
2005 Oct 4, Indonesia’s central
bank raised interest rates for the 3rd time in 5 weeks one point to
11% in an effort to keep a lid on inflation.
(WSJ, 10/5/05, p.A18)
2005 Oct 4, The 1st day of
Ramadan began for Muslims.
(AP, 10/4/05)
2005 Oct 4, Iraqi lawmakers
approved the death penalty for anyone financing or "provoking"
terrorism.
(AP, 10/4/05)
2005 Oct 4, A suicide car bomb
exploded at a checkpoint at the main entrance of Baghdad's Green
Zone, killing two Iraqi policemen and wounding one.
(AP, 10/4/05)
2005 Oct 4, In western Iraq
some 2,500 U.S. troops along with Iraqi forces launched their second
major offensive in a week, sweeping into three towns to take them
back from insurgents who had killed Marines there last month.
(AP, 10/4/05)
2005 Oct 4, Japan's Cabinet
endorsed a one-year extension of the country's naval mission to
support U.S.-led troops in Afghanistan, citing renewed concerns
about terrorism after the recent bombings in Indonesia.
(AP, 10/4/05)
2005 Oct 4, In Nigeria at least
3 civilians were killed in crossfire and a Lagos police headquarters
was burned down after a dispute between armed police and soldiers
erupted in street fighting. Witnesses said that brawling broke out
after an army officer tried to prevent a police patrol extorting an
illegal 20 naira (seven cent) toll from a motorcycle taxi driver.
(AP, 10/5/05)
2005 Oct 4, Jim Gray (43), one
of Northern Ireland's most high-profile Protestant militants was
shot to death outside his home in east Belfast, more than six months
after he was ousted by his outlawed group.
(AP, 10/4/05)
2005 Oct 4, Pakistani security
forces arrested Abdul Latif Hakimi, the chief spokesman of
Afghanistan's ousted Taliban regime, describing his capture as a
major blow to the Islamic militia.
(AFP, 10/4/05)
2005 Oct 4, A Palestinian woman
brandishing a knife stabbed and wounded an Israeli soldier at a
checkpoint outside the West Bank city of Nablus before other
soldiers shot and killed her.
(AP, 10/4/05)
2005 Oct 4, In Peru Maritza
Garrido Lecca, a former ballet teacher who used her dance studio to
hide Shining Path founder Abimael Guzman, was sentenced to 20 years
in prison after a three-month civilian retrial. Nicholas Shakespeare
used the story as inspiration for his novel "The Dancer Upstairs"
(1995), which John Malkovich turned into a 2002 movie of the same
name, starring Javier Bardem.
(AP, 10/5/05)
2005 Oct 4, A Philippine
provincial government filed a lawsuit in Nevada accusing Canadian
mining giant Placer Dome Inc. of damaging the environment and health
of residents of an island about 100 miles south of Manila. Placer
Dome was blamed for a March 1996 environmental accident that sent
millions of tons of open-pit copper mine waste down a river to the
Marinduque capital, Boac.
(AP, 10/4/05)
2005 Oct 4, Spain said it will
build a third high-security fence between its Melilla enclave and
Morocco after undocumented immigrants repeatedly stormed two
existing barriers.
(AP, 10/4/05)
2005 Oct 4, UN peacekeepers
preparing to pull out of Sierra Leone said they have completed the
mission they began six years ago but warn the country still has a
long way to go before it recovers from one of Africa's most brutal
wars.
(AP, 10/4/05)
2005 Oct 4, Sudan's government
and rebels from Darfur met for a 2nd day of talks in Nigeria. The
visiting Dutch PM urged all parties to reach a power-sharing deal by
the end of the year.
(AP, 10/4/05)
2005 Oct 4, A new Syrian TV
series began broadcasting around the Middle East. It tells the story
of Arabs living in residential compounds in Saudi Arabia and the
militant Islamists who want to blow them up so they can collect
their rewards in heaven, 72 beautiful virgins.
(AP, 10/10/05)
2005 Oct 4, The UAE Labor
Ministry announced that company executives will find their names on
a sheet of shame published by the government if they don't start
paying wages to their laborers.
(AP, 10/4/05)
2005 Oct 4, The UN Security
Council warned Ethiopia and Eritrea against reigniting their border
war and urged Eritrea to immediately reverse its ban on all
helicopter flights by UN peacekeepers.
(AP, 10/4/05)
2005 Oct 4, Venezuela said it
has reduced its holdings of US Treasury securities and moved some
foreign exchange reserves into European investments.
(SFC, 10/5/05, p.A18)
2005 Oct 4-2005 Oct 9, The
World Golf Championships took place at Harding Park Golf Course
along Lake Merced in SF, Ca.
(SFCM, 10/2/05, p.6)
2005 Oct 5, Defying the White
House, US senators voted 90-9 to approve an amendment that would
prohibit the use of "cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or
punishment" against anyone in U.S. government custody.
(AP, 10/5/06)
2005 Oct 5, Americans Robert H.
Grubbs and Richard R. Schrock and Yves Chauvin of France won the
Nobel Prize in chemistry for their work in metathesis, a technique
for moving groups of atoms from one molecule to another. Their
discoveries let industry create drugs and advanced plastics in a
more efficient and environmentally friendly way.
(AP, 10/5/05)(Econ, 10/8/05, p.87)
2005 Oct 5, In a move meant to
send a message to Uzbekistan, the US Senate voted to block the
payment of $23 million for past use of an air base that the Uzbek
government recently said will no longer host U.S. aircraft and
troops.
(AP, 10/5/05)
2005 Oct 5, Lawrence Franklin
(58), a Pentagon employee, admitted in court he provided classified
defense information to an Israeli diplomat and two employees of
(AIPAC), a pro-Israel lobby group in 2003-2004. In 2006 Franklin was
sentenced to over 12 years in prison.
(AFP, 10/6/05)(SFC, 1/21/06, p.A4)
2005 Oct 5, The City Council of
Oakland, Ca., approved a 3 dog limit for city residents. Breeders,
kennels and rescue groups were exempted.
(SFC, 10/6/05, p.B5)
2005 Oct 5, The DJIA dropped
nearly 124 points to 10,317.36 over inflation concerns.
(SFC, 10/6/05, p.C1)
2005 Oct 5, A team of US
researchers announced the successful rebuilding of a replica of the
1918 Spanish flu virus. The genetic blueprint was published on the
Internet. Their success was based on an original sample recovered
from a frozen corpse in Alaska in 1997.
(SFC, 10/6/05, p.A1)
2005 Oct 5, NASA announced that
short burst type of Gamma Ray Bursters involved the collision of
either 2 neutron stars or of a neutron star and a black hole. Gamma
Ray Bursters were 1st discovered in 1967 and later 2 types were
identified. The long burst type had previously been explained as
radiation from the collapse of a massive star.
(SFC, 10/6/05, p.A2)
2005 Oct 5, Hurricane Stan
knocked down trees, ripped roofs off homes and washed out bridges in
southeastern Mexico, but it was the storms it helped spawn that were
far more destructive, killing more than 65 people in Central
America. Officials in El Salvador said 49 people had been killed,
mostly due to two days of mudslides sparked by rains. 9 people died
in Nicaragua, including six migrants believed to be Ecuadorians
killed in a boat accident. Four deaths were reported in Honduras,
three in Guatemala and one in Costa Rica.
(AP, 10/5/05)
2005 Oct 5, Daniel Alfredsson
scored twice in the final six minutes of regulation and once during
the first shootout in NHL history, leading Ottawa to a 3-2 win over
Toronto.
(AP, 10/5/06)
2005 Oct 5, Iran's foreign
minister met with Omani officials, part of a tour of Gulf countries
to win support for his government's standoff with the West over its
nuclear program.
(AP, 10/5/05)
2005 Oct 5, Iraq's parliament
voted to reverse last-minute changes to rules for next week's
referendum on a new constitution after the UN said they were unfair.
Sunni Arabs responded by dropping their threat to boycott the vote
and promised to reject the charter at the polls.
(AP, 10/5/05)
2005 Oct 5, A bomb exploded at
the entrance of a Shiite Muslim mosque south of Baghdad as hundreds
of worshippers gathered for prayers on the first day of Ramadan and
for the funeral of a man killed in an earlier bombing. At least 25
people were killed and 87 wounded. In Kirkuk assassins killed Nubiel
Sharaf Aldeen, a retired police official.
(AP, 10/5/05)(SFC, 10/7/05, p.A14)
2005 Oct 5, A video showing two
Iraqi men being beheaded for allegedly spying for the United States
was posted on a militant Islamic Web site, and the Ansar al-Sunnah
Army claimed it had carried out the executions.
(AP, 10/5/05)
2005 Oct 5, Toyota Motor Corp.
said it has agreed to buy an 8.7 percent stake in rival Japanese
automaker Fuji Heavy Industries, the maker of Subaru cars, from
General Motors Corp. for about $315 million.
(AP, 10/5/05)
2005 Oct 5, Some 500 African
immigrants defied increased security and tried to surge across
razor-wire fences separating Morocco and the Spanish enclave of
Melilla, the 5th such rush in a week. The assault in a week prompted
Spain to announce plans to expel the illegal migrants.
(AP, 10/6/05)
2005 Oct 5, Drug agents found
3,904 pounds of cocaine in the steel oxygen tank, one of the largest
drug busts in Puerto Rico's history. The DEA has estimated that as
much as 20 percent of the cocaine that reaches the US moves through
the Caribbean. Traffickers love Puerto Rico because after their
drugs arrive on the island, they can be hidden amid regular cargo
and shipped onward, bypassing routine searches because Puerto Rico
is part of the United States.
(AP, 11/7/05)
2005 Oct 5, In southern
Thailand suspected Islamic insurgents shot and killed five soldiers
as they ate dinner at a military outpost.
(AP, 10/5/05)
2005 Oct 5, The official Herald
newspaper reported Zimbabwe needs to import more grain to feed at
least 2.2 million needy people who cannot fend for themselves until
the new harvest next April.
(AP, 10/5/05)
2005 Oct 6, President Bush
sought to rally flagging public support for the war in Iraq,
accusing militants of seeking to establish a "radical Islamic
empire" with Iraq as the base.
(AP, 10/6/06)
2005 Oct 6, Gregg Miller won
the Ig Nobel Prize for medicine for his prosthetic testicles for
neutered dogs. Miller has sold more than 150,000 of his Neuticles,
more than doubling his $500,000 investment. The silicone implants
come in different sizes, shapes, weights and degrees of firmness.
Other winners included Nigerian Internet scammers and a team that
calculated the pressures created when penguins poop.
(AP, 10/7/05)
2005 Oct 6-2005 Oct 7, More
than 65 countries and international organizations met at the US
State Department to plan for the possible outbreak of potentially
deadly bird flu.
(AP, 10/5/05)
2005 Oct 6, The US State
Department offered a reward of up to $10 million for information
leading to the arrest and conviction of a suspected mastermind in
the nightclub bombings in 2002 in Bali, Indonesia.
(AP, 10/6/05)
2005 Oct 6, Dean VandenBiesen,
vice president of operations for LifeGem, said his company uses
super-hot ovens to transform funeral ashes to graphite and then
presses the stone into blue and yellow diamonds that retail for
anywhere from 2,700 to 20,000 dollars.
(AFP, 10/7/05)
2005 Oct 6, Merck & Co.
Inc. said a vaccine that targets a human wart virus completely
prevented early-stage cervical cancer and precancerous lesions in
women caused by the two most common forms of the virus.
(AP, 10/6/05)
2005 Oct 6, Dennis Murphy
(b.1932), screenwriter and author of “The Sergeant” (1958), died in
SF. He also wrote the script for the 1971 film version.
(SFC, 10/11/05, p.B9)
2005 Oct 6, Coalition forces
who were engaged in combat with militants opened fire on a vehicle
carrying Afghan police, killing four and wounding one.
(AP, 10/7/05)
2005 Oct 6, In Colombia
right-wing paramilitary groups suspended their demobilization
process with the government to protest President Alvaro Uribe's
decision to jail a paramilitary leader who is wanted in New York on
drug trafficking charges.
(AP, 10/6/05)
2005 Oct 6, In Colombia an
intense rainstorm triggered a landslide that buried part of Bello, a
shantytown on the outskirts of the northwestern city of Medellin,
killing at least 26 people, many of them children.
(AP, 10/7/05)
2005 Oct 6-2005 Oct 8, In
Guatemala rescue workers searched for victims of a mudslide near
Lake Atitlan, a volcano-ringed lake popular with tourists. Panabaj
and Tzanchaz were entombed by a mudflow half a mile wide. The death
toll in the region from flooding sparked by Hurricane Stan soon
climbed to 617 with 42 dead in Mexico, 72 dead in El Salvador and 11
dead in Nicaragua.
(SFC, 10/7/05, p.A3)(AP, 10/9/05)(Econ, 10/15/05,
p.43)
2005 Oct 6, Insurgents using
suicide and roadside bombs killed at least 13 people, including a
U.S. soldier, and wounded 19 in the latest of a series of attacks
aimed at wrecking Iraq's constitutional referendum next week.
(AP, 10/6/05)
2005 Oct 6, Bomb blasts killed
six Marines in western Iraq. US forces killed 29 militants in
offensives aimed at uprooting al-Qaida insurgents.
(AP, 10/7/05)
2005 Oct 6, Africa Union
leaders said Ivorian President Laurent Gbagbo's could stay in power
after his term expires on October 30, giving him up to a year more
in office in a bid to resolve the crisis in his divided country.
(AFP, 10/6/05)
2005 Oct 6, In Japan the
Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper was awarded compensation from a small
Internet firm that used its news headlines without permission, in a
first-of-a-kind ruling in the country. The Intellectual Property
High Court, a special branch court of the Tokyo High Court, ordered
Digital Alliance Corp. to pay about 237,700 yen (2,000 dollars) to
the Yomiuri.
(AFP, 10/6/05)
2005 Oct 6, In Lithuania
authorities released the pilot of a Russian military plane that
crashed in Lithuania, saying he was no longer suspected of violating
the Baltic country's airspace.
(AP, 10/6/05)
2005 Oct 6, Gunmen abducted
three local Hamas leaders in a series of kidnappings. Prof. Riad
Abdel Karim al-Raz (47), a Palestinian university professor known as
a Hamas leader, was released the next day. The al-Farouk bin
al-Khatab Brigades, claimed responsibility.
(AP, 10/7/05)
2005 Oct 6, Romania said it has
deported five students accused of having ties to al-Qaida and trying
to recruit members of the country's Muslim community.
(AP, 10/6/05)
2005 Oct 6, A UN official said
the International Criminal Court in The Hague has issued arrest
warrants for Joseph Kony and 5 henchmen of the Lord's Resistance
Army (LRA), a Ugandan cult notorious for raping, maiming and killing
children.
(Reuters, 10/6/05)(Econ, 10/22/05, p.48)
2005 Oct 7, The former Tanforan
Park Shopping Center in San Bruno, Ca., was scheduled to re-open as
“The Shops of Tanforan” following a 2-year renovation.
(SFC, 10/6/05, p.B1)
2005 Oct 7, Mohamed ElBaradei
and the International Atomic Energy Agency won the 2005 Nobel Peace
Prize for their drive to curb the spread of atomic weapons by using
diplomacy to resolve standoffs with Iran and North Korea over their
nuclear programs.
(AP, 10/7/05)
2005 Oct 7, The Senate voted to
give President Bush $50 billion more for the wars in Iraq and
Afghanistan and US military efforts against terrorism, money that
would push total spending for the operations beyond $350 billion.
(AP, 10/7/05)
2005 Oct 7, Jimmy Massey, a
former U.S. Marine in Iraq, alleged that his battalion committed
atrocities against Iraqi civilians during the U.S.-led invasion in
2003, including shooting unarmed protesters. He detailed the
allegations in his book "Kill! Kill! Kill!", written with the French
journalist Natasha Saulnier and published in France.
(AP, 10/7/05)
2005 Oct 7, John Rigas and his
son, founders of bankrupt Adelphia Communications, were indicted for
failure to pay some $300 million in taxes.
(SFC, 10/8/05, p.C1)
2005 Oct 7, California’s Gov.
Schwarzenegger signed legislation to allow local governments to
regulate certain breeds of dogs.
(SFC, 10/8/05, p.A11)
2005 Oct 7, Charles Rocket
(56), actor and comedian, died of apparent suicide near his home in
Connecticut. Rocket was a cast member of Saturday Night Live during
the 1980-81 season.
(SFC, 10/18/05, p.B4)
2005 Oct 7, In Brazil former
security guard Deusimar Neves Queiroz, a suspect in one of the
world's biggest bank robberies, was arrested after his sister-in-law
tipped off police to his alleged involvement.
(AP, 10/8/05)
2005 Oct 7, Reckitt Benckiser
PLC announced it has agreed to buy the consumer healthcare division
of Boots Group PLC for 1.9 billion pounds ($3.4 billion).
(AP, 10/7/05)
2005 Oct 7, At least seven
Iraqi civilians were killed in shootings around the city, and at
least two bodies were found dumped in the capital.
(AP, 10/7/05)
2005 Oct 7, In Iraq insurgents
killed Haj Abdul Bajid Ahmed Al-Jibori, a member of the local
district council, in a drive-by shooting southwest of the northern
city of Kirkuk. West of Baghdad, a drive-by shooting killed police
Capt. Haqi Ismael, who worked with the Ministry of Interior.
(AP, 10/8/05)
2005 Oct 7, In Belfast,
Northern Ireland, police and secret service agents arrested Sean
Garland (71) and 6 accomplices of an IRA splinter group for
conspiring with North Korea to distribute counterfeit $100 bills.
(WSJ, 10/12/05, p.A1)
2005 Oct 7, In eastern Pakistan
assailants with assault rifles attacked a mosque belonging to a
small Muslim sect, killing at least eight people and wounding 19.
(AP, 10/7/05)
2005 Oct 7, Palestinian police
arrested 30 suspected car thieves and drug dealers in a high-profile
crackdown on crime in this West Bank town.
(AP, 10/7/05)
2005 Oct 7, Philippine
authorities said they had started an investigation to unmask
opposition figures suspected of involvement in the theft of
classified US documents in a widening spy scandal. Leandro
Aragoncillo, an FBI analyst in New Jersey, was suspected of passing
intelligence to the Philippines.
(AP, 10/7/05)(SFC, 10/7/05, p.A11)
2005 Oct 7, Russia
test-launched a collapsible mini-spacecraft, which is designed to
carry cargo and even passengers from the international space station
to Earth.
(AP, 10/7/05)
2005 Oct 7, Serbia's war crimes
prosecutors filed charges against five Serb paramilitaries who
appeared in a video showing the execution of six Srebrenica Muslims.
(AP, 10/7/05)
2005 Oct 7, The Sudanese
government agreed for the first time to allow Ugandan troops to
pursue members of the rebel Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) in all
parts of southern Sudan.
(AP, 10/12/05)
2005 Oct 7-2005 Oct 8, More
than 330 school children in western Ukraine were hospitalized with
food poisoning, including four who were in critical condition. A
preliminary investigation showed that the source of infection as a
dysentery bacteria in kefir, a popular drink made of fermented milk.
(AP, 10/8/05)
2005 Oct 8, In New Orleans
Robert Davis, a retired elementary teacher, was repeatedly punched
in the head by police in an incident caught on videotape. Davis was
not drunk, put up no resistance and was baffled by what happened. In
Dec two police officers were fired for the incident.
(AP, 10/11/05)(SFC, 10/11/05, p.A4)(SFC,
12/22/05, p.A9)
2005 Oct 8, Amtrak resumed
passenger rail service to New Orleans as the train called the City
of New Orleans arrived with 29 passengers aboard.
(AP, 10/8/06)
2005 Oct 8, Auto-parts maker
Delphi Corp. filed for bankruptcy, hurt by high wage and benefit
costs. It was the biggest bankruptcy filing in US automotive history
and promises to have a broad impact across the industry. Unfunded
health-care liabilities were estimated at $70 billion. As of June 30
the company employed 177,000 people.
(AP, 10/8/05)(Econ, 10/15/05, p.14)(WSJ, 9/30/06,
p.A1)
2005 Oct 8, In Nevada 23
robotic vehicles competed over a 150-mile course for a $2 million
prize sponsored by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency,
Darpa. 4 robotic vehicles finished the race across the Mojave desert
over a rugged 132-mile course without a single human command.
Stanford University's Sebastian Thrun, a customized Volkswagen,
crossed first in 6 hours and 59 minutes. Race officials planned to
resume the race Oct 9 so the sole remaining vehicle, a mammoth
six-wheel truck, could compete in daylight.
(SFC, 10/8/05, p.C1)(AP, 10/9/05)(Econ, 10/15/05,
p.88)
2005 Oct 8, In eastern China 22
passengers were killed when a bus plunged into a river in Zhejiang
province as the National Day holiday week wound down.
(Reuters, 10/9/05)
2005 Oct 8, In France
journalists reporting on the conflict in Iraq, a humanitarian crisis
in Sudan, the plight of children in Uganda's insurrection and a
deadly school hostage siege in Russia were honored with the annual
Bayeux Prize for War Correspondents.
(AP, 10/8/05)
2005 Oct 8, In India's eastern
state of Jharkhand Maoist rebels set off a powerful bomb at a jungle
hideout, killing at least 15 policemen including a deputy
commandant.
(AP, 10/8/05)
2005 Oct 8, In Iraq insurgents
killed two Iraqis and wounded 12 with roadside bombs and drive-by
shootings.
(AP, 10/8/05)
2005 Oct 8, A 7.6-magnitude
earthquake hit Kashmir near the Pakistan-India border reaching to
Afghanistan. It reduced villages to rubble, triggered landslides and
flattened an apartment building, killing thousands of people in
India and Pakistan. Pakistani officials said the death toll ranged
between nearly 20,000 and 30,000. The newly reopened "Peace Bridge"
linking the Indian and Pakistani portions of disputed Kashmir nearly
collapsed during the earthquake. The death toll from the quake
reached 87,350. The UN estimated that 3 million people were left
homeless by the earthquake.
(AP, 10/9/05)(SSFC, 10/9/05, p.A1)(AP,
11/8/05)(Econ, 5/6/06, p.44)
2005 Oct 8, Nigeria's financial
crimes agency said it had returned $4.5 million last month seized
from scammers to an 86-year-old Chinese woman.
(AP, 10/8/05)
2005 Oct 8, Romania reported
new cases of avian flu in the Danube delta on the Black Sea and
started to cull hundreds of birds to prevent the disease from
spreading.
(AP, 10/8/05)
2005 Oct 8, Russia's military
conducted a successful ballistic missile test from a nuclear
submarine in the Barents Sea, hitting a target on the eastern
peninsula of Kamchatka.
(AP, 10/8/05)
2005 Oct 8, In Sudan's Darfur
region 2 African Union peacekeeping soldiers from Nigeria and 2
civilian contractors were killed in an ambush.
(Reuters, 10/8/05)
2005 Oct 8, Thousands of poor
farmers marched through Venezuela's capital demanding that the
government expand its initiative to expropriate what they called
"idle" land, a program that has raised the ire of cattle ranchers
across the country.
(AP, 10/9/05)
2005 Oct 8-2005 Nov 6, In
Russia 33 people died in the Siberian region of Magadan after
drinking homemade alcohol containing industrial methanol.
(AP, 11/9/05)
2005 Oct 9, A driverless
Volkswagen won a $2 million race across the rugged Nevada desert,
beating four other robot-guided vehicles that completed a
Pentagon-sponsored contest aimed at making warfare safer for humans
[see Oct 8].
(AP, 10/9/06)
2005 Oct 9, In SF, Cal., Tiger
Woods won the American Express Championship at Harding Park on a 2nd
sudden death hole over John Daly.
(SFC, 10/10/05, p.A1)
2005 Oct 9, Louis Nye, TV comic
and 2nd banana, died in LA.
(WSJ, 10/11/05, p.A1)
2005 Oct 9, In southern
Afghanistan a suicide attacker rammed a car laden with explosives
into an armored vehicle carrying British government officials,
wounding four of them.
(AP, 10/9/05)
2005 Oct 9, Riot police in
Azerbaijan scattered hundreds of opposition supporters protesting in
Baku in defiance of a ban, beating some with truncheons and dragging
several away as tensions mounted ahead of parliamentary elections
next month.
(AP, 10/9/05)
2005 Oct 9, The bullet-riddled
body of Luis Fernando Ribeiro (26), the suspected mastermind of a
$70 million heist from a branch of Brazil's Central Bank, was found
on an isolated road west of Rio de Janeiro. A document signed by
four state prosecutors was published Oct 21 in the Rio newspaper O
Globo saying there were signs police may have been involved in
Ribeiro's kidnapping and killing. Almost $63 million remained
unaccounted for.
(AP, 10/21/05)
2005 Oct 9, A frantic search
for about 1,400 people believed to be buried alive by a mudslide in
the Maya village of Panabaj, Guatemala, was continuing as the death
toll from massive floods throughout Central America and Mexico rose
to a staggering 618.
(AFP, 10/9/05)(WSJ, 10/11/05, p.A1)
2005 Oct 9, A UN official said
more than 2.5 million people have been left homeless by the
devastating 7.6-magnitude earthquake that shook India and Pakistan.
(AP, 10/9/05)
2005 Oct 9, A suicide car bomb
killed 2 people outside an apartment building used by the
Iranian-backed Badr Brigade, a Shiite militia linked to one of the
main parties in the Iraqi government.
(AP, 10/9/05)
2005 Oct 9, Three Israeli Arabs
pleaded guilty to planning to plant bombs on a commuter train track
and discussing bombing Tel Aviv's Azrieli Towers, the tallest
buildings in Israel.
(AP, 10/9/05)
2005 Oct 9, It was reported
that dengue fever was causing concerns in Malaysia and Martinique.
Malaysia reported 71 deaths so far this year from over 27,000 cases.
Martinique reported almost 1,000 cases a week since mid-September.
(SSFC, 10/9/05, p.D2)
2005 Oct 9, In Poland voters
chose between two former Solidarity movement activists in
presidential elections, underlining the decline of the former
communists in a country that was part of the Soviet bloc only 16
years ago.
(AP, 10/9/05)
2005 Oct 9, The slaughter of
thousands of domestic fowl in Romania and Turkey began as a
precaution against the spread of bird flu after both countries
confirmed their first cases of the disease over the weekend.
(AP, 10/10/05)
2005 Oct 9, Interfax news
reported that Russia will supply Afghanistan's fledgling army with
helicopters and equipment worth $30 million, more than 15 years
after Moscow withdrew after a nearly decade-long war.
(AP, 10/9/05)
2005 Oct 9, A Rwandan militia
killed 15 civilians with machetes and knives in a nighttime raid on
two villages in Congo's mountainous east.
(AP, 10/10/05)
2005 Oct 9, Rebels freed 36
members of an African Union team, including an American monitor, who
were kidnapped earlier in the day in Sudan's western Darfur region.
(AP, 10/9/05)(AP, 10/10/05)
2005 Oct 9, In Tajikistan a
grenade killed a woman (25) on a street in Dushanbe. It was placed
in her handbag by a former boyfriend.
(AP, 10/10/05)
2005 Oct 10, President Bush
dined in the French Quarter of New Orleans and stayed in a luxury
hotel to showcase progress in hurricane-battered city, which was
reported to be turning its attention to removing and scrapping some
200,000 cars, abandoned and waterlogged from Hurricane Katrina.
(SFC, 10/10/05, p.A5)(AP, 10/10/06)
2005 Oct 10, Eight American
helicopters that will carry supplies and rescue teams to remote
areas hit by a weekend earthquake landed in Pakistan as the US
pledged $50 million for relief in a gesture that officials hope will
show sometimes skeptical Pakistanis that Washington is a true ally.
Pakistan said up to 40,000 people were feared dead in the weekend
earthquake, as frustration over the slow rescue effort turned to
anger and scattered looting.
(AP, 10/10/05)(AFP, 10/10/05)
2005 Oct 10, In Half Moon Bay,
Ca., Joel Holland, a retired Washington state firefighter won the
annual Safeway World Championship Pumpkin Weigh-Off, presenting a
gigantic pumpkin that weighed 1,229 pounds. This matched his winner
in 2004. The contest here began in 1974.
(AP, 10/10/05)(SFC, 10/10/06, p.B3)
2005 Oct 10, Robert J. Aumann
of Israel and Thomas C. Schelling of the Univ. of Maryland won the
2005 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for their work in
game theory that explains political and economic conflicts, arms
races and even preventing warfare.
(AP, 10/10/05)
2005 Oct 10, Intel introduced
its Xeon, a dual-core processor. AMD unveiled its dual-core Opteron
in April.
(SFC, 10/11/05, p.E1)
2005 Oct 10, Refco Inc., a
futures trading company that went public August 11, ousted CEO
Phillip Bennett after discovering that a firm he controlled owed
Refco $430 million. Bennett repaid the cash the same day. Bennett
was arrested the next day and charged with securities fraud on Oct
12. Refco field for bankruptcy on Oct 17.
(SFC, 10/11/05, p.E12)(SFC, 10/13/05, p.C1)(Econ,
10/15/05, p.79)(WSJ, 7/3/06, p.A1)
2005 Oct 10, In Afghanistan a
suicide bomber killed a former militia commander and two others in
Kandahar. Police later thwarted a second such attack in the same
city when a man blew himself up as he fled the officers.
(AP, 10/10/05)
2005 Oct 10, In southern
Afghanistan suspected Taliban rebels ambushed a police convoy
traveling on a mountain road in Helmand province, killing 19
officers in the deadliest attack ever on the fledgling police force.
2 suicide bombers, one of whom was identified as an Arab, killed
three people and wounded eight in Kandahar.
(AP, 10/11/05)
2005 Oct 10, In Afghanistan US
warplanes killed 10 suspected rebels in Uruzgan province.
(AP, 10/12/05)
2005 Oct 10, Election officials
said Armen Keshishian, the mayor of Nor-Achin a small Armenian town
jailed on murder charges, was re-elected to his post. Keshishian has
been charged in the Sept. 24 shooting death of Ashot Mkhitarian, the
head of a local electric utility. The pistol that allegedly killed
the utility chief had been presented to Keshishian by PM Andranik
Markarian. Keshishian will govern his town from behind bars pending
trial.
(AP, 10/10/05)
2005 Oct 10, Shinka Manova, a
high-ranking Bulgarian customs official, was slain in Sofia. He was
allegedly protecting the smuggling business of the mafia.
(AP, 10/26/05)
2005 Oct 10, Clashes broke
between Colombian police and Indians protesting a planned free trade
accord with the US, leaving one Indian dead and at least 15 wounded.
(AP, 10/10/05)
2005 Oct 10, Conservative
leader Angela Merkel said she had reached a "good and fair" deal
that will make her Germany's first female chancellor in a
power-sharing agreement that would end Gerhard Schroeder's seven
years in office.
(AP, 10/10/05)
2005 Oct 10, The US formally
handed Rhein-Main Air Base over to the German government, ending a
60-year stay during which the sprawling field was a hub of activity
for American forces facing Soviet bloc troops and Mideast tensions.
(AP, 10/10/05)
2005 Oct 10, Guatemalan
officials said they would abandon communities buried by landslides
and declare them mass graveyards as reports of devastation trickled
in from some of the more than 100 communities cut off from the
outside world after killer mudslides.
(AP, 10/10/05)
2005 Oct 10, India and Pakistan
set aside their often-bitter rivalry when Islamabad accepted an
offer of aid for earthquake victims.
(AP, 10/10/05)
2005 Oct 10, Indonesia said it
will test its stock of bird flu vaccine after a corruption scandal
involving production of sub-standard doses.
(AFP, 10/10/05)
2005 Oct 10, An Iraqi official
said an arrest warrant has been issued for Hazem Shaalam, a former
Iraqi defense minister, accused of corruption and abuse of power
while working in the previous interim government, which was
installed by the United States last year.
(AP, 10/10/05)
2005 Oct 10, In Iraq insurgents
launched a new salvo of attacks five days ahead of a crucial
constitutional referendum, killing at least 12 Iraqis and a US
soldier with suicide car bombs, roadside explosives and drive-by
shootings.
(AP, 10/10/05)
2005 Oct 10, Israeli forces
caught a 14-year-old boy whom militants tried to push into becoming
a suicide bomber.
(AP, 10/12/05)
2005 Oct 10, Japan's space
agency conducted a test flight of a supersonic jet prototype in the
Australian Outback.
(AP, 10/10/05)
2005 Oct 10, Morocco began
deporting would-be immigrants, with a flight carrying 140 Senegalese
taking off for Dakar after hundreds of Africans stormed razor-wire
border fences in recent weeks.
(AP, 10/10/05)
2005 Oct 10, The final count in
Poland's presidential election confirmed that the pro-market
lawmaker Donald Tusk won more votes than conservative Warsaw Mayor
Lech Kaczynski, but fell short of a majority needed for an outright
victory in a first round of balloting.
(AP, 10/10/05)
2005 Oct 10, The Anatolia news
agency said a suspect in a bombing plot against Israeli ships in
Turkey earlier gave $50,000 to people accused of carrying out a
series of bombings in Istanbul that killed 60 people in 2003,
according to testimony from Burhan Kus, a suspect submitted by
prosecutors to a court.
(AP, 10/10/05)
2005 Oct 10, Apolo Milton Obote
(b.1924), former head of Uganda, died in South Africa. He led Uganda
from 1966-1971, when he was overthrown in a coup by Idi Amin, and
from 1980-1985 following disputed general elections.
(AFP, 10/11/05)
2005 Oct 11, The US Army Corps
of Engineers said it had finished pumping out the New Orleans
metropolitan area, which was flooded by Hurricane Katrina six weeks
earlier and then was swamped again by Hurricane Rita.
(AP, 10/11/06)
2005 Oct 11, Google unveiled
Google.org, an umbrella organization for its philanthropic plans,
committing nearly $1 billion to help solve problems including
poverty and environmental destruction.
(SFC, 10/12/05, p.C1)
2005 Oct 11, In Zabul province
US-led coalition and Afghan forces killed two Chechens and a
Pakistani who were fighting alongside Taliban rebels.
(AP, 10/11/05)
2005 Oct 11,
In Afghanistan suspected Taliban ambushed a convoy and killed
six police.
(AP, 10/12/05)
2005 Oct 11, Authorities in
Brazil declared part of the Amazon River a disaster area after a
drought left the levels of parts of the river too low for
navigation.
(AP, 10/11/05)
2005 Oct 11, The British
government said it will pay unspecified compensation for injuries
and damage caused when its army stormed a police station in the
southern Iraqi city of Basra last month to release two soldiers.
(AP, 10/11/05)
2005 Oct 11, British police
arrested 19 people on human smuggling charges. Authorities said the
multi-national organization had illegally brought tens of thousands
of Turkish Kurds into Britain in recent years.
(SFC, 10/12/05, p.A3)
2005 Oct 11, Arthur Seldon
(89), British intellectual architect of Blairism and Thatcherism,
died. Antony Fisher, founder of the Institute of Economic Affairs,
hired Seldon as editorial director in 1958.
(Econ, 10/22/05, p.90)
2005 Oct 11, China's ruling
party said communist leaders have approved an economic plan aimed at
easing the growing and politically explosive gap between its rich
and poor.
(AP, 10/11/05)
2005 Oct 11, Colombia's navy
seized $188 million worth of cocaine, believed to have belonged to
rebels, that was hidden in underground chambers next to a river deep
in southwestern jungles.
(AP, 10/11/05)
2005 Oct 11, In Egypt some
3,000 Islamists students staged a demonstration at Cairo Univ. to
press for increased freedom on campus and free and fair union
elections next month.
(AFP, 10/11/05)
2005 Oct 11, Haiti's highest
court ruled that Dumarsais Simeus, a Haitian-born U.S. businessman,
may run for president. Simeus said this marked a turning point in
the roles expatriate Haitians could play in their homeland.
(AP, 10/11/05)
2005 Oct 11, Diplomats said
Iran has signaled it is ready to compromise on granting access to
sites linked to possible work on nuclear weapons and other demands
from the UN atomic watchdog agency to try to avoid referral to the
Security Council.
(AP, 10/11/05)
2005 Oct 11, Insurgents
determined to wreck Iraq's constitutional referendum killed more
than 40 people and wounded dozens in a series of attacks, including
a suicide car bomb that ripped apart a crowded market in a town near
the Syrian border.
(AP, 10/11/05)
2005 Oct 11, In Iraq an IED
killed 2 US soldiers in Ramadi.
(WSJ, 10/12/05, p.A1)
2005 Oct 11, Irish author John
Banville beat higher profile favorites to become the surprise winner
of Britain's prestigious Booker Prize for fiction. His 14th novel
"The Sea" was described by the judges as "a masterly study of grief,
memory and love recollected".
(AP, 10/11/05)(Econ, 10/15/05, p.91)
2005 Oct 11, Israeli forces
disguised as vegetable vendors in Tsurif captured Ibrahim Ighnimat
(47), a senior Hamas operative, who had been on the run for eight
years.
(AP, 10/12/05)
2005 Oct 11, Japan's powerful
lower house of parliament approved a plan to privatize the country's
vast postal system.
(AP, 10/11/05)
2005 Oct 11, Liberia held
presidential elections. 22 candidates included an international
soccer star, two former warlords and a Harvard-educated woman.
Election officials using battery-powered lanterns counted ballots
through the night from the country's first postwar polls. Ex-soccer
star George Weah led 21 rivals.
(AP, 10/11/05)(Reuters, 10/11/05)(WSJ, 10/12/05,
p.A1)
2005 Oct 11, It was reported
that a serial killer, dubbed the "Mataviejitas," or "Little Old Lady
Killer," was stalking Mexico City. The killer was said to wear
women's clothes and strangled and battered old ladies in their
homes.
(AP, 10/11/05)
2005 Oct 11, In Pakistan
survivors scuffled over the badly needed food, the first large-scale
aid to make it overland to the devastated city of Muzaffarabad.
Officials estimated that the death toll would surpass 35,000.
(AP, 10/11/05)
2005 Oct 11-2005 Oct 12, Polish
customs officials seized at least 8 million cigarettes apparently
destined for the British market in a coordinated sweep in two
cities. The cigarettes, mostly low-quality Ukrainian-made, were to
be incinerated.
(AP, 10/12/05)
2005 Oct 11, US millionaire
scientist Gregory Olsen and a two-man, Russian-American crew
returned from the international space station to Earth in a swift,
bone-jarring descent in Kazakhstan.
(AP, 10/11/05)
2005 Oct 11, South Korea raised
interest rates .25% for the 1st time in 3 years to 3.5%.
(WSJ, 10/12/05, p.A14)
2005 Oct 11, A Turkish company
signed an agreement to build a $360 million power station in
southern Israel. An Israeli Cabinet minister praised such deals as
examples of strengthening ties between the Muslim and Jewish
countries.
(AP, 10/11/05)
2005 Oct 12, Human Rights Watch
reported that 2,225 inmates in the US were serving
life-without-parole terms for crimes committed when they were under
18. California had 180 prisoners serving such sentences for murders
committed when they were 17 or 18.
(SFC, 10/13/05, p.B3)
2005 Oct 12-2005 Oct 13, US
federal agents in Operation Long Whine arrested 28 people and seized
1,300 pounds of cocaine during an overnight raid in Atlanta.
(SFC, 10/14/05, p.A3)
2005 Oct 12, Bridgestone
Firestone North American Tire said it has agreed to pay $240 million
to Ford Motor Co. to settle claims related to the tiremaker's 2000
recall of defective tires.
(AP, 10/12/05)
2005 Oct 12, A fire at the
Wines Central warehouse in Vallejo, Ca., destroyed tens of million
of dollars worth of vintage wine. An estimated 6 million bottles
were in storage there. On Oct 18 investigators said the fire was
deliberately set. In 2007 Mark Anderson (58), a Sausalito
businessman, was charged with setting the fire. In 2009 Anderson
pleaded guilty to arson and 18 other counts.
(SFC, 10/13/05, p.A1)(SFC, 10/19/05, p.B1)(SFC,
3/20/07, p.A1)(SFC, 11/17/09, p.C2)
2005 Oct 12, In Afghanistan 5
medical workers were killed by gunmen near Kandahar. Pres. Karzai
said he believes insurgents are receiving support from the nation's
booming drug trade.
(AP, 10/12/05)
2005 Oct 12, The British
government unveiled sweeping anti-terrorism legislation designed to
crack down on Islamic extremism, raising concerns from Muslim
leaders, opposition parties and legal experts about the potential
for infringing on civil liberties.
(AP, 10/12/05)
2005 Oct 12, A rocket carrying
two Chinese astronauts blasted off from a base in China's desert
northwest Gansu province, returning the country's manned space
program to orbit two years after its history-making first flight.
(AP, 10/12/05)(Econ, 10/15/05, p.46)
2005 Oct 12, In eastern China a
man armed with homemade guns opened fire at a primary school,
injuring 16 students before escaping.
(AP, 10/13/05)
2005 Oct 12, Tens of thousands
of trade union workers and Indians took to the streets of Colombia's
main cities to protest a proposed free trade pact with the US,
accusing President Alvaro Uribe of selling out the country.
(AP, 10/12/05)
2005 Oct 12, In Costa Rica the
InterAmerican Human Rights court, announced that it has ordered
Colombia to pay damages in the 1997 massacre of dozens of Mapiripan
villagers by right-wing paramilitary fighters.
(AP, 10/12/05)
2005 Oct 12, In Egypt a sit-in
by hundreds of Sudanese refugees outside the offices of the UNHCR in
the Cairo entered its 14th day, even as the agency insisted it could
not meet their asylum demands. Some 14,400 Sudanese refugees were
registered in Egypt.
(AP, 10/12/05)
2005 Oct 12, The European
Commission said companies that want to sell music online in the
European Union can now get a single license to operate in all 25
member states.
(AP, 10/12/05)
2005 Oct 12, The EU agreed to
legally require telecommunications companies to keep records of
phone and e-mail traffic for up to one year as part of the bloc's
anti-terrorist campaign.
(AP, 10/12/05)
2005 Oct 12, The European
Commission presented a new development aid strategy focused
primarily on easing poverty in Africa and on holding EU member
states to their promises to double aid to the continent.
(AP, 10/12/05)
2005 Oct 12, Chancellor Gerhard
Schroeder said he will not participate in Germany's new coalition
government, ending seven years in power marked by a newly assertive
foreign policy and efforts to prune welfare benefits that were a
drag on Europe's biggest economy.
(AP, 10/12/05)
2005 Oct 12, In Port-au-Prince,
Haiti, kidnappers shot and killed businessman Archange Honore, on a
busy street after he resisted being taken, then sped off in his car
with his wife and 2 children.
(AP, 10/13/05)
2005 Oct 12, Iraq’s President
Jalal Talabani and other top politicians praised as "historic" the
last-minute compromises that negotiators reached on the draft
constitution and urged Iraqis to vote "yes" in this weekend's
referendum.
(AP, 10/12/05)
2005 Oct 12, A suicide bomber
killed 30 Iraqis at an army recruiting center. An explosion shut
down an oil pipeline near the northern city of Beiji.
(AP, 10/12/05)
2005 Oct 12, Officials said
former Finance Minister Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf and soccer star George
Weah emerged as early front-runners in Liberia's first post-war
elections.
(AP, 10/12/05)
2005 Oct 12, A Dutch court
blocked the extradition of a Dutch terror suspect to the United
States, saying his legal rights in U.S. custody could not be
guaranteed.
(AP, 10/12/05)
2005 Oct 12, A build up of
pollution from factories and old cars caused a wave of smog that
enveloped much of Lagos, Nigeria's largest city.
(AP, 10/13/05)
2005 Oct 12, Masked Palestinian
gunmen kidnapped a US and a British journalist in the Gaza Strip.
Both men were freed in the evening.
(AP, 10/12/05)
2005 Oct 12, An explosion hit a
distillery in Russia's Ingushetia region and there were casualties.
A police spokesman called the blast a terrorist act.
(AP, 10/12/05)
2005 Oct 12, In Somalia 6 armed
men hijacked the MV Miltzow, a ship carrying food aid, as it was
unloading at the port of Merka, marking the second such incident in
recent months.
(AP, 10/12/05)
2005 Oct 12, In South Korea the
president's office said South Korea has proposed talks to take back
wartime control of its military from the United States.
(AP, 10/12/05)
2005 Oct 12, Ghazi Kanaan,
Syria's interior minister, died. He was one of several top officials
caught up in the UN investigation into the slaying of Lebanon's
former prime minister. The country's official news agency said he
committed suicide in his office.
(AP, 10/12/05)(Econ, 10/15/05, p.50)
2005 Oct 12, Vietnam presented
donor nations an emergency six-month plan to battle bird flu, amid
fears of a new outbreak of the deadly disease and delays in a
poultry vaccination scheme.
(AFP, 10/12/05)
2005 Oct 12, Venezuelan
President Hugo Chavez ordered a U.S.-based Christian missionary
group working with indigenous tribes to leave the country, accusing
the organization of "imperialist infiltration" and links to the CIA.
Chavez said missionaries of the New Tribes Mission, based in
Sanford, Fla., were no longer welcome during a ceremony in a remote
Indian village where he presented property titles to several
indigenous groups.
(AP, 10/12/05)
2005 Oct 13, US intelligence
officials announced the establishment of a National Clandestine
Service to run CIA operations and coordinate activities with the
Pentagon and FBI.
(SFC, 10/14/05, p.A7)
2005 Oct 13, South Korea’s
Samsung Electronics agreed to plead guilty to US charges of price
fixing memory chips from 1999-2002 and to pay a $300 million fine.
In 2006 3 Samsung executives were sentenced to serve up to 8 months
in federal prison and fined $250,000 each.
(SFC, 10/14/05, p.C1)(SFC, 3/23/06, p.C1)
2005 Oct 13, In Afghanistan
Sargon Heinrich (40) of Rio Vista, Ca., head of a building company,
was hauled from his boardinghouse in Kabul as Afghan agents arrested
patrons there. He refused to pay a bribe for release and was charged
on Nov 23 for gun-running, forged ID and refusal to cooperate with
authorities. 2 Britons and an Indian faced the same plight. All 4
were released Dec 8.
(SFC, 12/6/05, p.A8)(SFC, 12/10/05, p.A3)
2005 Oct 13, An international
group of artists, scientists, lawyers, politicians, economists,
academics and business experts issued the Adelphi Charter, which set
out new principles for copyrights and patents, and calls on
governments to apply a new public interest test. The charter stemmed
from the 1754 mission of Britain’s Royal Society of Arts.
(Econ, 10/15/05,
p.67)(www.adelphicharter.org/default.asp)
2005 Oct 13, Argentina and
Chile suspended imports of Brazilian meat, joining 28 other
countries with similar bans after an outbreak of foot-and-mouth
disease.
(AP, 10/13/05)
2005 Oct 13, British playwright
Harold Pinter, who juxtaposed the brutal and the banal in such works
as "The Caretaker" and "The Birthday Party" and made an art form out
of spare language and unbearable silence, won the 2005 Nobel Prize
in literature.
(AP, 10/13/05)
2005 Oct 13, Scientists
announced the discovery in Argentina of a rooster-size fossil named
Buitreraptor gonzalezorum. It dates back 90 million years and
closely resembles fossils from the North. It was part of the class
called dromaesaurs believed to have originated 180 million years ago
in Laurasia.
(www.livescience.com/animalworld/051012_new_dino.html)
2005 Oct 13, Chinese
archeologists reported their find of a 4,000 year-old container in
northwestern China of noodles made from millet.
(SFC, 10/13/05, p.A2)
2005 Oct 13, At the
Ibero-American Summit in Spain, foreign ministers from Latin
America, Spain and Portugal backed Cuba on in two of its battles
against the US, calling for an end to the US embargo and the
expulsion from the U.S. of a Cuban militant wanted for a 1976 plane
bombing.
(AP, 10/13/05)
2005 Oct 13, Lucio Gutierrez,
ousted Ecuadorian President said he was renouncing his asylum in
Colombia and would return to his own country, where he faces arrest,
and attempt to regain power.
(AP, 10/13/05)
2005 Oct 13, The EU said the
bird flu virus found in Turkish poultry was the H5N1 strain that
scientists worry might mutate into a human virus and spark a
pandemic. Turkey's health minister said the outbreak had been
contained.
(AP, 10/13/05)
2005 Oct 13, Germany's highest
administrative court has upheld claims to real estate in Berlin by
heirs of the Jewish Wertheim family who lost their department store
fortune under the Nazis. The department store site is worth some $20
million. The decision opened the way for claims on a total of 24
acres of former Wertheim property in Berlin, which was estimated to
be worth some $200 million.
(AP, 10/26/05)
2005 Oct 13, Authorities said
the number of people missing in Guatemala after last week's flooding
and mudslides rose to 828, while the confirmed death toll held
steady at 654.
(AP, 10/13/05)
2005 Oct 13, In Iraq a US
soldier died when by a roadside bomb hit his combat patrol.
(AP, 10/13/05)
2005 Oct 13, A female suicide
bomber blew herself up minutes before an army convoy was to pass on
a key highway in Indian Kashmir, the first such attack by a woman in
the region's Islamic separatist conflict.
(AP, 10/13/05)
2005 Oct 13, The UN adopted AU
proposals giving Ivorian President Laurent Gbagbo a year more in
office with the caveat that he cede some powers to the prime
minister.
(Econ, 10/22/05, p.50)
2005 Oct 13, Soccer star George
Weah took an early lead as results trickled in from Liberia's first
post-war elections, but he seemed likely to face a run-off with
former Finance Minister Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf.
(AP, 10/13/05)
2005 Oct 13, Philippine police
fired jets of water and used anti-riot shields to break up a march
by about 300 left-wing student activists demanding the ouster of
President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo.
(AP, 10/13/05)
2005 Oct 13, In Russia scores
of Islamic militants launched simultaneous attacks on police and
government buildings in Nalchik, capital of the republic of
Kabardino-Balkariya, sparking battles that killed 139 people,
including 94 militants. Chechen rebels claimed responsibility for
the attacks. President Putin ordered a total blockade of Nalchik, a
city of 235,000, to prevent militants from slipping out, and he said
armed resisters would be shot.
(SFC, 10/14/05, p.A11)(Econ, 7/15/06, p.25)(AP,
10/13/06)
2005 Oct 13, Spanish
authorities said police have seized 3.5 tons of cocaine in a fishing
boat bound for Spain from Venezuela after tip-offs from U.S.
authorities.
(AP, 10/13/05)
2005 Oct 14, The US Treasury
Department reported that the federal deficit hit $319 billion for
the budget year just ended, down from the previous year, but still
the third highest.
(AP, 10/14/06)
2005 Oct 14, Rain fell for an
eighth straight day around the waterlogged Northeast US, pushing
people from their homes in the middle of the night and leaving train
tracks littered with fallen trees.
(AP, 10/14/05)
2005 Oct 14, Dernae Wysinger
(22) and his 2-year-old son were shot to death in San Francisco’s
Potrero Hill district. Police soon issued an arrest warrant for
suspect Joseph Stevens (22). This marked the 64th and 65th homicides
in SF this year. In 2007 Stevens (23) was convicted for the murders,
which were apparently done in retaliation for another slaying.
(SSFC, 10/16/05, p.B1)(SFC, 3/21/07, p.B3)
2005 Oct 14, Blond,
blue-eyed British actor Daniel Craig was named the new James Bond.
(AP, 10/14/06)
2005 Oct 14, Insurgents staged
a series of attacks, killing a pro-government cleric, two police and
blowing up eight fuel tankers parked outside a US-led coalition base
in southern Afghanistan.
(AP, 10/14/05)
2005 Oct 14, Bulgaria adopted a
new penal procedure to remedy a judiciary system that has been
criticized for failing to jail well-known criminals.
(AP, 10/26/05)
2005 Oct 14, Lucio Gutierrez,
former Ecuador president who was ousted from office, returned to
Ecuador in a bid to regain power, but he was arrested moments after
his plane landed.
(AP, 10/15/05)
2005 Oct 14, Sunni insurgents
launched five attacks against the largest Sunni Arab political party
on the eve of Iraq's crucial referendum, bombing and burning offices
and the home of one of its leaders in retaliation after the group
dropped its opposition to the draft constitution.
(AP, 10/14/05)
2005 Oct 14, Italy's culture
industry pledged to shut down theaters, cinemas and cancel concerts
throughout the country for the day to protest planned cuts to the
art budget.
(AP, 10/14/05)
2005 Oct 14, Italy’s Alitalia
airline, 62.3% owned by the government, approved a revised corporate
plan for 2005-2008.
(Econ, 10/22/05, p.70)
2005 Oct 14, Dutch police
detained seven suspects in an anti-terrorism operation in three
cities, including the capital, aimed at thwarting a suspected plot
to attack politicians and a government building.
(AP, 10/14/05)
2005 Oct 14, A consortium led
by South Africa’s Sheltam Trade Close won the privatization bid for
the rail line linking Mombassa, Kenya, and Kampala, Uganda.
Nicknamed since 1895 as the “lunatic express,” it was renamed the
Rift Valley Railways.
(Econ, 10/22/05, p.68)
2005 Oct 14, In Nicaragua
Sandinista leader Daniel Ortega announced that he has broken a
political pact with opponents of President Enrique Bolanos, a move
that could end a political crisis that threatened the country's
presidency.
(AP, 10/15/05)
2005 Oct 14, Palestinian leader
Mahmoud Abbas arrived in Jordan for talks with King Abdullah II.
(AP, 10/14/05)
2005 Oct 14, In Nalchik Russian
security forces in an armored personnel carrier smashed through the
wall of a store to rescue two hostages held by suspected Islamic
militants as authorities tried to clear out the last pockets of
rebel resistance after more than a day of fighting that killed 139
people including 92 militants.
(AP, 10/14/05)(WSJ, 10/17/05, p.A1)(Econ,
7/15/06, p.25)
2005 Oct 14, Somalia's PM Ali
Mohamed Gedi called on neighboring countries to send warships to
patrol his nation's waters after pirates seized a 3rd cargo vessel
delivering food aid.
(AP, 10/14/05)
2005 Oct 14, At the
Ibero-American Summit in Spain UN Sec.-General Kofi Annan called for
greater progress in trade talks on farming.
(AP, 10/14/05)
2005 Oct 14, A Turkish court
convicted two brothers for the "honor killing" of their sister and
sentenced one to life in prison and the other to more than 11 years
behind bars.
(AP, 10/14/05)
2005 Oct 14, President Viktor
Yushchenko dismissed Ukraine's top prosecutor less than a week after
he launched investigations against a presidential ally, deepening
the confusion in the former Soviet republic.
(AP, 10/14/05)
2005 Oct 14, A researcher said
bird flu virus found in a Vietnamese girl was resistant to the main
drug that's being stockpiled in case of a pandemic, a sign that it's
important to keep a second drug on hand as well.
(AP, 10/14/05)
2005 Oct 15, Thousands gathered
in DC at the National Mall for the Millions More Movement to
commemorate the 10th anniversary of the Million Man March organized
by Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan.
(AP, 10/15/05)
2005 Oct 15, Marcia and Ken
Powers, a husband-and-wife team, reached the Pacific Ocean on after
a 4,900-mile cross-country hike, becoming the first to backpack the
transcontinental American Discovery Trail in one continuous trek.
They had started Feb. 27 at Cape Henlopen in Delaware.
(AP, 10/16/05)
2005 Oct 15, In Toledo, Ohio, a
riot broke out when protesters confronted members of the National
Socialist Movement who had gathered at a city park. More than 100
people were arrested and one officer was seriously injured.
(AP, 10/16/05)
2005 Oct 15, In Texas the
Government Canyon State Natural Area officially opened. The over
8,600 acre area was set aside to protect the Edwards Aquifer, which
provided drinking water for San Antonio.
(LP, Spring 2006, p.55)
2005 Oct 15, Pamela Vitale
(52), the wife of prominent defense attorney and TV legal analyst
Daniel Horowitz, was found slain in the couple's home in Lafayette,
Ca. On Oct 20 police arrested Scott Dyleski (16), a neighbor
scheming to grow pot, as a suspect in the murder. Dyleski was
convicted of first-degree murder on Aug 28, 2006, and faced life in
prison.
(AP, 10/16/05)(SFC, 10/21/05, p.A1)(SFC, 8/29/06,
p.A1)
2005 Oct 15, Jason Collier
(28), Atlanta Hawks center, died, possibly of cardiac arrest.
(AP, 10/15/05)
2005 Oct 15-2005 Oct 16, The
G20 group of rich and developing nations met in Xianghe, China. They
sounded the alarm over high oil prices but barely touched on the
role a stronger yuan could play in easing world economic imbalances.
(AP, 10/16/05)
2005 Oct 15, Egyptian
authorities ordered the release of a leading Muslim Brotherhood
figure, Essam el-Erian, and three other members of the banned
Islamic group.
(AP, 10/15/05)
2005 Oct 15, The European
Commission said tests have confirmed a link between the bird flu
found in Romania and the virus that has devastated flocks in Asia
and turned up in Turkey.
(AP, 10/15/05)
2005 Oct 15, In Iran 2 bombs
hit a shopping center Saturday in Ahvaz, near the southwestern
border with Iraq, killing two people and wounding at least 50.
(AP, 10/15/05)
2005 Oct 15, Iraq's deeply
divided Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds voted under heavy guard Saturday
to decide the fate of a new constitution. A roadside bomb killed
three Iraqi soldiers in northeast Iraq, and seven people were
wounded during attacks by insurgents near five of Baghdad's 1,200
polling stations.
(AP, 10/15/05)
2005 Oct 15, In Iraq 5 American
soldiers were killed by a bomb blast on referendum day.
(AP, 10/16/05)
2005 Oct 15, Israeli painter
Efraim Reuytenberg (91), known for infusing Chinese influences and
bold colors into his work, died in Israel.
(AP, 10/20/05)
2005 Oct 15, A worsening food
crisis threatening millions of people prompted Malawi's Pres. Bingu
wa Mutharika to declare the African nation a "disaster area" and
call for more international aid.
(AP, 10/15/05)
2005 Oct 15, Moroccan
authorities flew 435 illegal immigrants home to Senegal and Mali,
starting a second wave of mass deportations of sub-Saharan Africans
who have tried to slip into Europe through the North African
kingdom.
(AP, 10/16/05)
2005 Oct 15, Nigeria and
Cameroon discussed a new program for Nigeria to withdraw from the
disputed Bakassi peninsula, but failed to set a new deadline after
two days of talks in Abuja.
(AP, 10/16/05)
2005 Oct 15, The death toll in
Pakistan's devastating earthquake rose to nearly 40,000, while rain,
snow and frigid temperatures compounded the misery of millions of
homeless victims.
(AP, 10/15/05)
2005 Oct 15, In northeastern
Spanish at least 5 north African men were killed, four were injured
and one was believed still trapped under rubble after a three-storey
17th century building collapsed in the town of Piera.
(AP, 10/15/05)
2005 Oct 15, Members of a
Venezuelan indigenous tribe criticized President Hugo Chavez's order
to expel a U.S. missionary group he accused of links to the CIA,
saying the decision goes against the interests of their impoverished
communities.
(AP, 10/16/05)
2005 Oct 16, The Chicago White
Sox beat the Los Angeles Angels 6-3 to win the American League
Championship Series in five games, their first pennant since 1959.
(AP, 10/16/06)
2005 Oct 16, In Wisconsin a bus
carrying Chippewa Falls High School students home from a band
competition collided with a semi truck, killing five passengers near
Osseo.
(AP, 10/16/05)
2005 Oct 16, In SF Andre
Daniels (31) was robbed and his wife was raped at 73 Brookdale Ave,
in the Sunnyside housing project in Visitacion Valley. Daniels
identified Laron Lewis (26) as one of the assailants and a tip led
police to Damien Ramond (23). On May 20, 2007, Daniels was shot and
killed outside his unit at the Alice Griffith project in the Bayview
district. His death doomed the sexual assault case against Lewis and
Ramond.
(SSFC, 11/23/08, p.A14)
2005 Oct 16, Elmer "Len"
Dresslar Jr. (80), the booming voice of the Jolly Green Giant, died.
(AP, 10/16/06)
2005 Oct 16, Gordon Lee
(b.1933), child actor who played Porky in the “Our Gang” shorts
(Little Rascals), died in Minneapolis, Min. Porky was the little
brother of Spanky McFarland.
(SFC, 10/22/05, p.B5)
2005 Oct 16, Afghanistan's
election authority announced final results for two of the country's
34 provinces as hundreds of protestors blocked roads in two key
cities alleging fraud in the count. Officials said election
authorities have fired about 50 employees for suspected fraud in
last month's legislative polls. About 3% of votes, have been taken
out of the counting process because of suspicions that they were
stuffed.
(AP, 10/16/05)(AFP, 10/16/05)
2005 Oct 16, In Argentina a
fire apparently set by rebellious inmates swept through a prison
southeast of Buenos Aires, killing at least 17 inmates.
(AP, 10/16/05)
2005 Oct 16, Britain’s Sunday
Telegraph said satellite broadcaster BSkyB will muscle in on the
lucrative Internet broadband market by announcing next week the
takeover of Easynet, the London-listed telecoms company.
(AP, 10/16/05)
2005 Oct 16, In China top US
economic officials, led by Treasury Secretary John Snow and Federal
Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, began talks with their Chinese
counterparts on rancorous economic issues, including Beijing's
currency controls and its huge and growing trade surplus. This is
the 17th meeting of the U.S.-China Joint Economic Commission since
the forum was founded in 1979 to thrash out economic issues.
(AP, 10/16/05)
2005 Oct 16, Iraq's
constitution seemed assured of passage despite strong opposition
from Sunni Arabs, who voted in surprisingly high numbers in an
effort to stop it.
(AP, 10/16/05)
2005 Oct 16, Italy held
primaries to select the center-left's candidate to challenge
conservative Premier Silvio Berlusconi in next year's election.
Former Italian premier Romano Prodi made a sweeping victory in a
nationwide primary.
(AP, 10/16/05)(AP, 10/17/05)
2005 Oct 16, In Italy
center-left politician Francesco Fortugno was shot as he voted in a
nationwide primary in the small Calabrian town of Locri. In March
2006 police arrested 5 suspects in Reggio Calabria.
(AP, 10/22/05)(AP, 3/21/06)
2005 Oct 16, A Japanese
newspaper reported that the US and Japan have reached a basic
agreement on relocating two US military bases on the southern island
of Okinawa, where the US presence has frequently provoked protests.
(AP, 10/16/05)
2005 Oct 16, Palestinian gunmen
killed three Israelis and wounded five in drive-by attacks near
Jewish settlements.
(AP, 10/17/05)
2005 Oct 16, Alexander
Slesarev, a Russian businessman believed to be the true owner of
Sodbiznesbank, was shot to death outside Moscow along with his wife
and young daughter.
(http://english.pravda.ru/topic/Kozlov-264/)(WSJ,
9/22/06, p.A6)
2005 Oct 16, Rebels and
Sudanese forces clashed in North Darfur with artillery fire killing
a number of civilians.
(AP, 10/17/05)
2005 Oct 16, Polish television
broadcast a recorded interview with Pope Benedict XVI, who said that
he planned to visit Poland, the homeland of his predecessor, John
Paul II (it's believed to be the first TV interview by a pope).
(AP, 10/16/06)
2005 Oct 16, In Syria a
pro-democracy group issued the Damascus Declaration for Democratic
National Change. The group came to be called the Damascus
Declaration.
(AP, 10/29/08)(http://tinyurl.com/5jc9vh)
2005 Oct 16, In Tanzania 4
British tourists and a Canadian pilot who were killed in a weekend
plane crash in the western part of the country.
(AFP, 10/18/05)
2005 Oct 16, In southern
Thailand about 20 suspected Muslim separatists stormed a monastery,
hacked an elderly Buddhist monk to death and fatally shot two temple
boys.
(AP, 10/17/05)
2005 Oct 17, The American
magazine Conference unveiled the top 40 magazine covers of the last
40 years. The top rating went to Rolling Stone for its 1/22/81 cover
of John Lennon and Yoko Ono lying in bed.
(www.magazine.org/Press_Room/13806.cfm)
2005 Oct 17, The FBI reported
that US murders fell to 16,137 in 2004, 391 fewer than in 2003 and
that the overall violent crime rate hit a 3-year low.
(WSJ, 10/18/05, p.A1)
2005 Oct 17, Serono
Laboratories, a Swiss drug-maker, pleaded guilty to US federal
conspiracy charges and agreed to pay $740 million for kickbacks to
doctors for the AIDS drug Serostim and for manipulating a test for
AIDS patients.
(SFC, 10/18/05, p.E1)
2005 Oct 17, General Motors
Corp. and the United Auto Workers reached a tentative agreement that
will help the embattled automaker lower its health care costs even
as GM reported a whopping $1.6 billion loss for the third quarter.
(AP, 10/17/05)
2005 Oct 17, Commodities
brokerage Refco Inc. said it had filed for bankruptcy protection as
it struck a deal to sell its core futures brokerage business to a
group of private equity investors for $768 million. BAWAG, Austria’s
4th largest bank, gave Refco a top-up loan of 350 million euros just
hours before the bankruptcy. In 2007 it was revealed that Wolfgang
Flottl, a hedge fund manager, had his investments sour in 1997
causing BAWAG to lose over $1 billion. The losses were hid from
auditors for 7 years. Helmut Elsner, former boss of BAWAG
(1995-2003), faced charges along with 8 others for the bank’s near
collapse.
(Reuters, 10/17/06)(Econ, 5/6/06, p.72)(WSJ,
1/25/06, p.A1)(Econ, 7/21/07, p.73)
2005 Oct 17, Idaho state and
federal health officials are trying to get to the bottom of nine
reported cases of suspected sporadic CJD in Idaho this year.
(AP, 10/17/05)
2005 Oct 17, It was reported
that the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation pledged $15 million for
the Computer History Museum in Silicon Valley, the world's largest
institution dedicated to preserving Information Age artifacts.
(AP, 10/17/05)
2005 Oct 17, Two days of
U.S.-Chinese trade talks ended with no response by China to an
ambitious American proposal to reform its financial sector and open
its markets wider to foreign products, while also moving faster on
currency reforms.
(AP, 10/17/05)
2005 Oct 17,
Dr. Marvin Chodorow (b.1913), former professor of physics at
Stanford Univ., died. He expanded on the 1937 invention of the
klystron tube, an early form of the driver for microwave power, and
increased its power from a few hundred watts to millions of watts.
(www.stanford.edu/dept/news/pr/2005/pr-chodorow-102605.html)
2005 Oct 17, In southern
Afghanistan US-led coalition forces killed four police officers
after mistaking them for militants during an operation in the
Maywand district of Kandahar province. Elsewhere militants shot dead
a police intelligence officer as he was walking in Zabul province.
(AP, 10/18/05)
2005 Oct 17, An Azerbaijani
opposition leader was arrested in Ukraine and scores of his
supporters were detained by police. Tensions rose in Azerbaijan in
the run-up to next month's parliamentary election.
(AP, 10/17/05)
2005 Oct 17, Radovan Karadzic,
former Bosnian-Serb leader and war-crimes fugitive, released a 6th
collection of poems titled “Under the left Breast of the Century.”
(SFC, 10/19/05, p.A2)
2005 Oct 17, The British
government announced that smoking will be banned at all workplaces
as well as pubs and restaurants in Northern Ireland from April 2007.
(AP, 10/17/05)
2005 Oct 17, China’s Shenzhou 6
capsule carrying astronauts Fei Junlong and Nie Haisheng landed
before dawn by parachute in China's northern grasslands after a
five-day mission.
(AP, 10/17/05)
2005 Oct 17, Ba Jin (100), one
of China's most revered communist-era writers who attacked the evils
of the pre-revolutionary era in novels, short stories and essays,
died of cancer in Shanghai. He is best known for his 1931 novel
"Family," the story of a disintegrating feudal household. Ba Jin
also translated the Russian writers Ivan Turgenev and Pyotr
Kropotkin.
(AP, 10/17/05)
2005 Oct 17, The EU urged
Croatia and Greece to expedite tests on dead birds as concerns rose
over the westward spread of avian flu.
(WSJ, 10/18/05, p.A1)
2005 Oct 17, The European Union
unblocked $87 million in development aid for Haiti, ending a freeze
imposed almost five years ago because of allegedly flawed elections
in the Western Hemisphere's poorest nation.
(AP, 10/17/05)
2005 Oct 17, Deutsche Bank AG
and private bank Sal. Oppenheim said they would acquire a combined
14% stake in China's Hua Xia Bank in a deal worth 272 million euros
($326.4 million).
(AP, 10/17/05)
2005 Oct 17, Iraq's former
Prime Minister Ayad Allawi and other secular leaders announced a new
coalition they said unites moderate Sunnis, Shiites and other
political groups to run in December's parliamentary elections.
(AP, 10/17/05)
2005 Oct 17, In western Iraq 2
US Marines were killed in fighting near the Jordanian border.
Insurgents shot and killed Ayed Abdul Ghani, an adviser to one of
Iraq's top Sunni Arab officials, as he drove to work in Baghdad.
(AP, 10/18/05)
2005 Oct 17, US warplanes and
helicopters bombed two western villages, killing an estimated 70
militants near a site where five American soldiers died in a weekend
roadside blast, the military. Residents said at least 39 of the dead
were civilians.
(AP, 10/17/05)
2005 Oct 17, Israel suspended
negotiations with the Palestinian Authority on issues such as
prisoner releases and slapped tough travel restrictions on the West
Bank after Palestinian gunmen killed three Israelis and wounded five
a day earlier.
(AP, 10/17/05)
2005 Oct 17,
Japanese PM Junichiro Koizumi enraged China and South Korea by
visiting Tokyo's Yasukuni war shrine.
(AP, 10/17/06)
2005 Oct 17, Libyan Foreign
Minister Abdel Rahman Shalgam rejected a call by US President George
W. Bush for Tripoli to spare the lives of five Bulgarian nurses
sentenced to death for infecting hundreds of Libyan children with
the AIDS virus.
(AP, 10/17/05)
2005 Oct 17, Dutch police
arrested 45 members of the Hell's Angels motorcycle gang and seized
an assortment of weapons during nationwide raids on the group's
clubhouses. Prosecutors said those arrested face charges of murder,
extortion, intimidation and weapons and drug trafficking.
(AP, 10/17/05)
2005 Oct 17, Russian state
security agents arrested a senior tax official as he was handed a $1
million bribe in a plush Moscow hotel. The arrest was announced the
next day as corruption watchdog Transparency International published
its annual survey showing graft in Russia had worsened to put it on
the same level as Sierra Leone, Niger and Albania.
(AP, 10/18/05)(Econ, 10/22/05, p.53)
2005 Oct 17, Abdi Hassan Awale,
who once served as Somalia's interior minister, was arrested on
suspicion of war crimes while attending a conference in Sweden. He
is suspected of being a militia leader during the Oct 3, 1993,
"Black Hawk Down" battle that left 18 Americans dead.
(AP, 10/17/05)
2005 Oct 17, South Africa's
government vowed to press ahead with legislative attempts to take
greater control of the nation's diamonds and weaken the grip of
diamond-producer De Beers, dismissing arguments that this could
disrupt global markets and lead to job losses.
(AP, 10/17/05)
2005 Oct 18, US inflation at
the wholesale level last month soared by the largest amount in more
than 15 years, reflecting the surge in energy prices that occurred
following the Gulf Coast hurricanes.
(AP, 10/18/05)
2005 Oct 18, The DJIA fell
62.84 points to 10285.26 following the sale of a 24.5 million block
of Exxon shares.
(WSJ, 10/19/05, p.C1)
2005 Oct 18, A US District
Court in SF sentenced Victor Conte (55), founder of Burlingame’s
BALCO lab, to 4 months in federal prison and 4 months of house
arrest for conspiracy to distribute undetectable steroids to top
athletes.
(SFC, 10/19/05, p.A1)
2005 Oct 18, Scientists
announced that tracks of a previously unknown swimming dinosaur have
been found along the shores of an ancient sea in Wyoming.
(www.livescience.com/animalworld/051017_swimming_dino.html)
2005 Oct 18, Tropical Storm
Wilma strengthened into a hurricane as it continued on a path toward
Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula, then south Florida.
(AP, 10/18/06)
2005 Oct 18, Bill King (78),
Bay Area sportscaster, died in San Leandro, Ca.
(SFC, 10/19/05, p.A1)
2005 Oct 18, A former regional
governor who oversaw the destruction of two massive 1,500-year-old
Buddha statues during the Taliban's reign was elected to the Afghan
parliament last month, officials said as results from two provinces
were finalized.
(AP, 10/18/05)
2005 Oct 18, Transparency
International ranked Bangladesh and Chad as the most corrupt on an
annual list of corruption levels in 159 nations. At the other end of
the scale, Iceland was ranked least corrupt. Turkmenistan, Myanmar,
Haiti, Nigeria, Equatorial Guinea, the Ivory Coast and Angola joined
Chad and Bangladesh as the most corrupt countries.
(AP, 10/18/05)
2005 Oct 18, Brazil's
government pledged $14 million for relief efforts in the Amazon
River basin, an area ravaged by the worst drought in decades.
(AP, 10/18/05)
2005 Oct 18, An environmental
watchdog alleged that Chinese logging companies in Myanmar have
illegally exported huge amounts of timber in collusion with the
military government and ethnic guerrillas, destroying ecologically
unique forest areas.
(AP, 10/18/05)
2005 Oct 18, World Bank
President Paul Wolfowitz prodded China to give more power to the
people for the sake of sustaining strong economic growth.
(AP, 10/18/05)
2005 Oct 18, In northeastern
India machete-wielding attackers ambushed a bus and tribal militants
set fire to two villages of a rival group, killing 37 people.
(AP, 10/18/05)
2005 Oct 18, Suspected Islamic
militants killed the education minister of Indian-controlled Kashmir
during a brazen raid days after top insurgents ordered a suspension
of attacks in the aftermath of South Asia's devastating earthquake.
(AP, 10/18/05)
2005 Oct 18, A roadside bomb
hit a US Army patrol south of Baghdad, killing one soldier and
wounding two others. A US soldier died from a non-hostile gunshot
wound at a forward operating base near Mosul.
(AP, 10/19/05)(AP, 10/20/05)
2005 Oct 18, A British soldier
was killed by a roadside bomb in southern Iraq.
(AFP, 10/19/05)
2005 Oct 18, In Rome, Italy, a
teenager (15) who appeared on the roof of his family home with a
pistol following the shooting deaths of his parents was taken into
custody after an officer coaxed him down by telling him the couple
was only wounded.
(AP, 10/18/05)
2005 Oct 18, It was reported
that a leading pro-opposition news website in Kazakhstan has been
closed by court order and others have experienced technical problems
in the run-up to a presidential election in the Central Asian state.
(Reuters, 10/18/05)
2005 Oct 18, Gen’l. Musharraf
announced that Pakistan was ready to allow Kashmiris to cross the
“line of control,” dividing Indian and Pakistani controlled areas,
to help their families.
(Econ, 10/22/05, p.45)
2005 Oct 18, A shadowy
Palestinian militant group said it has abducted two alleged
collaborators with Israel and threatened to carry out additional
kidnappings.
(AP, 10/18/05)
2005 Oct 18, In Nalchik,
Russia, a suspect in last week's attacks here by alleged Islamic
extremists was reported killed in a clash with police.
(AP, 10/18/05)
2005 Oct 18, Alexander Yakovlev
(81), a key architect of former President Mikhail Gorbachev's
political reforms of perestroika and glasnost that shook the last
years of the Soviet Union, died.
(AP, 10/18/05)
2005 Oct 18, Thailand's Cabinet
announced it was extending a state of emergency in three southern
provinces to cope with an escalating Muslim insurgency.
(AP, 10/18/05)
2005 Oct 18, In Tunisia 8
prominent opponents of the government went on a hunger strike ahead
of a world summit on information in Tunis. They called for freedom
of the press and of association and want Tunisia’s 600-odd political
prisoners to be freed.
(Econ, 11/12/05, p.50)
2005 Oct 18, A new UN study
said armed conflicts have declined by 40 percent since the end of
the Cold War primarily because the United Nations was finally able
to launch peacekeeping and conflict-prevention operations around the
world.
(AP, 10/18/05)
2005 Oct 19, The Houston Astros
defeated the St. Louis Cardinals for the National League title. They
will face the Chicago White Sox in the World Series.
(WSJ, 10/20/05, p.A1)
2005 Oct 19, US envoy Bill
Richardson toured a North Korean nuclear facility and held a second
day of talks with government officials as part of his efforts to
encourage Pyongyang to dismantle its atomic weapons program.
(AP, 10/19/05)
2005 Oct 19, Environmentalists
sued the US Navy alleging that a widely used from of sonar for
detecting enemy submarines disturbs and sometimes kills whales and
dolphins.
(SFC, 10/20/05, p.A6)
2005 Oct 19, Cisco Systems Inc.
said it will spend $1.1 billion in India over the next three years
in the company's largest investment outside the United States.
(AP, 10/19/05)
2005 Oct 19, Dell, the world's
largest personal computer producer, announced it was setting up a
major customer call center in the Philippines.
(AFP, 10/19/05)
2005 Oct 19, Lashaun Harris
(23) threw her 3 children into San Francisco Bay near Fishermen's
Wharf. The body of a third sibling was recovered. Harris had been
staying with her children at a Salvation Army shelter in Oakland.
She told authorities that voices had told her to throw her children
into the water.
(AP, 10/20/05)
2005 Oct 19, Police in Bosnia
arrested a cyber-jihadist who called himself Maximus. Mirsad
Bektasevic, a Swedish teenager of Bosnian extraction, was sentenced
to jail along with 3 others for plotting attacks to take place in
Bosnia or other European countries. On his computer police found
contacts with other jihadists in Europe including Younis Tsouli
(Irhabi007), whom British police arrested 2 days later.
(Econ, 7/14/07,
p.28)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irhabi_007)
2005 Oct 19, Canadian police
arrested a Rwandan man who is living in Toronto, charging him with
crimes against humanity during the 1994 genocide in Rwanda.
(Reuters, 10/19/05)
2005 Oct 19, Chile's Supreme
Court stripped former dictator Gen. Augusto Pinochet of immunity
from prosecution for corruption charges related to his multimillion
dollar bank accounts overseas.
(AP, 10/19/05)
2005 Oct 19, China’s government
said some 2,600 birds have been found dead of bird flu in northern
China's grasslands, amid reports of new outbreaks in Europe and
Russia.
(AP, 10/19/05)
2005 Oct 19, In China Tan Kai
was taken into custody in the eastern city of Hangzhou. He was
detained after he opened a bank account as part of efforts to
register an environmental group, "Green Watch." He went on trial in
May, 2006, on alleged charges of stealing state secrets, which
stemmed from repairs he did on a computer belonging to a member of
the provincial Communist Party committee.
(AP, 5/15/06)
2005 Oct 19, Colombia's highest
court approved a law allowing presidents to run for second terms.
(AP, 10/19/05)
2005 Oct 19, The International
Organization for Migration (IMO) said "Ethiopian women and girls who
migrate to Lebanon, Egypt, Yemen and Saudi Arabia suffer from
maltreatment, physical, sexual and emotional abuses," in a report
based on interviews with 443 women returning from the region.
(AP, 10/20/05)
2005 Oct 19, Hurricane Wilma
swirled into the most intense Atlantic storm ever recorded, a
Category 5 monster whose 175 mph winds and heavy rains were blamed
for killing at least 11 people in Haiti and one in Jamaica as it
bore down on Central America.
(AP, 10/19/05)
2005 Oct 19, A defiant Saddam
Hussein pleaded innocent to charges of murder and torture as his
long-awaited trial began with the one-time dictator arguing about
the legitimacy of the court and scuffling with guards.
(AP, 10/19/05)
2005 Oct 19, Iraq’s trial of
Saddam Hussein on war crimes charges was adjourned to Nov 28 shortly
after it began.
(AP, 10/19/05)
2005 Oct 19, Iraqi police
arrested Saddam Hussein's nephew in Baghdad, charging that he served
as the top financier of Iraq's rampant insurgency. 3 US soldiers
were killed by a roadside bomb.
(AP, 10/20/05)
2005 Oct 19, Sunni-led
insurgents killed 26 people in Iraq, including six Shiites who were
lined up at a factory and gunned down in front of their fellow
workers.
(AP, 10/19/05)(SFC, 10/20/05, p.A15)
2005 Oct 19, Rory Carroll, 33,
an Irish citizen who is the London Guardian's Baghdad correspondent,
was kidnapped while on assignment. Carroll was released the next
day.
(AP, 10/19/05)(AP, 10/20/05)
2005 Oct 19-2005 Oct 20, Police
arrested total of 58 people for drug trafficking in Italy, Spain,
France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Serbia-Montenegro. The arrests
were a response to the Oct 16 murder of Italian politician Francesco
Fortugno.
(AP, 10/21/05)
2005 Oct 19, Two strong
aftershocks from the Oct 8 deadly earthquake shook South Asia,
unleashing landslides and setting off another wave of panic among
survivors of the disaster. A new tally from officials in India and
Pakistan pushed the death toll to 79,000.
(AP, 10/19/05)
2005 Oct 19, Libya sent to
prison for 18 months a blogger who criticized the government on the
Internet. A Tripoli court convicted Abdel Raziq al-Mansuri of
illegal possession of a handgun and sentenced him to 18 months'
imprisonment. A rights group said that after detaining al-Mansuri,
Libyan security officials searched his home and "found an old pistol
that belonged to his father."
(AP, 11/4/05)
2005 Oct 19, Polish President
Aleksander Kwasniewski nominated conservative Kazimierz
Marcinkiewicz as PM following the first meeting of the newly elected
parliament.
(AP, 10/19/05)
2005 Oct 19, Russia's
Agriculture Ministry confirmed that the Asian H5N1 strain had been
detected in the village of Yandovka, suggesting the dreaded virus
might be spreading across a swath from Siberia to the shores of the
Mediterranean.
(AP, 10/20/05)
2005 Oct 19, A court officials
said a Spanish judge has issued an international arrest warrant for
three U.S. soldiers whose tank fired on a Baghdad hotel during the
Iraq war, killing a Spanish journalist and one other. Jose Couso,
who worked for the Spanish television network Telecinco, died April
8, 2003, after a U.S. army tank crew fired a shell on Hotel
Palestine.
(AP, 10/19/05)
2005 Oct 19, The UN said
fighting and insecurity throughout Darfur is hindering food and
relief aid to tens of thousands of people and forcing more displaced
Sudanese into already crammed refugee camps.
(AP, 10/19/05)
2005 Oct 19, Zimbabwean
Archbishop Pius Ncube said he feared 200,000 of his countrymen could
die by early next year because of food shortages he blamed on his
government, and called for President Robert Mugabe's ouster.
(AP, 10/19/05)
2005 Oct 20, President Bush met
with Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas in the Oval Office and said
prospects for Palestinians gaining a state seem to be better than
ever before.
(AP, 10/20/05)
2005 Oct 20, US Congress
approved legislation protecting firearms manufacturers and dealers
from a broad swath of civil liability lawsuits. Pres. Bush pledged
to sign it.
(SFC, 10/21/05, p.A1)
2005 Oct 20, Sen. Ted Stevens,
R-Alaska, vowed to resign from the Senate if his fellow lawmakers
followed through on threats to cancel spending on a $230 million
"bridge to nowhere" in Alaska that was stuck into a pork-filled
highway bill earlier this year.
(KRN, 10/20/05)
2005 Oct 20, US Rep. Tom DeLay
turned himself in at the sheriff's office in Travis County, Texas,
where he was fingerprinted, photographed and released on $10,000
bail on conspiracy and money-laundering charges.
(AP, 10/20/06)
2005 Oct 20, Federal regulators
approved what would be the first transplant of fetal stem cells into
human brains, a procedure that if successful could open the door to
treating a host of neural disorders. The FDA said that doctors at
Stanford University Medical Center can begin the testing on six
children afflicted with Batten disease.
(AP, 10/20/05)
2005 Oct 20, Shirley Horn (71),
jazz singer and pianist, died in Washington DC.
(SFC, 10/22/05, p.B5)
2005 Oct 20, In southern
Afghanistan a car bomb exploded near a mosque killing Nafus Khan,
the deputy police chief of Nimroz province, and one of his
bodyguards.
(AP, 10/21/05)
2005 Oct 20, A French couple
who poisoned their five children and then tried to commit suicide in
a desperate bid to escape towering debt was sentenced to prison
terms by a court outside Paris.
(AP, 10/20/05)
2005 Oct 20, Iranian state-run
television said that the country's Supreme Cultural Revolutionary
Council, headed by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, issued the ban on
foreign films that promote what were termed "arrogant powers", a
propaganda term the Iranians use to refer to the United States.
(http://tinyurl.com/87t7u)(AP, 10/27/05)
2005 Oct 20, An Iraqi Airways
plane landed in Cairo, making the first regular flight between Iraq
and Egypt in 15 years.
(AP, 10/20/05)
2005 Oct 20, In northern Iraq
insurgents using explosives set fire to the main oil pipeline.
Militants riding in a car opened fire on civilians outside a food
shop in the southern Dora area of Baghdad, killing two. The
militants then stopped, rushed into the store and gunned down a
third Iraqi. A rocket hit a public school for students aged 12 to 15
in the western al-Mansour neighborhood of the capital, killing one
child and wounding five. A nearby shopkeeper also was killed. A
suicide car bomb exploded in front of a provincial government
building in the city of Baqouba, 35 miles northeast of Baghdad.
Three people were killed and 14 wounded.
(AP, 10/20/05)
2005 Oct 20, Saadoun Sughaiyer
al-Janabi, a defense lawyer in Saddam Hussein's mass murder trial,
was found dead soon after being kidnapped. His body was dumped near
a Baghdad mosque with two gunshots to the head. 4 US service members
were killed in two attacks. An American soldier was killed in the
northwestern town of Hit by "indirect fire," a term that usually
means a mortar or rocket attack.
(AP, 10/21/05)
2005 Oct 20, Inmates at a
prison hospital in Kyrgyzstan killed a parliamentarian and two other
people after taking him and his entourage hostage.
(AP, 10/20/05)
2005 Oct 20, It was reported
that Lebanon's state-run telephone system has billed the government
for more than $11 million in unpaid telephone charges run up by
Syrian troops before they left the country earlier this year after a
nearly three-decade occupation. Information Minister Ghazi Aridi
said Lebanon’ government would pay the bill.
(AP, 10/20/05)
2005 Oct 20, The roof of a
hospital in central Nepal collapsed, killing at least 10 people and
injuring nine others.
(AP, 10/20/05)
2005 Oct 20, The Paris Club
announced and agreement to cancel 60% (about $18 billion) of
Nigeria's foreign debt. This fueled optimism among anti-poverty
campaigners, but corruption and requirements imposed by the West
overshadowed the future. Nigeria, Africa's most populous nation, was
rated the sixth most corrupt nation in the world in a survey
released earlier this week by Berlin-based Transparency
International.
(AP, 10/21/05)
2005 Oct 20, Sudan's government
and rebels ended a sixth round of talks on the crisis in the
country's western Darfur region, announcing no agreements but
pledging to reconvene in a month to push forward the slow-moving
peace process.
(AP, 10/20/05)
2005 Oct 20, A UN report
implicated the brother-in-law of Syria's president in the Feb 14
assassination of former Lebanese PM Rafik Hariri, and Lebanese
intelligence officials helped organize it. The UN inquiry officially
linked Damascus to the slaying for the first time. Syria rejected
the report. The names of top Syrians were edited out in the final
version of the report.
(AP, 10/21/05)
2005 Oct 20, In Taiwan, the
Agricultural Council confirmed the island's first case of bird flu.
Birds taken from a Panama-registered freighter that was stopped by
the Taiwanese coast guard on Oct. 14 tested positive for the H5N1
virus.
(AP, 10/20/05)
2005 Oct 20, Thailand PM
Thaksin Shinawatra said new lab results confirmed the country's 13th
death from bird flu.
(AP, 10/20/05)
2005 Oct 20, UNESCO's member
nations voted overwhelmingly to approve a pact on protecting
cultural diversity after a bitter debate left the United States
isolated in opposition to what it sees as a threat to sales of
American movies and music.
(AP, 10/20/05)
2005 Oct 21, US and Colombian
authorities shut down a drug trafficking and money laundering
operation that exported about $1 million worth of cocaine every week
to the United States, Europe and Asia.
(AP, 10/22/05)
2005 Oct 21, Oscar Wyatt (81),
former chairman of Coastal Corp., was arrested at his home in
Houston for paying millions in kickbacks to the government of Saddam
Hussein in exchange for rights to buy discounted Iraqi oil under the
UN’s oil-for-food program. 2 Swiss associates were also indicted. In
2007 Wyatt was sentenced to over a year in jail after admitting that
he agreed to a surcharge of about $200,000 to be paid to bank
account in Jordan controlled by officials of Iraq’s State Oil
Marketing Organization in Dec 2001.
(SFC, 10/22/05, p.A3)(WSJ, 11/28/07, p.B10)
2005 Oct 21, The Kansas Supreme
Court unanimously struck down a state law that punished underage sex
more severely if it involved homosexual acts.
(AP, 10/22/06)
2005 Oct 21, A Taliban ambush
touched off fierce fighting in southern Afghan mountains that left
eight police and four rebels dead. A cultural reporter 922) with a
local radio station, was killed in a bomb blast in the eastern
province of Khost.
(AP, 10/22/05)(AFP, 10/22/05)
2005 Oct 21, Authorities in
Azerbaijan said a 2nd former government minister was arrested on
charges of involvement in a coup plot against President Ilham Aliev,
deepening political tensions ahead of next month's key parliamentary
elections.
(AP, 10/21/05)
2005 Oct 21, Britain and
Croatia confirmed cases of bird flu as countries around the world
scrambled to put in place measures to prevent the spread of the
virus. British officials said a parrot that had been imported from
South America died of bird flu in quarantine.
(AP, 10/22/05)
2005 Oct 21, In Alexandria,
Egypt, thousands of Muslims rioted outside a Coptic Christian church
to denounce a play deemed offensive to Islam, prompting police to
beat protesters and fire tear gas into the crowd. 3 people died and
more than 90 were injured. The play, "I Was Blind But Now I Can
See," tells the story of a young Christian who converts to Islam and
becomes disillusioned. The riot was sparked by the distribution of a
DVD of a play that was performed at the church two years ago.
(Reuters, 10/21/05)
2005 Oct 21, The European
Commission agreed to open talks with Bosnia on a cooperation
agreement that could lead to full EU membership for the Balkan
nation.
(AP, 10/21/05)
2005 Oct 21, Hungary’s health
minister told a local news agency that the country has developed a
bird-flu vaccine from humans.
(WSJ, 10/22/05, p.A1)
2005 Oct 21, Indonesian police
said they had arrested four people allegedly involved in smuggling
hundreds of pounds of explosive materials from Malaysia into
Indonesia.
(AP, 10/21/05)
2005 Oct 21, Iran's supreme
leader, long a critic of the United States, praised the U.S.-backed
constitutional referendum in Iraq as "blessed" and urged Iraqis to
participate December's parliamentary elections.
(AP, 10/21/05)
2005 Oct 21, Hurricane Wilma
slammed into the island of Cozumel, starting a long, grinding march
across Mexico's resort-studded coastline. Wilma flooded streets,
knocked out power and stranded thousands of tourists in sweltering
shelters. Hurricane Wilma tore into Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula,
after killing 13 people in Haiti and Jamaica.
(AP, 10/21/05)(AP, 10/22/06)
2005 Oct 21, Lawmakers of
Serbia and Montenegro elected Zoran Stankovic (51), a reported
ally of notorious war crimes fugitive Ratko Mladic, as the new
defense minister.
(AP, 10/21/05)
2005 Oct 22, Chicago beat the
Houston Astros 5-3 in Game 1 of baseball’s best-of-seven World
Series.
(Reuters, 10/23/05)
2005 Oct 22, Donald Rumsfeld,
US Defense Sec., wrapped up a 3-nation Asian tour with a stop in
Mongolia. Pres. Bush was scheduled to stop in Ulan Bator in
November.
(WSJ, 10/24/05, p.A13)
2005 Oct 22, Scott McAlpin (24)
of El Sobrante murdered his SF girlfriend Anastasia Melnitchenko
(22). McAlpin was arrested the next day by US Park police at the
Marin Headlands north of San Francisco. The body of Melnitchenko,
was found in the trunk of his car. McAlpin had 8 previous felony
convictions for domestic violence. In 2008 McAlpin was convicted of
first degree murder.
(SFC, 10/26/05, p.B1)(SFC, 12/5/08, p.B2)
2005 Oct 22, Armand Pierre
Fernandez (76), the French-born sculptor known as Arman who was a
leading figure of the New Realism movement, died in NYC.
(AP, 10/23/05)
2005 Oct 22, In Afghanistan Ali
Mohaqiq Nasab was convicted after his magazine Haqooq-i-Zan, or
Women's Rights, published a series of articles about Islam. One
challenged a belief that Muslims who convert to other religions
should be stoned to death, as sanctioned by some interpretations of
Islamic Shariah law, while another criticized the practice of
punishing adultery with 100 lashes. On Oct 24 the UN criticized his
two-year jail sentence.
(AP, 10/24/05)
2005 Oct 22, In Britain one man
was stabbed to death and several other people hurt in Birmingham
when riots erupted over allegations a black girl was raped, though
police said there is nothing to substantiate the claim. Members of
the ethnic Afro-Caribbean and Pakistani communities clashed
violently with each other after a week of tension over rumors that a
14-year-old Jamaican girl was raped at a South Asian-run shop.
(AFP, 10/23/05)(AFP, 10/29/05)
2005 Oct 22, China’s
legislature agreed to cut income taxes on the country’s poorest
workers. The cutoff point to pay taxes was raised from 800 yuan to
1600 yuan ($198) per month.
(WSJ, 10/24/05, p.A13)
2005 Oct 22, A bird flu
outbreak killed 545 chickens and ducks in central China and prompted
authorities to destroy 2,487 others.
(AP, 10/25/05)
2005 Oct 22, A record 22nd
tropical storm of the season formed about 125 miles off the
Dominican Republic; because the annual list of storm names had
already been exhausted, forecasters called the new system Tropical
Storm Alpha.
(AP, 10/22/06)
2005 Oct 22, At least 20
Guatemalan inmates considered to be extremely dangerous escaped from
a high-security prison through a tunnel 50 miles south of Guatemala
City.
(AP, 10/23/05)
2005 Oct 22, In Haiti Muhammed
Khalaf (32), a UN peacekeeper from the Jordanian army. was
shot while on patrol near the volatile Cite Soleil slum of
Port-au-Prince. He died 2 days later.
(AP, 10/24/05)
2005 Oct 22, US soldiers and
warplanes killed 20 insurgents and destroyed five "safe houses"
during an operation against militants who shelter foreign fighters
for al-Qaida in Iraq near the Syrian border.
(AP, 10/22/05)
2005 Oct 22, Hurricane Wilma
crawled over Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula, keeping some 30,000
tourists huddled in hotels and shelters amid shrieking winds and
shattering glass.
(AP, 10/22/05)
2005 Oct 22, In Nigeria a
passenger jet crashed shortly after takeoff from Lagos, killing all
117 on board.
(AP, 10/25/05)
2005 Oct 22, In Spain the
Basque country's ruling party called for new initiatives to end
violence by ETA guerrillas in Spain and break a political deadlock
over the region's status.
(AP, 10/22/05)
2005 Oct 22, Bishops from
around the world approved a set of 50 recommendations for Pope
Benedict XVI on running the Roman Catholic Church that reaffirm
church teaching on such issues as celibacy for priests.
(AP, 10/22/05)
2005 Oct 23, The Chicago White
Sox took a 2-0 lead in the World Series as they beat the Houston
Astros 7-6.
(AP, 10/23/06)
2005 Oct 23, In SF the 2nd
Annual Nike Women’s Marathon over 15,000 runners raised $14 million
to benefit the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.
(SFC, 10/24/05, p.B3)
2005 Oct 23, An earthquake
destroyed homes and killed five people near Afghanistan's eastern
border with Pakistan.
(AP, 10/23/05)
2005 Oct 23, Argentina's ruling
party dominated midterm elections seen as a test of President Nestor
Kirchner's two-year-old government, with his Peronist party picking
up support in Congress and his wife winning a Senate seat. Christina
Fernandez de Kirchner won 46% to 20% over Hilda Gonzalez de Duhalde
to represent the province of Buenos Aires.
(AP, 10/24/05)(Econ, 10/29/05, p.37)
2005 Oct 23, Brazilians struck
down a proposal to ban the sale of guns in a national referendum,
rejecting a bid to stem one of the world's highest firearm murder
rates.. Gun violence took the lives of about 39,000 people in Brazil
each year, more than any country in the world.
(AP, 10/25/05)
2005 Oct 23, In southern China
an explosion at a coal mine killed 15 miners and injured 3.
(AP, 10/24/05)
2005 Oct 23, In Colombia
suspected rebels launched homemade bombs at a police station and
nearby homes in a southwest town near the border with Ecuador,
killing 7 people.
(AP, 10/24/05)
2005 Oct 23, A suicide bombing
in a Baghdad square killed 4 people. Another suicide car bomber
killed 2 civilians in Kirkuk. In Tikrit a bomb killed a police
colonel and his 2 sons. 2 girls (7 and 9) in a nearby car were also
killed in the explosion. Drive-by shootings around Baquba killed 5
people. Gunmen killed 3 Iraqis driving a water truck to an army base
near Taji. Insurgents killed the head of a Shiite anti-Saddam
Hussein group and his driver outside Amara.
(SFC, 10/24/05, p.A3)
2005 Oct 23, Militant
Palestinians fought members of a Lebanese leftist party in a gun
battle that left one man dead and three wounded outside a refugee
camp.
(AP, 10/23/05)
2005 Oct 23, Mexico's ruling
party chose Felipe Calderon, the nation's former energy secretary,
as its candidate for presidential elections next July.
(AP, 10/23/05)
2005 Oct 23, Hurricane Wilma
drifted northward away from Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula where the
storm left 8 people dead. In 2006 insurers put the damage from Wilma
at $3 billion, the largest insured losses in Mexican history.
(AP, 10/23/05)(Econ, 10/29/05, p.38)(AP,
10/19/06)
2005 Oct 23, Stella Obasanjo
(59), the wife of Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, died after
undergoing liposuction surgery in Spain. In 2009 A court in Malaga
convicted plastic surgeon Antonio Mena Molina of negligent homicide.
He was given a suspended sentence of a year in jail, barred from
practicing medicine for three years, and ordered to pay euro120,000
($175,000) in damages to the woman's son.
(AP, 10/23/05)(AP, 9/22/09)
2005 Oct 23, Poles voted for a
new president in an election that opinion polls showed to be a
close-fought battle between Donald Tusk and his vision of a liberal,
free-market Poland, and Lech Kaczynski who favors state intervention
and Catholic conservatism. Warsaw's conservative Mayor Lech
Kaczynski won Poland's presidential runoff vote 54%-46%.
(AP, 10/23/05)(Econ, 10/29/05, p.52)
2005 Oct 23, Taiwan said it is
ready to produce its own Tamiflu, the antiviral avian flu drug, and
will not let patent talks with Swiss drug maker Roche AG stand in
the way.
(http://tinyurl.com/9r8g5)
2005 Oct 23, Pope Benedict XVI
named five new saints at the close of a 3-week Synod of Bishops.
They included: Rev. Alberto Hurtado Cruchaga, a Chilean Jesuit who
was known for his work with the poor as well as the young; from
Ukraine Josef Bilczewski, archbishop of Lviv, who was greatly
admired by Catholics, Orthodox Christians and Jews alike during
World War and the Rev. Zygmunt Gorazdowski, who founded the
Congregation for the Sisters of St. Joseph to care for the sick and
poor; and Italians Felice da Nicosia, a lay Capuchin who lived in
the 1700s, and the Rev. Gaetano Cantanoso, who founded the Veronican
Sisters of the Holy Face in 1934.
(AP, 10/23/05)
2005 Oct 24, Pres. Bush
nominated Ben Bernanke to replace Alan Greenspan as Federal Reserve
Board chairman. The DJIA move up almost 170 points.
(SFC, 10/25/05, p.D1)
2005 Oct 24, An ACLU analysis
of US Defense Dept. data said at least 21 prisoners under US custody
in Afghanistan and Iraq died during or after interrogations.
(SFC, 10/25/05, p.A3)
2005 Oct 24, Hurricane Wilma
left at least 6 dead in Florida and damages estimated to be as much
as $6-10 billion, making it the 3rd costliest in US history (behind
Andrew and Katrina). Some 27,700 dwellings were destroyed or
rendered temporarily unlivable.
(WSJ, 10/24/05, p.A1)(WSJ, 11/15/05, p.B1)
2005 Oct 24, Rosa Parks (92),
who galvanized the civil rights movement in 1955 when she was jailed
for refusing to give up her bus seat in Montgomery, Ala., died
at her home in Detroit. Her arrest triggered a 381-day boycott of
the bus system organized by a then little-known Baptist minister,
the Rev. King, who later earned the Nobel Peace Prize for his work.
(AP, 10/25/05)(Econ, 10/29/05, p.90)
2005 Oct 24, Edward Roybal
(b.1916), former US Representative from Los Angeles (1962-1992),
died in Pasadena. He was the 1st Hispanic to serve in Congress since
1879.
(SFC, 10/27/05, p.B9)
2005 Oct 24, In Afghanistan
rebels fired rockets at a US-led coalition convoy 10 miles south of
Kabul. The rockets missed their target and instead hit 3 civilian
cars, killing six Afghans.
(AP, 10/25/05)
2005 Oct 24, Abigail Brinkman
(28), of Columbus, Ind., died and three companions spent three days
floating in the stormy Caribbean off Belize after their weekend
diving trip went awry.
(AP, 10/26/05)
2005 Oct 24, Zhang Lijun, vice
minister of China’s State Environmental Protection Administration
(SEPA) said China cannot withstand pollution levels expected to
quadruple over the next 15 years under current trends in energy and
automobile use.
(WSJ, 10/25/05, p.A18)
2005 Oct 24, Alpha, the
Atlantic season's record-breaking 22nd named storm, left at least 10
people dead in Haiti and the Dominican Republic before moving north
into the Atlantic Ocean.
(AP, 10/24/05)
2005 Oct 24, An official said
more than a dozen climbers from France and Nepal were swept away in
an avalanche on a Himalayan mountain and believed killed. The
mountaineers were reported missing last week after heavy snowfall
hit the Himalayas.
(AP, 10/24/05)
2005 Oct 24, Germany’s two main
political parties said the country faced a $42 billion budget
shortfall, signaling tough spending cuts or tax hikes under a
planned coalition even as its economy struggles.
(AP, 10/24/05)
2005 Oct 24, Jose Azcona Hoyo
(78), the former president of Honduras (1986-1990), died of a heart
attack. He oversaw the start of the dismantling of bases for
U.S.-backed Nicaraguan rebels in his country.
(AP, 10/25/05)
2005 Oct 24, Triple suicide
bombings at the Palestine and Sheraton hotels in Baghdad killed as
many as 17 people. The next day Al-Qaida in Iraq claimed
responsibility. A US soldier shot and killed one of three suicide
bombers who attacked the Palestine Hotel complex before he could
reach his intended target and that probably saved lives in the
building.
(AP, 10/25/05)(AP, 10/29/05)
2005 Oct 24, Hundreds of
demonstrators rallied in front of the Kyrgyz parliament for a third
day to demand that the PM resign over the slaying of a lawmaker
during a prison uprising.
(AP, 10/24/05)
2005 Oct 24, Luis Velasquez
(51), A Roman Catholic parish priest was found shot to death in his
car with his hands cuffed in the rough border city of Tijuana, in
what police said appeared to be an organized-crime killing.
(AP, 10/24/05)
2005 Oct 24, NATO pledged to
help Ukraine push through military reforms seen as essential to
prepare the country for membership in the Western alliance, a
prospect viewed with concern in Russia.
(AP, 10/24/05)
2005 Oct 24, Sri Lanka's
president and her main political rival agreed for the first time to
forge a bipartisan approach to the island's peace process aimed at
ending decades of ethnic bloodshed.
(AP, 10/25/05)
2005 Oct 24, Ukraine auctioned
a 93% stake in Kryvorizhstal, its largest steel mill, to Mittal
Steel, the world’s biggest steelmaker, for $4.8 billion.
(Econ, 10/29/05, p.50)
2005 Oct 24, Sanjar Umarov, an
Uzbek opposition leader, was arrested on embezzlement charges.
Umarov, chairman of the Sunshine Coalition, pushed for an easing of
the country's autocratic rule.
(AP, 10/24/05)
2005 Oct 24, Vietnam lifted its
30% cap on foreign ownership of listed companies to 49%.
(WSJ, 10/21/05, p.C16)
2005 Oct 25, In the World
Series, the Chicago White Sox and the Houston Astros began playing
Game 3, which turned into a 14-inning marathon that did not end
until well after midnight with Chicago winning 7-5.
(AP, 10/25/06)
2005 Oct 25, The US State Dept.
said all US passports will be implanted with computer chips starting
in Oct 2006.
(SFC, 10/26/05, p.C2)
2005 Oct 25, The US deported
Mohammed Abouhalima (41) to Egypt. He had just finished serving an
8-year prison term after being convicted of helping his brother,
Mahmoud, flee New York following the Feb. 26, 1993 attack that
killed six people and wounded more than 1,000.
(AP, 10/27/05)
2005 Oct 25, Antar Bey (23),
son and designated heir of Black Muslim leader Yusuf Bey (d.2003),
was shot and killed in Oakland, Ca., in what appeared to be either a
car-jacking attempt or an assassination. On Nov. 8 police arrested
Alfonza Phillips (20) and charged him with murder in the failed
car-jacking. In 2007 Phillips was convicted of first degree murder
and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
(SFC, 10/27/05, p.B1)(SFC, 11/10/05, p.B4)(SFC,
11/20/07, p.D1)(SFC, 12/15/07, p.B3)
2005 Oct 25, In Afghanistan
militants opened fire on a police vehicle near Kabul, killing two
senior police officers who were teachers at a police academy.
(AP, 10/25/05)
2005 Oct 25, American and
British warplanes pounded a southern Afghan mountain, killing
suspected Taliban rebels. A provincial governor said at least 6
rebels were killed and 4 wounded.
(AP, 10/26/05)
2005 Oct 25-2005 Oct 26, Over
130 whales died in a mass stranding on a remote beach in Australia’s
southern island state of Tasmania.
(AP, 10/25/05)
2005 Oct 25, Azerbaijan's
President Ilham Aliyev ordered steps to ensure a November 6
parliamentary vote is fair after Washington voiced concern over a
police crackdown in the oil-producing ex-Soviet state.
(AP, 10/25/05)
2005 Oct 25, Chhouk Rin, former
Khmer Rouge field commander, was caught in northwestern Cambodia. In
1994 he was convicted in absentia for the murder of 3 Western
backpackers.
(AP, 10/26/05)
2005 Oct 25, A Canadian court
approved a $4.2 billion takeover of PetroKazakhstan by China's
largest oil company, China National Petroleum Corp., clearing the
final potential obstacle to China's biggest foreign acquisition yet.
(AP, 10/26/05)
2005 Oct 25, Carlyle, a
private-equity firm, paid $375 million for an 85% stake in Xugong,
China’s leading maker of construction machinery and became the 1st
foreign buyout group to gain control of a big Chinese company.
(Econ, 11/5/05, p.71)
2005 Oct 25, In southwest China
a stampede on a stairwell at an elementary school in Tongjiang
killed seven children and injured 37.
(AP, 10/26/05)
2005 Oct 25, A UN official said
a bird flu outbreak sickened 2,100 geese in eastern China and killed
about a quarter of them, the country's second outbreak reported in a
week.
(AP, 10/25/05)
2005 Oct 25, President Alvaro
Uribe accepted the resignation of Colombia's secret police chief and
fired the agency's No. 2 amid reports of bitter infighting between
the two.
(AP, 10/25/05)
2005 Oct 25, A rain-swollen
river flooded Puerto Plata in the northern Dominican Republic,
washing away houses and killing six people, including two children.
(AP, 10/26/05)
2005 Oct 25, The EU's highest
court finally settled the fate of feta cheese, decreeing it a
traditional Greek product deserving protection throughout the
25-nation bloc in a ruling that went against other European
producers.
(AP, 10/25/05)
2005 Oct 25, Election officials
said Iraq's constitution was adopted by a majority in a fair vote
during the Oct. 15 referendum, as Sunni Arab opponents failed to
muster enough support to defeat it.
(AP, 10/25/05)
2005 Oct 25, In southern Iraq
an American soldier was killed in a vehicle accident near Camp
Bucca. The death raised to at least 2,001 the number of members of
the US military who have died since the beginning of the in March
2003, according to an Associated Press count.
(AP, 10/26/05)
2005 Oct 25, Al Qaeda's wing in
Iraq said it had abducted two Moroccan embassy employees who had
gone missing on their way from Jordan to Baghdad, according to a
statement on a Web site.
(Reuters, 10/26/05)
2005 Oct 25, Police in riot
gear charged demonstrators in the streets near Italian PM Silvio
Berlusconi's office as students protested university reforms
sponsored by his conservative government.
(AP, 10/25/05)
2005 Oct 25, Pakistan’s Supreme
Court banned making, selling and flying kites due to deaths from
kite-flying rivalries during an annual kite flying festival. The ban
was extended in December until at least the next meeting of the
court on Jan. 26.
(SSFC, 12/11/05, p.A2)
2005 Oct 25, A panel of experts
highlighted the darker side of South Africa's booming wildlife
industry and recommended a total ban on "canned hunting" — the
release of captive-bred animals to be killed for sport with no
chance of escaping their human predators.
(AP, 10/25/05)
2005 Oct 25, The UN said
Sudanese refugees released 15 aid workers they had detained on Oct
23 in a crowded camp in the violent western Darfur region. Five
Sudanese nongovernment organization employees were still being held.
(AP, 10/25/05)
2005 Oct 25, A Venezuela
military court sentenced 3 former Venezuelan military officers and
27 Colombians to prison terms ranging from two to nine years for an
alleged plot in May 2004 to kill President Hugo Chavez.
(AP, 10/26/05)
2005 Oct 26, The Chicago White
Sox beat the Houston Astros 1-0 to win their first World Series
title since 1917.
(AP, 10/27/06)
2005 Oct 26, The US accepted a
Japanese proposal for the relocation of a US air station on Okinawa,
resolving a dispute that had blocked progress on military
realignment talks and caused friction between the two allies.
(AP, 10/26/05)
2005 Oct 26, In Florida the
death toll from Hurricane Wilma rose to 10. Officials estimated
agriculture damage at $1 billion.
(WSJ, 10/27/05, p.A1)
2005 Oct 26, Emil Kyulev (49)
owner of Bulgaria's largest insurance and banking group,
DZI-Rosexim, was shot dead in the street in Sofia in the latest in a
series of killings to jolt the country, which has been told to crack
down on organized crime if it wants to join the EU.
(AP, 10/26/05)(Econ, 10/29/05, p.50)
2005 Oct 26, Former Vice
President Rong Yiren (89), a textile magnate who joined with China's
communists and helped launch Deng Xiaoping's economic reforms,
earning the nickname "Red Capitalist," died in Beijing.
(AP, 10/27/05)(Econ, 11/5/05, p.94)
2005 Oct 26-2005 Oct 27,
Intense fighting between rebels and paramilitary groups for control
of the cocaine trade in the jungles of western Colombia left at
least 20 outlawed fighters dead.
(AP, 10/28/05)
2005 Oct 26, A group of woman
who have held a weekly march the last two years to protest the Cuban
government's jailing of their activist husbands were gratified to
learn they will share the EU's top human rights prize, something
they hope will draw attention to their cause.
(AP, 10/26/05)
2005 Oct 26, In Ecuador Jose
Cabrera, a 71-year-old provincial notary, died in a luxury hotel
room and left behind a teenage girlfriend, who later said he'd been
on cocaine and Viagra, and a crumbling $800 million pyramid scheme
that soon blossomed into a nationwide scandal.
(AP, 12/27/05)
2005 Oct 26, The EU said the
dangerous H5N1 strain of bird flu has been found in Croatia.
Authorities said a 2nd parrot that died in quarantine in Britain was
also infected with the virus.
(AP, 10/26/05)
2005 Oct 26, A court in
Duesseldorf convicted 4 Arab men of plotting to attack Jewish
targets in Germany and found 3 of them guilty of being members of a
terrorist organization.
(AP, 10/26/05)
2005 Oct 26, Iran’s Pres.
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad declared that Israel was a "disgraceful blot"
and should be "wiped off the map." He also said a new wave of
Palestinian attacks will destroy the Jewish state.
(AP, 10/26/05)(AP, 10/26/06)
2005 Oct 26, In Iraq 3 mostly
Sunni Arab political parties announced that they have formed a
coalition to run in Iraq's parliamentary election in December.
(AP, 10/26/05)
2005 Oct 26, In Iraq 3 American
soldiers died in separate attacks.
(AP, 10/27/05)
2005 Oct 26, Toyota Motor Corp.
said that its joint venture with China's biggest automaker plans to
build a 3rd plant in China with annual production capacity of
200,000 passenger cars.
(AP, 10/26/05)
2005 Oct 26, A Palestinian
suicide bomber struck a food stand in the Israeli town of Hadera,
killing 5 people, wounding at least 30 and leaving a path of
destruction at an open air market.
(AP, 10/26/05)
2005 Oct 26, Philippine troops
captured 7 suspected Muslim militants, including the leader of a
group of Islamic converts linked to the kidnappings of foreigners
and an alleged plot to bomb.
(AP, 10/26/05)
2005 Oct 26, In the Philippines
a tunnel in a gold mine on Mindanao collapsed after a blast and
about 50 people were feared dead.
(Reuters, 10/27/05)
2005 Oct 26, Russia’s Finance
Minister Alexei Kudrin warned that a strengthening ruble and high
inflation threatened to undermine the competitiveness of Russia's
economy as the nation seeks to join the World Trade Organization.
(AP, 10/26/05)
2005 Oct 26, Serbian police
detained nine people on suspicion of taking part in a 1999 massacre
of dozens of ethnic Albanians in southwestern Kosovo.
(AP, 10/26/05)
2005 Oct 26, A Swiss court
found Vitaly Kaloyev, a Russian architect, guilty of premeditated
homicide for the Feb 2004 killing of the air traffic controller on
duty at the time of the Jul 1, 2002, midair plane collision in which
his wife and child were lost.
(AP, 10/26/05)
2005 Oct 26, Suspected Muslim
insurgents raided 60 targets in southern Thailand, stealing 90
weapons and causing at least seven deaths.
(AP, 10/27/05)
2005 Oct 26, The Mormon Church,
citing difficulties with the government of President Hugo Chavez in
renewing visas or obtaining new ones, said it is pulling its foreign
missionaries out of Venezuela and reassigning them to other
countries.
(AP, 10/26/05)
2005 Oct 27, President Bush
abandoned his push to put loyalist Harriet Miers on the Supreme
Court and promised a quick replacement. Harriet Miers withdrew her
nomination to the Supreme Court after three weeks of brutal
criticism from fellow conservatives.
(AP, 10/27/05)
2005 Oct 27, Pres. Bush visited
Florida and took a look at the damage from Hurricane Wilma as the
death toll rose to 14. Some 2 million homes and businesses were
still without power.
(SFC, 10/28/05, p.A9)
2005 Oct 27, It was reported
that he Pentagon’s DARPA branch had given 15 institutions and
companies $9.5 million in grants for research on artificial
intelligence in the 1st year of its Biologically-Inspired Cognitive
Architecture’s program.
(SFC, 10/27/05, p.A7)
2005 Oct 27, Tom Noe, a coin
dealer already embroiled in an Ohio state government scandal, was
charged with funneling $45,400 to other people to contribute to
President Bush's re-election campaign in an attempt to skirt a
$2,000 limit on individual contributions. In Sep, 2006, Noe was
sentenced to 2 years and 3 months in prison and fined $136,200 for
the illegal contributions. He still faced trial for embezzlement. In
Nov, 2006, Noe was convicted of theft, corrupt activity, money
laundering, forgery and tampering with records and sentenced to 18
years in prison.
(AP, 10/28/05)(SFC, 9/13/06, p.A4)(AP, 11/20/06)
2005 Oct 27, US anti-trust
lawyers cleared the $16 billion merger of AT&T and SBC
Communications as well as the $8.5 billion purchase of MCI by
Verizon. SBC said it will adopt the AT&T name.
(SFC, 10/28/05, p.C1)
2005 Oct 27, Exxon Mobil Corp.,
the world's largest publicly traded oil company, said high oil and
natural-gas prices helped its third-quarter profit surge almost 75
percent to $9.92 billion, the largest quarterly profit for a U.S.
company ever.
(AP, 10/27/05)
2005 Oct 27, It was reported
that WorldCom reached a $651 million litigation settlement, nearly
all of which would be paid by the company’s former investment banks.
(WSJ, 10/27/05, p.A3)
2005 Oct 27, The 18-month
Independent Inquiry Committee under former US Federal Reserve
chairman Paul Volcker issued a final 623-page report on corruption
in the UN oil-for-food program. It claimed that between 1997 and
2003 the Iraqi government sold $64 billion of oil to 248 companies
and bought $34.5 billion worth of humanitarian goods. The report
accused more than 2,200 companies from some 40 countries of
colluding with Saddam's regime to bilk the humanitarian program in
Iraq of $1.8 billion.
(AP, 10/27/05)(Econ, 10/29/05, p.28)(AP, 1/26/08)
2005 Oct 27, In SF Grimes
Poznikov (59), the former “Human Jukebox” of Fisherman’s Wharf, died
from alcohol poisoning. He was found dead of alcohol poisoning on a
sidewalk near Highway 101.
(SFC, 11/1/05, p.B5)(SFC, 2/12/11, p.A8)
2005 Oct 27, Afghan officials
welcomed the extradition of 14 suspected Taliban members from
neighboring Pakistan, saying they hoped the move would mark a new
era of cooperation.
(AP, 10/27/05)
2005 Oct 27, A Brazilian
congressional panel voted overwhelmingly to submit former
presidential aide Jose Dirceu to impeachment proceedings over his
alleged involvement in a corruption scandal.
(AP, 10/28/05)
2005 Oct 27, In Denmark 4 young
Muslims were arrested for helping to supply weapons and explosives
for a planned terror attack in Europe. They helped two main suspects
in Bosnia get hold of weapons and explosives with the aim of
committing a terror act. In 2007 a Danish court convicted Abdul
Basit Abu-Lifa (17) and sentenced him to 7 years in jail. In 2008
Elias Ibn Hsain was acquitted on charges that he took part.
(AP, 8/24/06)(AP, 2/16/07)
2005 Oct 27, A team of European
students launched SSETI Express, a low-Earth orbiting spacecraft.
The Student Space Exploration and Technology Initiative was
established by the European Space Agency to boost interest in space
science.
(Econ, 10/29/05, p.84)
2005 Oct 27, In France 2
teenagers, Bouna Traore (15) and Zyed Benna (17), died by
electrocution after they scaled the wall of an electrical relay
station and touched a transformer in the Paris suburb of
Clichy-sous-Bois. Local youths blamed the police for the deaths and
exploded in anger. The boys allegedly thought they were being chased
by police, but authorities denied that was the case. In 2010 two
French police officers faced trial accused of failing to save the
lives of two teens.
(AP, 10/31/05)(AP, 10/22/10)
2005 Oct 27, In Honk Kong the
IPO of China Construction Bank raised $8 billion from foreign
investors for a 12% stake. Ahead of the float CCB sold a 9% stake to
Bank of America and a 5.1% stake to Temasek, a Singapore investment
agency.
(Econ, 10/29/05, p.71)
2005 Oct 27, Iran launched its
Sina-1 satellite from the Plesetsk launch pad in northern Russia, a
major step in the country's long-term ambitions. Sina-1 gave Iran a
limited space reconnaissance capability over the entire Middle East,
including Israel.
(http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4381436.stm)(AP, 11/17/05)
2005 Oct 27, More than 2,000
companies paid about $1.8 billion in illicit kickbacks and
surcharges to Saddam Hussein's government through extensive
manipulation of the UN oil-for-food program in Iraq, according to
key findings of a UN-backed investigation obtained by The Associated
Press.
(AP, 10/27/05)
2005 Oct 27, Some 200 Shiite
militiamen loyal to radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr clashed with
Sunni militants in fighting that killed over 20 people in Medayna,
45 miles northeast of Baghdad.
(AP, 10/27/05)(AP, 11/7/05)
2005 Oct 27, Israeli troops
entered the West Bank town of Jenin and witnesses said they arrested
a local leader of Islamic Jihad, pushing forward with an offensive
against the Palestinian militant group following a suicide bombing
that killed five Israelis.
(AP, 10/27/05)
2005 Oct 27, Israeli forces
fired missiles in a Gaza refugee camp after nightfall, killing two
people including a leading Islamic Jihad militant.
(AP, 10/27/05)
2005 Oct 27, Latvian lawmakers
endorsed a new code of ethics designed to burnish the legislature's
reputation that would prohibit deputies swearing and smoking in
public.
(AP, 10/27/05)
2005 Oct 27, The Mexican
government announced that former "bracero" guest workers, who
labored in the United States between the 1942 and 1964, will get a
one-time payment of about $3,500. The aging workers, who have
protested for years, described the payment as insulting and said it
should be at least $9,175.
(AP, 10/27/05)(SFC, 10/28/05, p.A22)
2005 Oct 27, In the Netherlands
a fire roared through a prison complex at Amsterdam's Schiphol
Airport, killing 11 illegal immigrants awaiting deportation and
injuring 15 other people.
(AP, 10/27/05)
2005 Oct 27, Nigerian security
forces said they have detained three of the country's most powerful
militant leaders, as part of an apparent crackdown on the separatist
forces threatening to tear the country apart.
(AP, 10/27/05)
2005 Oct 27, The WHO reported
that tetanus has killed 22 people and lack of food or shelter could
threaten thousands more survivors of Pakistan's massive earthquake.
(AP, 10/27/05)
2005 Oct 27, South Africa said
the G8, the world's richest nations, should allow duty- and
quota-free access to all products from poor countries without
demanding anything back as part of a deal on global trade.
(Reuters, 10/27/05)
2005 Oct 27, Vietnam issued its
1st overseas government bond. Demand pushed the size from $500
million to $750 million with a yield of 7.125%.
(Econ, 11/5/05, p.82)
2005 Oct 28, US prosecutor
Patrick Fitzgerald released a 22-page indictment with five charges
against I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby Jr. regarding the Valerie Plame
case. They carried a total maximum penalty of 30 years in prison and
$1.25 million in fines. It portrayed Libby as a serial liar who
recklessly mishandled national security secrets. Libby immediately
resigned as top aide to VP Cheney.
(AP, 10/29/05)(SFC, 10/29/05, p.A1)(WSJ,
10/29/05, p.A1)
2005 Oct 28, US Ambassador
Thomas Schieffer said the US plans to reduce the number of American
troops in Okinawa and the rest of Japan.
(AP, 10/28/05)
2005 Oct 28, The Alaska Supreme
Court ruled that it is unconstitutional to bar benefits to the
same-sex partners of public employees.
(SFC, 10/29/05, p.A3)
2005 Oct 28, Delta Air Lines,
in bankruptcy since Sep 14, said that it will discontinue its
2-year-old, low-cost carrier Song and will absorb the unit into its
regular operations.
(SFC, 10/29/05, p.C2)
2005 Oct 28, Rice University
professor Richard Smalley (62), who shared a 1996 Nobel Prize in
chemistry for the discovery of "buckyballs," died in Houston of
cancer.
(AP, 10/28/05)(Econ, 11/12/05, p.91)
2005 Oct 28, Hazelyn Francis
(66), the president of the Antigua and Barbuda senate, was raped
during an assault in her home.
(AP, 10/31/05)
2005 Oct 28, In Argentina
indigenous leaders from around the Americas met in Buenos Aires to
draft a declaration of rights to present to world leaders at next
week's Summit of the Americas.
(AP, 10/28/05)
2005 Oct 28, China's President
Hu Jintao flew to North Korea to meet with reclusive leader Kim Jong
Il ahead of new nuclear talks and was greeted by cheering crowds of
thousands on a rare visit by a leader of the North's last major
ally.
(AP, 10/28/05)
2005 Oct 28, The UN Security
Council voted unanimously to extend the 16,700-member UN
peacekeeping mission in Congo for a year and add 300 troops.
(AP, 10/28/05)
2005 Oct 28, The EU offered to
reduce average agricultural tariffs by 46 percent, its steepest ever
farm tariff cuts, in a proposal aimed at breaking a deadlock in
world trade talks.
(AP, 10/28/05)
2005 Oct 28, Raymond Hains
(b.1926), French Nouveau Realiste artist, died in Paris. In 1960 he
joined with other artists to found the Nouveau Realistes, whose
emergence came to be seen as the beginning of French Pop Art.
(SFC, 11/15/05, p.B5)
2005 Oct 28, Guyanese lawmakers
voted to raise the age of female sexual consent from 13 years old to
16, despite months of lobbying from groups who said the age should
have been 18.
(AP, 10/29/05)
2005 Oct 28, Tens of thousands
of Iranians staged anti-Israel demonstrations across the country,
repeating calls by their ultraconservative President Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad for the destruction of the Jewish state.
(AP, 10/28/05)
2005 Oct 28, An Italian court
held the first in a series of closed-door hearings to decide whether
to indict Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and 13 others for alleged
fraud at his family's broadcaster Mediaset.
(AP, 10/28/05)
2005 Oct 28, Police in Sicily
said they have arrested two suspected mobsters accused of plotting
to murder a judge with a car bomb.
(AP, 10/28/05)
2005 Oct 28, Japan's government
said basing a US nuclear-powered warship in Japanese waters for the
first time will boost stability in East Asia, hailing an agreement
even as it drew protests from the community that will host the
aircraft carrier.
(AP, 10/28/05)
2005 Oct 28, It was reported
that the poppy crop in Laos has been reduced 73% over the last 5
years and that the number of opium addicts has shrunk from 63,000 in
1998 to 21,000. The UN drug office said yaaba, an amphetamine
produced in illegal factories in Burma, was becoming the drug of
choice for young people.
(SFC, 10/28/05, p.A11)
2005 Oct 28, Mexico became the
100th country to ratify the treaty founding the world's first
permanent war crimes tribunal, which the United States has opposed.
(AP, 10/28/05)
2005 Oct 28, A general strike
shut down schools, businesses and transportation in Kathmandu in a
protest of new laws restricting the media for criticizing Nepal's
king.
(AP, 10/28/05)
2005 Oct 28, North and South
Korea opened their first joint office to promote trade across the
heavily militarized border, just as Pyongyang is feuding with a
South Korean company about business in the North.
(AP, 10/28/05)
2005 Oct 28, A Philippine court
sentenced to death an Indonesian and two Filipino Muslim militants
for their roles in the bombing of a Manila bus.
(AP, 10/28/05)
2005 Oct 28, Saudi Arabia was
given a green light to join the World Trade Organization, in time to
participate in December's crucial ministerial summit in Hong Kong.
(AP, 10/29/05)
2005 Oct 28, In South Africa
former President Nelson Mandela launched the first edition of a
series of comic books about his life aimed at encouraging young
South Africans to read.
(AP, 10/28/05)
2005 Oct 28, A top military
officer said Syria has increased military posts and patrols along
its border with Iraq and stopped thousands of infiltrators from
entering into the war-torn country.
(AP, 10/28/05)
2005 Oct 28, Egyptian Pres.
Hosni Mubarak held unexpected talks with his beleaguered Syrian
counterpart Bashar Assad to discuss Damascus' crisis with the West
over the killing of a former Lebanese leader.
(AP, 10/28/05)
2005 Oct 28, The US joined with
the UN, Russia and the EU in demanding Syria immediately close the
offices of Islamic Jihad in Damascus and prevent use of its
territory for terror actions.
(AP, 10/28/05)
2005 Oct 28, The UN food agency
warned that at least 1.7 million Zambians need food, and the
situation is deteriorating rapidly.
(AP, 10/27/05)
2005 Oct 29, The US and Japan
agreed to step up military cooperation and substantially reduce the
number of Marines on the strategically important southern island of
Okinawa. The US will move 7,000 US Marines from Japan's Okinawa
prefecture to Guam.
(AP, 10/29/05)(AFP, 10/29/05)
2005 Oct 29, Saint Liam won the
Breeders' Cup Classic at Belmont Park.
(AP, 10/29/06)
2005 Oct 29, In Aliso Viejo a
19-year-old in a black cape and a paintball mask went on a shooting
rampage in his upscale Southern California neighborhood, killing a
man and his daughter before committing suicide.
(AP, 10/30/05)
2005 Oct 29, In Afghanistan a
US paratrooper was killed after his patrol came under fire in a
volatile province near the eastern border with Pakistan and a
British soldier was shot to death in northern Afghanistan. Officials
said at least 21 other people were killed in fighting last week.
(AP, 10/29/05)
2005 Oct 29, Colombian
authorities captured Jhon Cano, an alleged top leader of the
powerful Norte del Valle cocaine cartel, who is wanted by a New York
court for drug trafficking and money laundering.
(AP, 10/30/05)
2005 Oct 29, Hurricane Beta
battered the mountainous Caribbean island of Providencia, Colombia,
ripping roofs off wooden homes and forcing people to seek shelter in
brick shelters on high ground.
(AP, 10/29/05)
2005 Oct 29, Hundreds of French
youths fought with police and set cars ablaze in a Paris suburb in a
second night of rioting which media said was triggered when two
teenagers were electrocuted while fleeing police.
(AP, 10/29/05)
2005 Oct 29, In Guatemala City
a group of gang members opened fire on a prison truck, killing two
guards as they were leaving work at the end of their shift and
wounding a third.
(AP, 10/29/05)
2005 Oct 29, In India a series
of explosions shook New Delhi tearing through markets jammed with
shoppers ahead of an upcoming Hindu festival and killing 61 people
and injured more than 200. The Pakistan-based Islamic Inquilab Mahaz
claimed responsibility. In southern India a passenger train plunged
into a rain-swollen river in Veligonda in Andhra Pradesh state,
killing at least 111 people and trapping dozens more inside the
derailed cars.
(AP, 10/31/05)(AP, 10/30/05)(WSJ, 11/28/08,
p.A6)
2005 Oct 29, In Indonesia
unidentified assailants attacked a group of high school girls in the
province of Central Sulawesi, beheading three and seriously wounding
a fourth. In 2006 three Muslim men were charged in the beheadings.
In 2007 Abdul Muis bin Kamarudin and Rahman Kalahe were sentenced to
19 years in prison for their crimes.
(AP, 10/29/05)(AP, 11/3/06)(AP, 12/4/07)
2005 Oct 29, In Iraq insurgents
killed 3 US soldiers and wounded four, and American forces attacked
two towns near the Syrian border, killing at least 10 militants.
Witnesses said some of the victims were civilians.
(AP, 10/29/05)
2005 Oct 29, US troops backed
by helicopters and a jet attacked insurgents planning a nighttime
ambush near an American base north of Baghdad, killing six militants
and wounding and capturing five. A US jet dropped a bomb north of
Ramadi, 70 miles west of Baghdad, killing three insurgents who were
planting a roadside bomb. The corpses of three handcuffed and
blindfolded Iraqis were found in Baghdad. A truck bombing in a
Shiite farming village north of Baghdad killed 30 people and left 42
wounded.
(AP, 10/30/05)(Reuters, 10/30/05)
2005 Oct 29, Israeli aircraft
fired missiles at open areas in northern Gaza and ground troops set
up a second artillery battery near the coastal strip, part of an
intensifying campaign against Palestinian rocket fire.
(AP, 10/29/05)
2005 Oct 29, Salvadoran
President Tony Saca urged Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa to
support his request to President Bush to allow undocumented
Salvadorans to remain in the US while the country recovers from
Hurricane Stan.
(AP, 10/29/05)
2005 Oct 29, Syrian President
Bashar Assad issued an order for a special committee to investigate
any Syrian involvement in the assassination of former PM Hariri in
neighboring Lebanon.
(AP, 10/29/05)
2005 Oct 29, Vietnam demanded
that the US remove it from a State Department blacklist of religious
rights violators.
(AFP, 10/29/05)
2005 Oct 30, The body of Rosa
Parks arrived at the U.S. Capitol, where the civil rights pioneer
became the first woman to lie in honor in the Rotunda; President
Bush and congressional leaders paused to lay wreaths by her casket.
(AP, 10/30/06)
2005 Oct 30, Microsoft Corp.
founder Bill Gates pledged $258.3 million for research and
development to combat malaria, including new cash to test the
world's first vaccine against the mosquito-borne disease.
(Reuters, 10/31/05)(SFC, 10/31/05, p.A8)
2005 Oct 30, In SF the 10th
running of the Illegal Soapbox Society’s Halloween derby was held in
Bernal Heights.
(SFC, 11/1/05, p.E1)
2005 Oct 30, In Madison,
Wisconsin, police used pepper spray to break up rowdy Halloween
celebrations. Over 400 arrests were made mostly for alcohol-related
offenses.
(SFC, 10/31/05, p.A3)
2005 Oct 30, In SF some 20,000
people gathered in Golden Gate Park for a memorial concert, the
Family Dog’s last Tribal Stomp, to celebrate Chet Helms, who died
June 25.
(SFC, 10/31/05, p.B1)
2005 Oct 30, Gordon A. Craig
(b.1913), Scottish-born former Stanford history professor, died in
California. His books included “Europe Since 1815” (1961).
(SFC, 11/9/05, p.B11)
2005 Oct 30, Al Lopez (97),
baseball Hall of Fame catcher and manager died in Tampa, Fla.
(AP, 10/30/06)
2005 Oct 30, The US military
said 2 American soldiers have been charged with allegedly assaulting
two detainees at a US-led coalition base in southern Afghanistan.
(AP, 10/30/05)
2005 Oct 30, Congolese troops
rescued four electoral workers from their militia captors in a raid
that set off a battle that killed dozens of militiamen and one
soldier. Some 40 Mayi-Mayi militiamen were killed by the army. One
soldier was killed and three others injured.
(AP, 11/2/05)
2005 Oct 30, Police clashed
with angry youths in a Paris suburb for the fourth straight night,
with accusations over a police teargas grenade thrown into a mosque
set to exacerbate the situation further.
(AP, 10/31/05)
2005 Oct 30, Dresden's $215
million rebuilt Frauenkirche, or Church of Our Lady, was
re-consecrated, 60 years after it was destroyed by Allied bombs in
World War II. The Protestant church was originally built in 1743 and
collapsed after a wave of bombing in February 1945.
(AP, 10/30/05)(SSFC, 10/30/05, p.A16)
2005 Oct 30, It was reported
that the US military had begun tracking the deaths of Iraqi
civilians. Estimates of those killed and wounded averaged 26 per day
from early 2004 and rose to 63 per day by the end of August, 2005.
Attacks against Americans and Iraqis were reported to be averaging
85 a day for much of the past year.
(SSFC, 10/30/05, p.A21)
2005 Oct 30, Insurgents killed
seven Iraqi civilians in scattered attacks. An Iraqi cabinet adviser
was killed when gunmen attacked his car in northern Baghdad, and a
deputy trade minister was wounded in a separate attack. A US Army
soldier was killed by a roadside bomb in central Iraq.
(AP, 10/30/05)(Reuters, 10/30/05)(SFC, 11/1/05,
p.A3)
2005 Oct 30, Israeli troops
killed 3 Palestinian militants, including the suspected mastermind
of a suicide attack, in a West Bank raid just hours after the two
sides had reached a tentative new truce deal.
(AP, 10/31/05)
2005 Oct 30, Ivory Coast
President Laurent Gbagbo, whose mandate was due to go into extra
time following the west African state's failure to hold elections,
pledged to do everything he could to organize a vote before a
one-year deadline set by the United Nations.
(AP, 10/30/05)
2005 Oct 30, Hurricane Beta
pounded Nicaragua's east coast with heavy rains and powerful winds
as thousands sought protection in boarded-up homes or government
shelters.
(AP, 10/30/05)
2005 Oct 30, Nigeria reported
that its inflation rate rose to 15.5% in the 12 months ending in
August, up 14.2% from the month before according to the Federal
Office of Statistics (FOS).
(AP, 10/30/05)
2005 Oct 30, Pakistan and India
made an unprecedented agreement to open their heavily militarized
border in disputed Kashmir to aid the flow of relief goods and
reunite divided families in the aftermath of South Asia's colossal
earthquake.
(AP, 10/30/05)
2005 Oct 30, Palestinian
officials said they have agreed with Israel to halt nearly a week of
fighting after militant groups pledged to halt rocket fire on
southern Israeli towns.
(AP, 10/30/05)
2005 Oct 30, Zanzibar police
and ruling party militia chased opposition supporters through the
streets as voters chose between the socialists who have ruled
semiautonomous state for more than 30 years and an opposition group
promising wholesale change. Voting in national and regional
elections on mainland Tanzania was postponed to Dec. 18 because of a
vice presidential candidate's death. Official results named
incumbent Amani Karume of the ruling Party of the Revolution (CCM)
the winner with 53% of the vote.
(AP, 10/30/05)(Econ, 11/5/05, p.51)
2005 Oct 31, President Bush
nominated veteran judge Samuel Alito in a bid to reshape the Supreme
Court and mollify his conservative allies. Ready-to-rumble Democrats
warned that Alito may be an extremist who would curb abortion
rights.
(AP, 10/31/05)
2005 Oct 31, The US Supreme
Court declined to hear an appeal by, Thomas Huckaby, a Tennessee man
who was charged by NY state for taxes on all of his income derived
from his employer in NY.
(WSJ, 11/1/05, p.D1)
2005 Oct 31, It was reported
that US Sec. of Defense Donald Rumsfeld held a stake in Gilead
Sciences valued at between $5 million and $25 million, according to
federal financial disclosures filed by Rumsfeld. Tamiflu is
manufactured and marketed by Swiss pharma giant Roche. Gilead
receives a royalty from Roche equaling about 10% of sales. Former
Secretary of State George Shultz, who is on Gilead's board, has sold
more than $7 million worth of Gilead since the beginning of 2005.
Rumsfeld recused himself from any decisions involving Gilead when he
left Gilead and became Secretary of Defense.
(http://money.cnn.com/2005/10/31/news/newsmakers/fortune_rumsfeld/)
2005 Oct 31, A transit strike
in Philadelphia brought the city’s buses, subways and trolleys to a
halt.
(SFC, 11/1/05, p.A3)
2005 Oct 31, In SF some 30,000
people gathered in the Castro district for the annual Halloween
party.
(SFC, 11/1/05, p.B2)
2005 Oct 31, BSkyB and Vodafone
announced that a quarter of a million subscribers to Vodafone's
third-generation (3G) telecommunications service were now able to
watch on their mobiles live news and sports provided by satellite
broadcaster BSkyB.
(AP, 10/31/05)
2005 Oct 31,
Chiron Corp., a biotech operation in Emeryville, Ca., merged
with the Swiss firm Novartis. Novartis paid $5.1 billion for Chiron.
(SFC, 11/1/05, p.D1)
2005 Oct 31, It was reported
that Pluto has three moons, not one, according to new images from
the Hubble Space Telescope suggest. Pluto, discovered as the ninth
planet in 1930, was thought to be alone until its moon Charon was
spotted in 1978.
(AP, 11/1/05)
2005 Oct 31, In Brazil a man
accused of torturing and killing five people was killed in a Sao
Paulo shantytown gunfight with police who were trying to arrest him.
Celso Alencar dos Santos (33) and an accomplice allegedly killed
five members of the Yonekura family in September, when the family
returned to Brazil with thousands of dollars they had saved while
living for six years in Japan.
(AP, 11/1/05)
2005 Oct 31, China's Pres. Hu
Jintao arrived in Vietnam on a mission to expand booming trade ties
between the communist nations.
(AP, 10/31/05)
2005 Oct 31, Hundreds of
government troops backed by U.N. peacekeepers began flushing heavily
armed Rwandan rebels from eastern Congo, destroying insurgent camps
and sending smoke rising above the restive region.
(AP, 10/31/05)
2005 Oct 31, Farmers brought
California vegetables, North Carolina turkeys and Arkansas rice to
Cuba's annual trade fair, showing that Americans are still hungry
for the communist country's market despite U.S. rules that make
trade difficult.
(AP, 10/31/05)
2005 Oct 31, A UN-sanctioned
panel investigating human rights violations during Indonesia's
bloody 24-year occupation of East Timor presented its findings to
the country's president.
(AP, 10/31/05)
2005 Oct 31, French rower
Emmanuel Coindre ended a landmark 129-day solo voyage across the
Pacific Ocean between Japan and the United States, setting a new
record, according to his team.
(AFP, 11/1/05)
2005 Oct 31, The US military
said 6 American soldiers were killed in two bombings, making October
one of the deadliest months for U.S. troops in Iraq this year. A car
bomb exploded in a commercial district of Basra, killing at least 20
with 40 injured.
(AP, 10/31/05)(AP, 11/1/05)(SFC, 11/1/05, p.A3)
2005 Oct 31, Japanese PM
Junichiro Koizumi named a new Cabinet, putting outspoken
conservatives, and potential successors, in top positions and
retaining his economic team.
(AP, 10/31/05)
2005 Oct 31, Okinawa's governor
told Japan's central government that a plan to build a U.S. heliport
on the southern island as part of a realignment of the American
military presence there was unacceptable.
(AP, 10/31/05)
2005 Oct 31, A Myanmar court
sentenced a lawyer to seven years in prison for advising a group of
farmers to file grievances with the International Labor
Organization.
(AP, 11/16/05)
2005 Oct 31, Polish President
Aleksander Kwasniewski has officially named a minority conservative
government headed by Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz.
(AP, 10/31/05)
2005 Oct 31, President Vladimir
Putin said he won't seek a third term in 2008, but vowed not to
allow "destabilization" in Russia following the vote, leaving the
door open for drastic action in the event of a crisis.
(AP, 10/31/05)
2005 Oct 31, A new survey
reported that more than half of Russians think everyone in power is
dishonest, from the president and parliament, to government and the
courts. Transparency International recently ranked Russia joint
126th on its list of cleanest countries, on a par with Sierra Leone,
Niger and Albania.
(AP, 10/31/05)
2005 Oct 31, The Spanish
telecommunications company Telefonica announced an agreed $31.5
billion takeover of mobile-phone operator O2, to be paid in cash.
(Econ, 11/5/05, p.65)
2005 Oct 31, UN envoy Jan Pronk
condemned the killing of 2 deminers contracted to the United Nations
in southern Sudan in an ambush by suspected Ugandan rebels.
(AP, 10/31/05)
2005 Oct 31, A UN resolution
sponsored by the US, France and Britain demanded that Syria assist
fully with a probe into the February killing of former Lebanese
leader Hariri. The P-5 ambassadors (the five permanent council
nations) from the US, Russia, China, Britain and France, conducted
intense negotiations to try to reach agreement on the resolution.
(WSJ, 11/1/05, p.A1)(AP, 11/3/05)
2005 Oct 31, Live news
broadcasts began on a new Latin American TV station backed by
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez as an alternative to large
corporate media outlets.
(AP, 10/31/05)
2005 Oct, New Jersey opened a
campaign for a new state slogan to the public, establishing a Web
site and telephone hot line to receive suggestions. The state once
used "New Jersey and You: Perfect Together," but has not had a new
marketing slogan in four years. "Get Away, Without Going Far Away"
has been used in the interim, but tourism officials said it does not
resonate with out-of-staters.
(AP, 11/14/05)
2005 Oct, The Gemological
Institute of America fired 4 employees at its NY laboratory over
allegations of bribery and a diamond grading scandal that stemmed
from a 2001 sale of 2 diamonds sold to the Saudi royal family for
$15 million.
(WSJ, 12/20/05, p.A1)
2005 Oct, Albania signed a
European Commission energy treaty in Athens meant to promote
co-operation by setting up a regional energy market.
(Econ, 1/7/06, p.43)
2005 Oct, Australia’s
government announced a deal with the Labor government of the
Northern Territories to shake up communal management of aboriginal
land by introducing market-driven incentives.
(Econ, 11/19/05, p.46)
2005 Oct, In Belarus Veronika
Cherkasova (44), who had worked for independent media outlets for
the past 15 years, was killed in her home in Minsk. Sergei Ivanov, a
top prosecutor in charge of the investigation, decided in December
to suspend an inquiry "owing to the absence of individuals who can
be brought to justice."
(AP, 12/28/05)
2005 Oct, British defense
contractor BAE Systems began to the Autonomous learning Agents for
Decentralized Data and Information Systems (ALADDIN) together with
the universities of Bristol, Oxford, Southampton and Imperial
College, London.
(Econ, 11/27/10, p.89)
2005 Oct, The government of
Chad said it intends to amend a law governing petrodollars so it can
use a larger chunk for any purpose it likes.
(SFC, 12/30/05, p.C2)
2005 Oct, Oando, a Nigerian
energy group, became the first company from another African country
to be listed on the Johannesburg stock exchange (JSE).
(Econ, 6/10/06, p.72)
2005 Oct, Greg Wyler, a
American tech entrepreneur, purchased Rwanda’s telecom monopoly,
Rwandatel, with a bid of $20 million. Wyler’s tenure as owner of
Rwanda’s national telephone company ended in 2007. He then founded
O3b Networks, based on the island of Jersey, to address the high
cost of internet access in developing
countries.
(WSJ, 8/17/06, p.A7)(Econ, 10/18/08, p.77)
2005 Oct, Spain’s ENCE planned
to start a cellulose plant on the Uruguay River bordering Argentina.
(Econ, 10/8/05, p.47)
2005 Nov 1, President Bush
outlined a $7.1 billion strategy to prepare for the danger of a
pandemic influenza outbreak, saying he wanted to stockpile enough
vaccine to protect 20 million Americans against the current strain
of bird flu.
(AP, 11/1/05)
2005 Nov 1, Democrats forced
the Republican-controlled Senate into an unusual closed session,
questioning intelligence President Bush had used in the run-up to
the war in Iraq; Republicans derided the move as a political stunt.
(AP, 11/1/06)
2005 Nov 1, The US Federal
Reserve raised its benchmark interest rate another quarter point for
the 12th time to 4%.
(SFC, 11/2/05, p.D1)
2005 Nov 1, The US Postal Rate
Commission approved a 2-cent increase effective Jan 2006.
(SFC, 11/2/05, p.A2)
2005 Nov 1, Residents of
Denver, Colorado, voted to legalize the possession of small amounts
of marijuana for adults. Authorities said state possession laws will
be applied instead. State residents voted to suspend their
Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights and gave up more than $3 billion in tax
refunds to help the state deal with a recession.
(AP, 11/2/05)(SFC, 11/3/05, p.A5)
2005 Nov 1, Skitch Henderson
(87), the Grammy-winning conductor who lent his musical expertise to
Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby before founding the New York Pops
(1983) and becoming the first "Tonight Show" bandleader (1954), died
in New Haven, Conn.
(AP, 11/2/05)
2005 Nov 1, Militants ambushed
police on a southern Afghan mountain and killed five officers.
(AP, 11/2/05)
2005 Nov 1, Albania's armed
forces chief said their antiquated air force of Soviet-designed MiG
aircraft, which killed 35 Albanian pilots but no enemies, is finally
on its way to the museum and the scrapheap.
(Reuters, 11/1/05)
2005 Nov 1, In Bosnia 2
children in Doribaba died when they were playing with a hand grenade
and pulled the security pin.
(AP, 11/2/05)
2005 Nov 1, Britain's
Competition Commission (CC) gave approval to proposed takeovers of
the London Stock Exchange by the German Deutsche Boerse or the
pan-European market Euronext, but attached conditions.
(AFP, 11/1/05)
2005 Nov 1, The first Czech
online daily without a paper edition, Aktualne.cz, was launched
overnight.
(AFP, 11/1/05)
2005 Nov 1, Two Islamic
militants jailed in the 1981 killing of President Anwar Sadat were
released after more than two decades behind bars. Nageh Ibrahim and
Fouad el-Dawalibi were founding members of al-Gamaa al-Islamiyya,
once Egypt's largest Islamic militant group.
(AP, 11/8/05)
2005 Nov 1, In Ethiopia riot
police clashed with dozens of opposition supporters in Addis Ababa,
fatally shooting at least five people and wounding some 20 others in
renewed protests of the disputed May elections.
(AP, 11/1/05)
2005 Nov 1, French police fired
tear gas and rioters hurled Molotov cocktails as violence hit a poor
Paris suburb for the fifth straight night in unrest that officials
said had also spread to neighboring towns.
(AFP, 11/1/05)
2005 Nov 1, In Iraq 500
prisoners walked free from the US military's Abu Ghraib jail,
released in a goodwill gesture to mark the end of the Muslim holy
month of Ramadan.
(AP, 11/1/05)
2005 Nov 1, Israel's Yad Vashem
Holocaust Memorial opened a Holocaust film library with help from
Hollywood director Steven Spielberg.
(AP, 11/1/05)
2005 Nov 1, An Israeli missile
strike on a car killed two Palestinians in the Jebaliya refugee
camp, Hassan Madhoun (37), a leader of the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades
and Fawzi Abu Kara (32) of Hamas.
(AP, 11/1/05)(SFC, 11/2/05, p.A12)
2005 Nov 1, Japanese artist
Hiro Yamagata announced plans to recreate Afghanistan's destroyed
Bamiyan Buddhas using as many as 240 laser beam images, a giant
project that could also bring electricity to local people.
(AFP, 11/1/05)
2005 Nov 1, Gunfire erupted and
at least four inmates were killed at two Kyrgyz prisons after riot
police entered to restore order following a bloody uprising.
(AP, 11/1/05)
2005 Nov 1, A trade union said
a strike at the Dutch operations of Royal Dutch Shell PLC over
pensions will be broadened to include the company's natural-gas
production in the north of the Netherlands.
(AP, 11/1/05)
2005 Nov 1, Officials from
North and South Korea agreed to meet next month to work out details
on competing as a unified team for the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
(AP, 11/1/05)
2005 Nov 1, In the Philippines
6 US Marines took part in a rape at the former US naval base at
Subic Bay. The incident soon fueled anti-US demonstrations in Manila
and objections to US presence in the Philippines. Prosecutors later
contended the victim (22) was attacked in a van at Subic Bay by
Lance Cpl. Daniel Smith as Lance Cpl. Keith Silkwood, Lance Cpl.
Dominic Duplantis and Staff Sgt. Chad Carpentier cheered on the
assault. In Dec, 2006, Lance Cpl. Daniel Smith (21) from St. Louis,
was convicted of raping a Filipino woman and sentenced to 40 years
in prison. He was the first American soldier convicted of wrongdoing
in the Philippines since the country shut down US bases here the
early 1990s. In 2009 his accuser submitted a five-page affidavit to
an appeals court saying she now doubts her own version of events. In
March it was revealed that Smith had paid the victim $2000 in
damages and that she had gone to live in America with her American
boyfriend. On April 23, 2009, the Philippine Court of Appeals
overturned the ruling against Smith, indicating the sexual act was
consensual.
(WSJ, 11/22/05, p.A13)(AP, 6/26/06)(AP,
12/4/06)(AP, 3/18/09)(Econ, 5/2/09, p.43)
2005 Nov 1, Police surrounded
opposition headquarters and clashed with protesters on the
semiautonomous archipelago of Zanzibar (Tanzania) as the ruling
party was declared the winner of presidential and parliamentary
elections. 9 people died in related violence and the opposition made
allegations of rigging.
(AP, 11/1/05)(WSJ, 11/2/05, p.A1)
2005 Nov 1, The UN General
Assembly adopted a landmark resolution that will create the first
international day of commemoration for the six million Jews and
other victims of the Nazi Holocaust. The International Day of
Commemoration will be held every year on Jan. 27.
(AP, 11/1/05)
2005 Nov 1, UN Sec. Gen. Kofi
Annan said he would name Martti Ahtisaari, a former Finish
president, as special envoy to start talks on Kosovo’s future.
(AP, 11/15/05)(Econ, 1/21/06, p.51)
2005 Nov 2, The Bush
administration released details of its potential flu pandemic
strategy, saying a pandemic that hit the United States would force
cities to ration scarce drugs and vaccine and house the sick in
hotels or schools if hospitals were to overflow.
(AP, 11/2/06)
2005 Nov 2, The Washington Post
reported that the CIA has been hiding and interrogating al Qaeda
captives at a secret facility in Eastern Europe as part of a covert
global prison system that has included sites in 8 countries and was
set up after the September 11, 2001, attacks.
(AP, 11/2/05)
2005 Nov 2, In California
authorities arrested Jeanson James Ancheta (20) for conspiracy to
cause damage to a computer, accessing a computer to conduct fraud
and money laundering among other charges. He had used robot viruses
to commandeer machines to “disseminate spam, hawk fake goods, and
send “phishing” emails to steal bank and other personal
information.” Ancheta faced a maximum of 50 years in prison.
(WSJ, 11/7/05, p.B3)
2005 Nov 2, In Florida 2 men
pleaded guilty to organizing a Cuban smuggling trip that ended when
their speedboat capsized and a 6-year-old boy drowned on Oct 12.
(AP, 11/2/05)
2005 Nov 2, An e-mail statement
purportedly by Taliban commander Mullah Omar, urged the insurgents
in Afghanistan not to end their armed struggle.
(AP, 11/2/05)
2005 Nov 2, In Argentina
thousands opposed to Pres. Bush held a massive rally at a basketball
arena just days before he arrives at Mar del Plata for the Summit of
the Americas.
(AP, 11/2/05)
2005 Nov 2, The Asia Pacific
Trade Agreement held its 1st Ministerial Council session in
Thailand. This replaced the Bangkok Agreement signed in 1975.
Members included Bangladesh, China, India, Republic of Korea,
Lao People's Democratic Republic and Sri Lanka. ESCAP, the UN
Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific, functioned
as the secretariat for the Agreement.
(www.unescap.org/tid/apta.asp)
2005 Nov 2, In Britain Cabinet
minister David Blunkett resigned. He acknowledged that his business
dealings had breached ministerial guidelines and that his position
as work and pensions secretary had become untenable.
(AP, 11/2/05)
2005 Nov 2, China’s government
made public the results of a 2-month investigation into conflicts of
interest in the coal industry and found that 4,578 government
officials illegally held stakes in coal mines, where corruption and
other abuses contributed to thousands of deaths each year.
(WSJ, 11/3/05, p.A10)
2005 Nov 2, Chinese scientists
said they had gathered evidence that shows a giant object in the
center of our galaxy is a super-massive black hole.
(Reuters, 11/3/05)
2005 Nov 2, Police in the
troubled Russian region of Dagestan killed Makhach Mamashev, a
militant leader, and detained eight fighters in an operation near
the Chechen border.
(AP, 11/3/05)
2005 Nov 2, In Ethiopia clashes
between police and protesters erupted in gunfire and grenade
explosions, with police killing at least 33 people during a second
day of renewed protests of disputed elections.
(AP, 11/2/05)
2005 Nov 2, Deutsche Telekom
AG, Europe's biggest phone company, said that it plans to cut 32,000
jobs from its payroll in Germany in the next three years, 25,000 at
its main operations and 7,000 from a staffing agency subsidiary.
(AP, 11/2/05)
2005 Nov 2, Haiti's interim
government filed a federal lawsuit against former Haitian President
Jean-Bertrand Aristide, accusing him of stealing millions from the
Haitian treasury and state-owned telephone company.
(AP, 11/3/05)
2005 Nov 2, Iran's government
said it was removing 40 ambassadors and senior diplomats, including
supporters of warmer ties with the West, from their posts in a
shake-up that comes as the Islamic republic takes a more
confrontational international stance. Thousands of Iranians burned
flags and chanted slogans against Israel and the US in the largest
demonstration in years outside the former US Embassy in Tehran. Nov
4 marked the 26th anniversary of the 1979 embassy seizure.
(AP, 11/2/05)
2005 Nov 2, Iraq's defense
minister invited officers of Saddam Hussein's army up to the rank of
major to join the new Iraqi army, an overture to disaffected Sunni
Arab ex-soldiers, many of whom joined the insurgency after the
Americans abolished the armed forces in 2003. A US soldier was
killed by a roadside bomb during combat operations in Ramadi.
(AP, 11/2/05)(AP, 11/3/05)
2005 Nov 2, Four US troops were
killed, two in a helicopter crash, and two from a roadside bomb, as
American ground forces fought insurgents around the city of Ramadi.
At least 23 people were killed and 46 were wounded when a car bomb
exploded outside a Shiite Muslim mosque in the Iraqi town of
Musayyib.
(AP, 11/2/05)(Reuters, 11/2/05)
2005 Nov 2, In Kashmir 5 people
including a suicide bomber were killed and more than a dozen wounded
in a car bomb blast in the Nowgam area on the outskirts of Srinagar.
"The car bomb is our first gift to Ghulam Nabi Azad," who was to be
sworn is as the Kashmir's new chief minister, said Abu Qudama,
spokesman for Jaish-e-Mohammed.
(AP, 11/2/05)
2005 Nov 2, Police in Northern
Ireland arrested a 30-year-old man in Belfast a day after two others
were taken into custody in the city of Kilcoo in relation to last
year's $47 million bank robbery.
(AP, 11/2/05)
2005 Nov 2, Pakistan army's
disaster relief chief said the official death toll in Pakistan from
the Oct. 8 earthquake jumped to more than 73,000, with about the
same number listed as severely injured.
(AP, 11/2/05)
2005 Nov 2, Syrian President
Bashar Assad gave amnesty to 190 political prisoners to mark the
Muslim feast of Eid al-Fitr.
(AP, 11/2/05)
2005 Nov 2, In southern
Thailand several bombs exploded in Narathiwat, killing one attacker
and knocking out electricity.
(AP, 11/2/05)
2005 Nov 3, Vice President Dick
Cheney's former chief of staff, I. Lewis Libby, pleaded not guilty
to a five-count felony indictment in the CIA leak case.
(AP, 11/3/06)
2005 Nov 3, The US released 5
Guantanamo detainees to Kuwait. About 500 captives remained at the
facility.
(WSJ, 11/4/05, p.A1)
2005 Nov 3, A state-court in
Atlantic City, New Jersey, found Merck not liable for injuries to an
Idaho man taking Vioxx who had a heart attack. Merck faced some
2,750 more suits in New Jersey, where the company is based.
(WSJ, 11/4/05, p.A1)
2005 Nov 3, Matthew Limon (23)
was released after spending five years in prison following the Oct.
21 Kansas Supreme Court ruling that determined it was
unconstitutional to punish underage sex between homosexuals more
harshly than between heterosexuals.
(AP, 11/4/05)
2005 Nov 3, In Texas convicted
killed Charles Victor Thompson (35) escaped from Harris County Jail.
He was captured Nov 6 in Shreveport, La., drunk and talking on a pay
phone. Thompson had been sentenced to death for the murder of his
ex-girlfriend and her lover in 1998.
(SSFC, 11/6/05, p.A8)(AP, 11/7/05)
2005 Nov 3, The Environmental
Investigation Agency, a London-based environmental watchdog said US
businesses are unwittingly importing illegal Honduran wood,
contributing to deforestation, corruption and social strife in the
Latin American country.
(AP, 11/3/05)
2005 Nov 3, Leaders from
across the Americas headed to Argentina in another attempt to end
Latin America's chronic poverty, with Washington promoting
liberalized trade and opponents fearful that it will allow
corporations to dominate the poor.
(AP, 11/3/05)
2005 Nov 3, R.C. Gorman
(b.1931), Navajo artist, died in Albuquerque, NM. He was dubbed “the
Picasso of American Indian Art” by the NY Times.
(SFC, 11/4/05, p.B6)
2005 Nov 3, Kevin Henry (39),
of Albion, Ca., was murdered by Nathan McWilliams (22) and Trevor
Conley (23) of Ukiah, Ca., near Lake Mendocino following use of
crystal methamphetamine. In 2007 Conley and McWilliams were
sentenced 15 years to life in prison.
(SFCM, 1/20/08, p.17)
2005 Nov 3, North Korea's
abduction of Japanese citizens decades ago took center stage at the
opening of talks in Beijing between the former bitter enemies.
(Reuters, 11/3/05)
2005 Nov 3, In Ethiopia police
shot and killed three people and wounded 12 others in a fourth day
of protests against disputed parliamentary elections.
(AP, 11/3/05)
2005 Nov 3, European Union
officials said they would investigate a report that the CIA set up
secret jails in Eastern Europe to interrogate top al-Qaida suspects.
The international Red Cross also said it asked the US to let a
representative visit detainees if such a facility exists. At least
10 nations denied that the prisons were in their territory. Human
Rights Watch in New York said it has evidence indicating the CIA
transported suspected terrorists captured in Afghanistan to Poland
and Romania.
(AP, 11/3/05)
2005 Nov 3, Rioting youths shot
at police and firefighters after burning car dealerships and public
buses and hurling rocks at commuter trains. France's government
faced growing pressure to curb the violence, fueled by anger over
poor conditions in suburban Paris housing projects.
(AP, 11/3/05)
2005 Nov 3, In Haiti
demonstrators marched out of two slums and across the capital in
support of former Pres. Rene Preval's bid to regain the presidency
in Dec elections.
(AP, 11/3/05)
2005 Nov 3, The al-Qaida in
Iraq militant group said that it has sentenced to death two Moroccan
embassy employees kidnapped last month in Iraq, the insurgents'
latest attempt to scare Arab nations from sending diplomats.
(AP, 11/3/05)
2005 Nov 3, Israeli soldiers
shot and critically wounded a 13-year-old Palestinian boy who threw
stones at troops patrolling Jenin. The boy died Nov 5. The parents
of the Palestinian boy donated his organs to three Israeli children
waiting for transplants.
(AP, 11/3/05)(AP, 11/5/05)(AP, 11/7/05)
2005 Nov 3, Pakistan reported
that its agents killed one suspected al-Qaida terrorist in a raid in
Quetta and arrested, Mustafa Setmarian Nasar, a Syrian and top
al-Qaida operative sought by the US under a $5 million reward. The
slain suspect was a Saudi named Shaikh Ali Mohammed al-Salim who had
been living with Mustafa Setmarian Nasar, also known as Abu Musab
al-Suri, who allegedly had a role in the March 11, 2004, Madrid
mass-transit bombings. Al-Suri was the author of a 1,600-page opus
titled: The Global Islamic Call to Resistance.”
(AP, 11/3/05)(AP, 5/2/06)(Econ, 7/14/07, p.30)
2005 Nov 3, In the Philippines
the Asian Development Bank warned that a flu pandemic could kill 3
million people in Asia, trigger economic carnage in the region worth
almost $300 billion and push the world into a recession.
(AP, 11/3/05)
2005 Nov 3, Thailand's
government imposed martial law in two Muslim-dominated districts of
its insurgency-wracked south, a day after Islamic separatists staged
a new show of strength with bombings that blacked out a provincial
capital.
(AP, 11/3/05)
2005 Nov 4, The St. Louis
Cardinals announced demolition plans for Busch Stadium, the ballpark
that has housed the team since 1966. A 10,000-pound wrecking ball
will be used to knock down the southern half of the ballpark over a
60-day period.
(AP, 11/4/05)
2005 Nov 4, Sheree North (72),
stage, film and TV star, died in Los Angeles.
(SFC, 11/9/05, p.B11)
2005 Nov 4, Earl Krugel (62),
Jewish Defense League activist, died after being assaulted in a
federal prison in Phoenix. He had been imprisoned for his role in a
bomb plot.
(AP, 11/4/06)
2005 Nov 4, Mullah Omar, the
fugitive leader of Afghanistan's Taliban insurgents, called on
people to unite and join his ousted guerrillas in a "jihad" or holy
war against US forces in the country.
(AP, 11/6/05)
2005 Nov 4, In Afghanistan poet
Nadia Anjuman (25) died in Herat. She was beaten to death, and her
husband and mother were arrested. On Nov 8 the UN condemned the
killing as symptom of continuing violence against Afghan women four
years after the fall of the Taliban.
(AP, 11/8/05)
2005 Nov 4, In Argentina crowd
of 10,000 people chanting "Get out Bush!" swarmed the streets of Mar
del Plata, hours before the hemisphere's leaders sat down to debate
free trade, immigration and job creation at the fourth Summit of the
Americas. Pres. Bush worked to smooth the United States' troubled
image in Latin America, commending Argentina's efforts to improve
its damaged economy. More than 1,000 masked, anti-US demonstrators
clashed with police, shattered storefronts and torched businesses.
(AP, 11/4/05)(AP, 11/5/05)
2005 Nov 4, In Argentina
Mexico’s Pres. Vicente Fox said that a majority of nations in the
Western Hemisphere will consider moving forward with negotiations to
create a huge new free trade zone without the participation of
dissenting countries like Venezuela.
(AP, 11/4/05)
2005 Nov 4, In Azerbaijan
thousands of government supporters rallied in Baku on the last day
of campaigning for this weekend's parliamentary elections, while
opponents kept out of sight to avoid confrontations with police.
(AP, 11/4/05)
2005 Nov 4, In Oxford
restaurant waiter Chomir Ali (44) was jailed for life for ordering
his sons to kill Arash Ghorbani-Zarin (19), a Muslim university
student of Iranian descent. The conviction of a Bangladeshi-origin
man along with his two teenage sons for murdering the student who
made his daughter pregnant illustrates the growing prevalence in
Britain of so-called "honor crimes." Ghorbani-Zarin was stabbed 46
times.
(AFP, 11/5/05)
2005 Nov 4, China reported its
fourth bird flu outbreak in three weeks, saying that 8,940 chickens
died in a northeastern village despite a nationwide effort to
contain the virus. The discovery prompted authorities to destroy
about 370,000 birds.
(AP, 11/4/05)
2005 Nov 4, Gunfire echoed
sporadically around Addis Ababa for a fourth day as reports emerged
that unrest had spread beyond the capital, a development likely to
deepen international concern for Ethiopia's stability.
(Reuters, 11/4/05)
2005 Nov 4, Small, mobile
groups of youths hit Paris' riot-shaken suburbs with waves of arson
attacks, torching hundreds of cars, as unrest entered its 2nd week
and spread to other towns.
(AP, 11/4/05)
2005 Nov 4, Sunni-led
insurgents killed 11 Iraqi security forces and wounded 14 in two
separate attacks, as Shiites began celebrating a major Muslim
holiday.
(AP, 11/4/05)
2005 Nov 4, In Pakistan Pres.
Musharraf suspended the purchase of 77 US fighter planes saying the
funds were urgently needed for rebuilding parts of northern Pakistan
flattened by the Oct 8 earthquake.
(WSJ, 11/5/05, p.A1)
2005 Nov 4, A ferry overloaded
with people heading to a memorial for three drowned boaters capsized
in the Arabian Sea off southern Pakistan, killing about 60 people.
(AP, 11/4/05)
2005 Nov 4, Spain's Supreme
Court sentenced pro-Basque independence leader Arnaldo Otegi to a
year in prison for slandering King Juan Carlos by saying he was in
charge of torturers.
(AP, 11/4/05)
2005 Nov 4, Victor Hettigoda, a
wealthy Sri Lankan presidential candidate, said he will use his
personal fortune to buy a cow for every home if he is elected in the
Nov 17 elections.
(AP, 11/7/05)
2005 Nov 4, South Africa's
former deputy president was indicted on a corruption charge in a
scandal involving his financial adviser and two French arms
companies. Jacob Zuma, who had been seen as President Thabo Mbeki's
successor, was fired in June after being implicated in the scandal
involving his financial adviser and friend, Schabir Shaik.
(AP, 11/5/05)
2005 Nov 4, Vietnam confirmed
bird flu outbreaks in three communes north of Hanoi.
(AFP, 11/4/05)
2005 Nov 5, The New York Times
reported that a UN auditing board has recommended the United States
pay as much as 208 million dollars to Iraq for overbilling or shoddy
work performed by a subsidiary of the US oil services firm
Halliburton.
(AFP, 11/5/05)
2005 Nov 5, US industry
officials said the US and China have reached a tentative agreement
to limit imports of Chinese clothing and textile products into the
United States.
(AP, 11/5/05)
2005 Nov 5, Louisiana Gov.
Kathleen Blanco slashed state spending by $431 million, but still
faced a half a billion shortfall due to Hurricane Katrina.
(SSFC, 11/6/05, p.A7)
2005 Nov 5, Earl Krugel (62),
Jewish Defense League activist, was killed at the Federal
Correctional Inst. In Phoenix, Az. He had been imprisoned for his
role in a 2001 plot to bomb a California mosque and the office of
Lebanese American congressman Darrell Issa.
(SSFC, 11/6/05, p.A8)
2005 Nov 5, Link Wray (b.1929),
North Carolina-born rock guitar master, died in Denmark. His hits
included the 1958 instrumental “Rumble” and 1959 “Rawhide.” Wray was
three-quarters Shawnee and was said to have inspired many other rock
musicians.
(SFC, 11/22/05, p.B4)
2005 Nov 5, Leaders from across
the Americas ended their tumultuous 2-day summit in Mar del Plata,
Argentina, without agreeing to restart talks on a US-favored free
trade zone stretching from Alaska to Chile. 5 of 34 participating
countries thwarted the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA). They
included Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, Paraguay, and Venezuela.
(AP, 11/6/05)(SSFC, 11/6/05, p.A15)
2005 Nov 5, Three Bahraini men
returned home after being released from the US military detention
facility at Guantanamo Bay. Bahraini authorities vowed to keep
pressing Washington to free three remaining detainees.
(AP, 11/5/05)
2005 Nov 5, John Fowles
(b.1926), English novelist, died at his home in Lyme Regis, Dorset.
His books included "The Collector" (1963), “The Magus” (1965) and
“The French Lieutenant's Woman” (1969). Volume I of his journals
(1949-1965) was published in May. Volume II (1966-1990) was
published in 2006.
(SFC, 11/8/05, p.B5)(Econ, 11/19/05, p.92)(SSFC,
10/29/06, p.M1)
2005 Nov 5, More than 50,000
people flocked to the opening day of a racy sex festival in southern
China in a sign the conservative nation is shedding its sexual
taboos. The three-day event began in the southern province of
Guangzhou. It featured lingerie shows and adult toy exhibitions as
experts and local authorities sought to convey information about the
dangers of unsafe sex.
(AFP, 11/7/05)
2005 Nov 5, In Colombia police
seized more than 2 tons of cocaine hidden on a beach on the
Caribbean coast and arrested five suspected traffickers who were
apparently preparing to load the drugs aboard a speedboat bound for
Central America or Mexico.
(AP, 11/6/05)
2005 Nov 5, In northern
Ethiopia 2 people were reported killed after a fifth day of
political unrest that has shaken confidence in the vast African
nation's stability.
(AP, 11/5/05)
2005 Nov 5, In France marauding
youths torched nearly 900 vehicles, stoned paramedics and burned a
nursery school in a ninth night of violence that spread from Paris
suburbs to towns around France. Authorities arrested more than 250
people overnight.
(AP, 11/5/05)
2005 Nov 5, American and Iraqi
forces launched a major offensive, Operation Steel Curtain, near the
porous Syrian border aimed at destroying al-Qaida in Iraq's ability
to smuggle foreign fighters, money and equipment through the region.
(AP, 11/5/05)(SSFC, 11/13/05, p.A1)
2005 Nov 5, Israeli
archaeologists said they have discovered what may be the oldest
Christian church in the Holy Land on the grounds of a prison near
the biblical site of Armageddon. The Israeli Antiquities Authority
said the ruins are believed to date back to the third or fourth
centuries and include references to Jesus and images of fish, an
ancient Christian symbol.
(AP, 11/5/05)
2005 Nov 5, In northwestern
Pakistan suspected militants set off a blast while making bombs at
their compound, killing at least eight people, including a woman and
three children.
(AP, 11/5/05)
2005 Nov 5, Philippine security
forces captured a man they believed was Radulan Sahiron, Abu
Sayyaf's chief of staff, in Zamboanga Sibugay province, however it
turned out to be a case of mistaken identity. Sahiron was also
wanted by the US for attacks against Americans.
(AP, 11/5/05)(AP, 11/6/05)
2005 Nov 5, The cruise ship MV
Seaborn Spirit, carrying at least 600 tourists from Europe, narrowly
escaped seizure by gunmen off the pirate-infested Somali coast when
it sped off to the high seas amid a trail of gunfire. At least 23
hijackings and attempted seizures have been recorded off the Somalia
coastline since mid-March, according to the International Maritime
Bureau (IMB), which has warned ships to stay as far away from the
coast as possible and keep radio communication to the minimal.
(AFP, 11/5/05)
2005 Nov 5, In South Korea
China-controlled Ssangyong Motor sacked its president after the
company fell into the red in the first half of this year. So
Jin-Kwan was dismissed as company president and replaced by Choi
Hyung-Tak, a company executive.
(AP, 11/5/05)
2005 Nov 5, Collin Lee (67), a
British aid worker, was shot and killed when rebels from Uganda's
notorious Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) ambushed him while on his way
to a southern Sudanese town.
(AP, 11/7/05)
2005 Nov 6, In a clear jab at
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, President Bush, in Brazil, called
on Latin Americans to boldly defend strong democratic institutions.
(AP, 11/6/06)
2005 Nov 6, Paul Tergat of
Kenya won the NYC marathon by a third of a second in the closest
finish ever. Jelena Prokopcuka of Latvia took the women’s race.
(WSJ, 11/7/05, p.A1)
2005 Nov 6, In SF the annual
Veteran’s Day Parade was held on Market St.
(SFC, 11/7/05, p.B1)
2005 Nov 6, The Intelligent
Transport Systems World Congress opened in SF for a 5-day meeting
and demonstration of new products.
(SFC, 11/7/05, p.A1)
2005 Nov 6, A tornado ripped
across southwestern Indiana and northern Kentucky, killing at least
22 people, wrecking homes and knocking out power to thousands.
(AP, 11/6/05)(WSJ, 11/7/05, p.A1)
2005 Nov 6, The head of
Azerbaijan's ruling party declared victory in a parliamentary
election, with 63 seats. Azerbaijan's president pledged
parliamentary elections would be followed by further democratic
reform, but his political opponents alleged there were voting
violations that could taint the results.
(AP, 11/6/05)(Reuters, 11/6/05)(Econ, 11/12/05,
p.55)
2005 Nov 6 Former Peruvian
President Alberto Fujimori was arrested, hours after he defied an
international arrest warrant and flew from Japan to Chile. Shortly
after Fujimori's presence in Chile was confirmed, the Peruvian
government asked Santiago to arrest him while a request for his
extradition was filed.
(AP, 11/7/05)
2005 Nov 6, China said it had
asked the World Health Organization to help it determine whether the
death of a 12-year-old girl last month was caused by bird flu.
(AP, 11/6/05)
2005 Nov 6, In northern China
an explosion at a coal mine killed 13 miners and left three missing
at the Taiping Colliery in Shanxi province's Qingxu County.
(AP, 11/6/05)
2005 Nov 6, In northern China a
cave-in at a gypsum mine killed 27 workers and trapped 20 others.
The mine collapse occurred in Xingtai, a city in Hebei province, and
affected two other nearby mines.
(AP, 11/7/05)
2005 Nov 6, The EU and US urged
Ethiopia to end its crackdown on independent journalists and release
opposition leaders detained during a week of bloody clashes between
demonstrators and police.
(AP, 11/7/05)
2005 Nov 6, French President
Jacques Chirac called a security meeting of his top ministers after
urban rioting spread, with arsonists striking from the Mediterranean
to the German border and into central Paris for the first time. On
the 10th night of mayhem, some 1,300 vehicles were torched across
France overnight and 349 people were arrested.
(AP, 11/6/05)(AFP, 11/6/05)
2005 Nov 6, Adan Castillo,
Guatemala's top anti-narcotics investigator, said he plans to step
down in December, after just six months on the job. Castillo said
his country's anti-drug agents are no match for some 4,000 smugglers
operating in Guatemala.
(AP, 11/6/05)
2005 Nov 6, India’s Sikh PM
Singh and Hindu nationalist opposition leader joined to open
Swaminarayan Akshardham Temple in New Delhi, one of the biggest
Hindu temples of modern times, a $45 million pink sandstone shrine
to religious tolerance.
(AP, 11/6/05)
2005 Nov 6, Iran said it
supported a stable Iraq and called for expediting the construction
of an oil pipeline and railway between the two neighbors.
(AP, 11/6/05)
2005 Nov 6, Dozens of people
fled Husaybah, an Iraqi town on the Syrian border, during a lull in
fighting between 3,500 US and Iraqi troops and suspected al-Qaida
insurgents armed with Kalashnikov rifles and rocket-propelled
grenades.
(AP, 11/6/05)
2005 Nov 6, Myanmar’s military
junta began moving key ministries to Pyinmana, a secret location in
the mountains and dense forest. The ruling junta had shifted
headquarters to a series of underground bunkers in Pyinmana, in
central Myanmar.
(Econ, 7/23/05, p.24)(WSJ, 11/7/05, p.A18)
2005 Nov 6, Gunmen in Mogadishu
threw grenades and a land mine exploded near the convoy carrying
Somalia's PM Ali Mohamed Gedi, but the leader escaped unharmed. At
least two people were killed and 12 wounded in the attack.
(AP, 11/6/05)
2005 Nov 7, President Bush met
with Panamanian President Martin Torrijos in Panama City, Panama,
where they discussed a free trade agreement. President Bush, in
Panama, defended US interrogation practices and called the treatment
of terrorism suspects lawful, saying, "We do not torture."
(AP, 11/7/05)(AP, 11/7/06)
2005 Nov 7, The Pentagon
announced that 5 foreign terrorism suspects at the U.S. military
prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, have been charged with war crimes
and will face military trials, bringing to nine the number charged
at Guantanamo to date.
(AP, 11/8/05)
2005 Nov 7, A jury in Miami,
Florida, found Luis Alavarez Renta, a powerful financier from the
Dominican Republic, liable on 3 counts of racketeering and one count
of fraudulent money transfer in a civil case stemming from his
actions in the 2003 collapse of Banco Intercontinental, or Baninter.
(WSJ, 11/9/05, p.A14)
2005 Nov 7, Oakland, Ca.,
pediatrician Zehra Attari went missing. On Dec 20 she was found in
her car as it was pulled out of the Oakland estuary at the end of
Grand St.
(SFC, 12/22/05, p.B1)
2005 Nov 7, Fiat SpA and Ford
Motor Co. said they had signed an agreement to collaborate on small
cars, completing a deal to co-develop new models due in 2007 and
2008.
(AP, 11/7/05)
2005 Nov 7, Grokster Ltd., a
pioneering file-sharing service founded in 2001, shut down as part
of a legal settlement with the music industry.
(WSJ, 11/8/05, p.B1)
2005 Nov 7, TV networks struck
deals with cable and satellite providers allowing viewers to watch
popular shows anytime they want for 99 cents per episode.
(WSJ, 11/8/05, p.A1)
2005 Nov 7, The Int’l. Energy
Agency (IEA) projected growth in Middle East and North Africa Oil
and Natural Gas Sectors through 2030 with enough oil in the ground
to meet expected demand beyond 2030.
(Econ, 11/12/05, p.69)
2005 Nov 7, Azerbaijan's
opposition rejected the results of weekend parliamentary elections,
calling them rigged and vowing to overturn the outcome of voting
that foreign observers said fell short of international standards.
(AP, 11/7/05)
2005 Nov 7, At least 70 people
were missing after a ferry capsized in the Bay of Bengal while
sailing to Chittagong port in Bangladesh from a nearby island.
(AP, 11/7/05)
2005 Nov 7, Chinese authorities
ordered all live poultry markets in Beijing to close immediately and
went door-to-door seizing chickens and ducks from private homes, as
the government dramatically beefed up its fight against bird flu.
(AP, 11/7/05)
2005 Nov 7, The EU agreed to
monitor a Gaza-Egypt border crossing that serves as the main gate to
the world for Palestinians.
(AP, 11/7/05)
2005 Nov 7, EU foreign
ministers agreed to launch a three-year police training mission to
help the Palestinian Authority build up a new "sustainable and
effective" police force.
(AP, 11/7/05)
2005 Nov 7, Rioting by French
youths spread to 300 towns overnight, and a 61-year-old man hurt in
the violence died of his wounds, the first fatality in 11 days of
unrest.
(AP, 11/7/05)
2005 Nov 7, India and Pakistan
opened their frontier in Kashmir for earthquake relief, but police
had to fire tear gas to disperse protesters who were banned from
taking part in the symbolic crossing.
(AP, 11/7/05)
2005 Nov 7, India's foreign
minister was stripped of his post over allegations that he benefited
illegally from the UN oil-for-food program in Iraq, becoming the
first political casualty of an independent report that revealed
massive corruption in the effort to help Iraqis suffering under
sanctions.
(AP, 11/7/05)
2005 Nov 7, Nirbhay Singh
Gujjar (64), one of India's most dreaded and colorful bandits, was
shot to death by police in the forests of central India, ending a
nearly three-decade career in crime that included murders,
kidnappings and looting.
(AP, 11/8/05)
2005 Nov 7, Iraqi and US
battled insurgents house to house, the third day of an assault
against al-Qaida-led insurgents in a town near the Syrian border. US
military said one Marine and at least 36 insurgents had died in the
assault.
(AP, 11/7/05)(WSJ, 11/8/05, p.A1)
2005 Nov 7, A suicide bomber
blew up his vehicle at a checkpoint south of Baghdad and killed four
American soldiers. The US command also announced five soldiers from
the elite 75th Ranger Regiment were charged with kicking and
punching Iraqi detainees.
(AP, 11/7/05)(SFC, 11/8/05, p.A3)
2005 Nov 7, Thousands of
Moroccans marched through central Casablanca to demand the release
of 2 Moroccan Embassy employees in Iraq who al-Qaida has threatened
to kill.
(AP, 11/7/05)
2005 Nov 7, A section of a
bridge under construction in southern Spain collapsed on workers,
killing at least five of them.
(AP, 11/7/05)
2005 Nov 7, In Thailand at
least three people were killed, two others injured and dozens of
suspected Muslim insurgents arrested as militants attacked more than
20 government targets in the southern Yala province.
(AP, 11/8/05)
2005 Nov 7, Police in Trinidad
arrested Yasin Abu Bakr (64), an Islamic leader whose group
stormed Parliament 15 years ago and took the prime minister and his
Cabinet hostage.
(AP, 11/11/05)
2005 Nov 7, The United Nations
elected five judges -- from the United States, Morocco, Mexico, New
Zealand and Russia -- to the prestigious World Court, the highest
judicial authority of the world body.
(AP, 11/8/05)
2005 Nov 7, Uruguay launched a
set of tax overhauls aimed to make it harder for neighboring
Argentines and other foreigners to use the country as a tax haven.
It was hoped to have the structure for a modern tax system in place
by 2007.
(WSJ, 11/9/05, p.A14)
2005 Nov 8, The US State
Department issued its 7th annual report to Congress on religious
freedom. It cited Burma, China, Eritrea, Iran, North Korea, Saudi
Arabia, Sudan and Vietnam as restricting religious freedom.
(AP, 11/8/05)
2005 Nov 8, The US Supreme
Court ruled that slaughterhouse workers should receive pay for time
spent donning protective gear and heading to the floor.
(WSJ, 11/9/05, p.A1)
2005 Nov 8, Democrats cleaned
up big in off-year elections from New Jersey to California.
Democratic Sen. Jon Corzine easily won the New Jersey governor's
seat after an expensive, mudslinging campaign, trouncing Republican
Doug Forrester by 10 percentage points.
(AP, 11/9/05)
2005 Nov 8, California voters
rejected Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's efforts to reshape state
government during a special election that darkened his prospects for
a second term.
(AP, 11/9/05)(SFC, 11/9/05, p.A1)
2005 Nov 8, The Kansas Board of
Education voted 6-4 that students will be expected to study doubts
about Darwinian evolutionary theory.
(SFC, 11/9/05, p.A3)
2005 Nov 8, Maine voted to
preserve the state's new gay-rights law.
(AP, 11/9/05)
2005 Nov 8, In Hillsdale,
Michigan, unofficial results showed that Michael Sessions (18) got
732 votes, compared with 668 for Mayor Doug Ingles (51). Once his
victory is certified and he's sworn in - the ceremony is set for
Nov. 21 - he may be the youngest mayor in the USA.
(USAT, 11/10/05)
2005 Nov 8, GOP Mayor Michael
Bloomberg easily clinched a second term in heavily Democratic New
York.
(AP, 11/9/05)
2005 Nov 8, In Ohio Cincinnati
voters elected a black mayor for the first time. State Sen. Mark
Mallory defeated Councilman David Pepper, both Democrats, in a
nonpartisan mayoral runoff.
(AP, 11/9/05)
2005 Nov 8, Pennsylvania voters
came down hard on school board members who backed a statement on
intelligent design being read in biology class, ousting eight
Republicans and replacing them with Democrats who want the concept
stripped from the science curriculum.
(AP, 11/9/05)
2005 Nov 8, SF voters rejected
Prop B, which would have allowed $208 million in general obligation
bonds for street and sidewalk improvements; Prop A passed for
capital improvements in the SF Community College District; Prop H
won making it illegal for city residents to possess handguns; Prop F
won ending rotating closure of firehouses. Phil Ting, incumbent
Assessor-Recorder, won his election bid. In 2008 an Appeals court
agreed with 2006 ruling that local governments have no authority
under California law to prevent people from owning pistols.
(SFC, 11/9/05, p.B3)(SFC, 1/10/08, p.B3)
2005 Nov 8, A federal judge
ordered a halt to 1983 court-ordered supervision over SF
desegregation policies. The ruling left school assignments in the
hands of the SF School Board.
(SFC, 11/9/05, p.B1)
2005 Nov 8, In Jacksboro,
Tennessee, Ken Bartley Jr. (15) shot to death assistant principal
Ken Bruce and wounded 2 other school officials with a handgun at
Campbell County Comprehensive High School. On April 10, 2007,
Bartley pleaded guilty to one count of second-degree murder and two
counts of attempted second-degree murder, and was sentenced to 45
years in prison.
(AP,
11/9/05)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Campbell_County_High_School_(Tennessee))
2005 Nov 8, Texas voters
overwhelmingly approved a constitutional ban on gay marriage.
(AP, 11/9/05)
2005 Nov 8, Democratic Lt. Gov.
Tim Kaine won a solid victory in GOP-leaning Virginia, beating
Republican Jerry Kilgore by more than 5 percentage points.
(AP, 11/9/05)
2005 Nov 8, Bill O’Reilly,
vented exasperation on his “The Radio Factor” at 2 measures in the
process of being approved by SF voters: a ban on handgun ownership
and a ban on military recruitment in public schools.
(SFC, 11/12/05, p.B1)
2005 Nov 8, Bartolo Colon won
the American League Cy Young Award.
(AP, 11/8/06)
2005 Nov 8, David Westheimer,
American novelist, died in California. His books included “Von
Ryan’s Express” (1964), which was made into a 1965 film, and “My
Sweet Charlie” (1965), which was produced on Broadway in 1966.
(SFC, 11/12/05, p.B5)
2005 Nov 8, The first five-star
hotel opened in Kabul, Afghanistan, part of a construction boom that
is changing the face of the capital nearly 4 years after the ouster
of the Taliban.
(AP, 11/8/05)
2005 Nov 8, Police in Australia
arrested 17 suspects in a string of raids and said they had foiled a
major terror attack. Algerian-born Abdul Nacer Benbrika, a prominent
radical Muslim cleric, was among those arrested after the government
strengthened laws to detain those in the early stages of planning
terror acts following the London transport bombings in July.
(AP, 11/7/05)(AP, 10/25/10)
2005 Nov 8, Azerbaijan's
election commission annulled the results of the weekend
parliamentary vote in two districts and ordered a recount in
another, while the ruling party claimed victory.
(AP, 11/8/05)
2005 Nov 8, Chinese President
Hu Jintao arrived in Britain for a 3-day state visit that will
include a banquet dinner with Queen Elizabeth II and trade talks
with PM Tony Blair. Jintao faced protests from human rights
campaigners upon his arrival in London.
(AP, 11/8/05)
2005 Nov 8, The EU said Morocco
will join its Galileo satellite navigation program, becoming the
first African nation to participate in the project that aims to
rival the US' GPS system.
(AP, 11/8/05)
2005 Nov 8, President Jacques
Chirac declared a state of emergency, paving the way for curfews to
be imposed on riot-hit cities and towns in an extraordinary measure
to halt France's worst civil unrest in decades after 12 nights of
violence.
(AP, 11/8/05)
2005 Nov 8, Haiti's police
chief said 14 police officers will face charges for their alleged
involvement in the Aug 20 slayings of at least 11 civilians at a
soccer game.
(AP, 11/8/05)
2005 Nov 8, Iraqi Pres. Jalal
Talabani met with Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi, a strong
supporter of the US-led war in Iraq. Talabani is on a weeklong visit
to Italy, which includes talks with the country's top officials and
a meeting at the Vatican with Pope Benedict XVI.
(AP, 11/8/05)
2005 Nov 8, Three gunmen in a
speeding car killed a defense lawyer in the Saddam Hussein trial and
wounded another, raising doubts whether Iraqis can conduct such a
sensitive prosecution in the midst of insurgency and domestic
turmoil.
(AP, 11/8/05)
2005 Nov 8, Israel's rescue
service welcomed a proposal by the international Red Cross to
introduce a new emblem that will pave the way for Israel's inclusion
into the lifesaving organization.
(AP, 11/8/05)
2005 Nov 8, A fleet of Japanese
whaling ships left for the seas of Antarctica amid protests Tuesday,
aiming to kill 850 minke whales, almost double last year's catch,
and expand the hunt to fin whales for the first time.
(AP, 11/8/05)
2005 Nov 8, Liberia held runoff
elections.
(AP, 11/8/05)
2005 Nov 8, One month after
South Asia's Oct. 8 earthquake, the estimated death toll shot up
sharply to 87,350 following a new count of Pakistan's casualties.
(AP, 11/8/05)
2005 Nov 8, Callixte
Kalimanzira (52), a suspected leader of Rwanda's 1994 genocide,
surrendered in Tanzania to the international court trying the
architects of the slaughter.
(AP, 11/8/05)
2005 Nov 8, Tibet's spiritual
leader the Dalai Lama spoke in Washington DC and accused the Chinese
authorities of imposing "very, very repressive" policies in his
Himalayan territory.
(AP, 11/8/05)
2005 Nov 8, The UN Security
Council voted unanimously to extend the mandate of the nearly
180,000-strong multinational force in Iraq for a year, a move the
United States called a significant signal of international
commitment to Iraq's political transition.
(AP, 11/8/05)
2005 Nov 8, Vietnam, the
country hit hardest by bird flu, reported its 42nd death, which
occurred Oct 29, raising the toll in Asia to at least 63. The Swiss
maker of Tamiflu said it had stopped selling the antiviral drug in
China and was turning over supplies to the government.
(AP, 11/8/05)
2005 Nov 8, President Robert
Mugabe told the US ambassador to Zimbabwe to "go to hell," after the
envoy blamed the country's economic and political crisis on
mismanagement and corrupt rule. Police detained several trade union
leaders and were out in force ahead of planned demonstrations to
protest worsening living conditions in Zimbabwe.
(AP, 11/8/05)
2005 Nov 9, Carolina's Erik
Cole became the first player in NHL history to be awarded two
penalty shots in one game. Cole scored on the first, helping the
Hurricanes defeat Buffalo 5-3.
(AP, 11/9/06)
2005 Nov 9, US oil executives
testified before Congress that their huge profits were justified,
but got a skeptical reaction from lawmakers.
(AP, 11/9/06)
2005 Nov 9, Rebels killed seven
police officers and abducted two after ambushing them on a road in
southern Afghanistan. The bodies of two villagers, abducted 2 days
earlier, were found beheaded.
(AP, 11/10/05)
2005 Nov 9, Argentine
prosecutors said a Hezbollah militant has been identified as the
suicide bomber who flattened a Jewish community center in 1994,
killing 85 people in Argentina's worst terrorist attack. Hussein
Berro, a 21-year-old Lebanese citizen who "belonged to Hezbollah,"
was driving the van packed with explosives July 18, 1994. He was
identified by friends and relatives in Detroit, Mich., from a
photograph.
(AP, 11/9/05)
2005 Nov 9, In Azerbaijan Pres.
Ilham Aliev fired two regional governors for interfering with the
count from last weekend's parliamentary elections.
(AP, 11/10/05)
2005 Nov 9, Thousands of people
rallied in Baku, Azerbaijan, to demand free elections, answering a
call by the opposition movement following weekend parliamentary
balloting that international observers said was flawed.
(AP, 11/9/05)
2005 Nov 9, In Belgium over
half a dozen fires were reported in several cities, including the
capital of Brussels, in the 4th day of vandal attacks, most of which
remained minor. No injuries were reported, and several people were
taken into custody for questioning by police.
(AP, 11/10/05)
2005 Nov 9, Britain’s House of
Commons defeated a crucial provision of the government’s latest
anti-terrorism bill, handing PM Tony Blair his 1st Commons defeat
since he came to power.
(SFC, 11/10/05, p.A12)
2005 Nov 9, In Canada Vancouver
Mayor Philip Owen added his name to the list of those who believe
that marijuana should be decriminalized.
(Econ, 11/12/05,
p.39)(www.cannabisnews.com/news/thread11310.shtml)
2005 Nov 9, Chinese President
Hu Jintao met Prime Minister Tony Blair as business leaders signed
$1.3 billion in contracts and human rights protesters demonstrated
outside Blair's office.
(AP, 11/9/05)
2005 Nov 9, Europe's first
mission to Venus was successfully launched from the Baikonur
cosmodrome in Kazakhstan and emitted a first signal at the start of
its 163-day journey to the turbulent planet. The Venus Express aimed
to arrive in April 2006.
(AFP, 11/9/05)(Econ, 11/12/05, p.85)(Econ,
12/1/07, p.96)
2005 Nov 9, Egyptians cast
ballots in their most robustly contested parliamentary election in
more than 50 years, but no one expected the vote to unseat the
long-dominant party of President Hosni Mubarak.
(AP, 11/9/05)
2005 Nov 9, Ethiopia’s PM Meles
Zenawi said that opposition leaders and newspaper editors under
detention will face treason charges, which carry the death penalty
in Ethiopia, for their alleged roles in protests last week in which
at least 46 people were killed.
(AP, 11/9/05)
2005 Nov 9, France's storm of
rioting lost strength with a drop of nearly half in the number of
car burnings. But looters and vandals still defied a state of
emergency with attacks on stores, a newspaper warehouse and a subway
station.
(AP, 11/9/05)
2005 Nov 9, K.R. Narayanan
(85), former president of India (1997-2002), died. He was the first
"untouchable" from India's pernicious caste system to occupy the
office in a validation of the nation's democratic roots.
(AP, 11/9/05)(Econ, 11/26/05, p.100)
2005 Nov 9, Azahari bin Husin,
one of southeast Asia's most-wanted terrorist suspects, was believed
to have been killed when an elite Indonesian anti-terrorism unit
stormed a suspected militant hideout on Java. He was accused of
plotting a series of deadly bombings in Bali.
(AP, 11/9/05)
2005 Nov 9, Muriel Degauque, a
Belgian national married to a Moroccan man, detonated explosives
strapped to her body in a failed attack against US troops.
(AP, 12/01/05)
2005 Nov 9, An employee of the
Sudanese embassy in Iraq was shot dead by armed men who opened fire
on his car in the west of Baghdad.
(AP, 11/9/05)
2005 Nov 9, Archeologists
reported that 2 lines of an alphabet have been found inscribed in a
stone in Israel, offering what some scholars say is the most solid
evidence yet that the ancient Israelites were literate as early as
the 10th century B.C. The stone was found in July, on the final day
of a five-week dig at Tel Zayit, about 30 miles south of Tel Aviv.
(AP, 11/10/05)
2005 Nov 9, Japanese
electronics makers Toshiba Corp. and NEC Electronics Corp. announced
they will jointly develop technology to produce next-generation
semiconductors that are smaller, faster, more efficient and less
costly.
(AP, 11/9/05)
2005 Nov 9, Suicide bombers In
Jordan carried out nearly simultaneous attacks on three U.S.-based
hotels in the capital of Amman in what appeared to be an al-Qaida
assault. 2 Americans were among at least 59 people killed and 115
wounded.
(AP, 11/10/05)(WSJ, 11/11/05, p.A1)
2005 Nov 9, Mexico reported
that consumer prices fell to a record low in October and that
inflation was rapidly approaching the central bank’s target of 3%.
(WSJ, 11/9/05, p.A15)
2005 Nov 9, Negotiators trying
to persuade North Korea to give up its nuclear ambitions focused on
the contentious details of how the North will disarm and what it
will get in exchange, with the U.S. and North Korean delegations
holding a separate meeting.
(AP, 11/9/05)
2005 Nov 9, In Semdinli,
Turkey, 2 government intelligence officers and a PKK informant were
caught trying to blow up a bookshop owned by a PKK sympathizer. The
affair was said to have been organized by the “deep state,” a
shadowy coalition of rogue officers and bureaucrats whose powers
were being sapped by EU-inspired laws.
(Econ, 4/15/06, p.54)(Econ, 1/27/07, p.52)
2005 Nov 10, The US Senate
added an amendment to a Defense Dept. budget bill allowing the Bush
administration discretionary power to treat accused terrorists
according to its wishes by withdrawing their right to appeal their
detention in the civilian justice system, a move that is worrying
judicial experts.
(AFP, 11/13/05)
2005 Nov 10, The US Postal
Service honored 4 Marine heroes with commemorative stamps. They
included Lt. Gen. Lewis “Chesty” Puller (1898-1971), Lt. Gen. John
Lejeune (1867-1942), Sgt. Maj. Dan Daly (1873-1937) and Gunnery Sgt.
John Basilone (1916-1945). The release coincided with the Marine
Corps’ 230th anniversary.
(www.medalofhonor.com/)(SSFC, 11/6/05, Par
p.10)(SFC, 11/11/05, p.B3)
2005 Nov 10, The US Commerce
Department reported that the deficit jumped to $66.1 billion in
September, 11.4 percent higher than the $59.3 billion imbalance
recorded in August.
(AP, 11/10/05)
2005 Nov 10, Chris Carpenter of
the St. Louis Cardinals won the National League Cy Young Award.
(AP, 11/10/06)
2005 Nov 10, Fernando Bujones
(b.1955), ballet virtuoso, died in Miami. In 1974 he won ballet’s
gold medal at Varna, Bulgaria.
(SFC, 11/12/05, p.B5)
2005 Nov 10, A Boeing Co. jet
arrived in London from Hong Kong, breaking the record for the
longest nonstop flight by a commercial jet. The journey of more than
13,422 miles broke the previous record, when a Boeing 747-400 flew
10,500 miles from London to Sydney in 1989.
(AP, 11/11/05)
2005 Nov 10, China reported
that its trade surplus surged to $12 billion in October, the highest
monthly total this year, as exports continued to outpace imports.
(AP, 11/10/05)
2005 Nov 10, Authorities in
China said they have quarantined 116 people in northeastern Liaoning
province after two new outbreaks of bird flu there.
(AP, 11/10/05)
2005 Nov 10, Egypt's ruling
party secured the most seats in the first stage of parliamentary
balloting, but the banned Muslim Brotherhood made its mark as well,
sending 42 candidates to run-off elections.
(AP, 11/10/05)
2005 Nov 10, Violence in France
fell sharply overnight after the government toughened its stance by
imposing emergency measures and ordering deportations of foreigners
involved in riots that have raged for two weeks. The national police
said 8 French police officers had been suspended for their suspected
role in the beating of a young man in a Paris suburb.
(AP, 11/10/05)
2005 Nov 10, Senior officials
said the US and Europe are ready to compromise with Iran over its
nuclear program and have tentatively approved a plan that would
allow it to make the gas used in producing enriched uranium.
(AP, 11/10/05)
2005 Nov 10, Iraqi President
Jalal Talabani met with Pope Benedict XVI amid tight security that
closed down the main boulevard leading to the Vatican.
(AP, 11/10/05)
2005 Nov 10, In Iraq 2 suicide
bombers blew themselves up in a restaurant frequented by police,
killing 35 people and seriously injuring 25. A car bomb killed seven
army recruits in Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit.
(AP, 11/10/05)(AP, 11/11/05)
2005 Nov 10, In western Iraq 3
American troops were killed, including one along the Syrian border
during a major push to take control of the frontier from insurgents.
US forces raided an insurgent cell responsible for suicide bombings
in which seven men were killed, including one wearing a vest loaded
with explosives.
(AP, 11/11/05)
2005 Nov 10, A UN agency said
thousands of contaminated industrial and military sites left over
from wars in Iraq must urgently be cleaned up to stop them from
further harming people's health and the environment.
(AP, 11/10/05)
2005 Nov 10, After Jordanians
took to the streets to call for terror leader Abu Musab
al-Zarqawi to "burn in hell," an al-Qaida manifesto said
the Grand Hyatt, the Radisson SAS and the Days Inn, were used by
NATO as a rear base "from which the convoys of the crusaders and the
renegades head back and forth to the land of Iraq where Muslims are
killed and their blood is shed."
(AP, 11/10/05)
2005 Nov 10, A senior official
said Kuwait has detected two cases of bird flu in birds but it was
not clear if the virus strain was the deadly version that has
devastated poultry in Asia.
(AP, 11/10/05)
2005 Nov 10, In Liberia Ellen
Johnson-Sirleaf, a former finance minister and Harvard graduate,
edged closer to becoming Africa's first elected female leader, while
her soccer star opponent alleged fraud in the presidential runoff.
With 80% of votes counted, Johnson-Sirleaf had 58% and her opponent,
George Weah, had 42%.
(AP, 11/10/05)
2005 Nov 10, Mexican
prosecutors announced they have filed kidnapping and organize crime
charges against seven police officers accused of protecting hit men
working for the feared Tijuana-based Arellano Felix drug cartel.
(AP, 11/11/05)
2005 Nov 10, Talks on North
Korea's nuclear programs turned sour as Pyongyang demanded that
Washington lift sanctions against firms suspected of weapons
proliferation and stop accusing the North of counterfeiting U.S.
money.
(AP, 11/10/05)
2005 Nov 10, Russia captured
the world chess team championship with a last-minute,
come-from-behind victory over the surprised Chinese team.
(AP, 11/11/05)
2005 Nov 10, In South Africa
the southern hemisphere's largest single optical telescope with the
power to study the most distant galaxies was inaugurated. The giant
eye in the sky, that took five years to build, cost $20 million.
(AP, 11/10/05)
2005 Nov 11, President Bush
strongly rebuked congressional critics of his Iraq war policy,
accusing them of being "deeply irresponsible."
(AP, 11/11/06)
2005 Nov 11, A new poll said
most Americans say they aren't impressed by the ethics and honesty
of the Bush administration, already under scrutiny for its
justifications for an unpopular war in Iraq and its role in the leak
of a covert CIA officer's identity.
(AP, 11/11/05)
2005 Nov 11, Students in
Kalamazoo, Mich., learned that an anonymous group of benefactors
will offer scholarships for at least the next 13 years to nearly all
Kalamazoo high school graduates, good at any of Michigan’s public
universities or colleges.
(SFC, 11/12/05, p.A2)
2005 Nov 11, Scientists
reported the discovery of an appetite suppressing hormone,
obestatin, that counters the appetite boosting hormone ghrelin.
(SFC, 11/11/05, p.A7)
2005 Nov 11, A scientific
partnership in high-tech cloning between US and South Korean
researchers broke up over the ethics of obtaining human egg cells.
(WSJ, 11/14/05, p.B1)
2005 Nov 11, It was reported
that a rare 1,400-pound meteorite was recently discovered seven feet
underground in southern Kansas by Steve Arnold of Kingston, Ark., in
an area long known for producing prized space rocks.
(AP, 11/11/05)
2005 Nov 11, Peter Drucker
(b.1909), Austria-born management visionary, died in California. His
39 books included “The Effective Executive” (1966). In 2007
Elizabeth Haas Edersheim authored “The Definitive Drucker.”
(SFC, 11/12/05, p.B5)(WSJ, 11/14/05, p.B1)(WSJ,
2/28/07, p.D9)
2005 Nov 11, In Afghanistan
militants pulled Namatullah Yusuf Zai, a deputy provincial governor,
from his car and shot him dead. Militants also killed a former
district chief while he prayed in a mosque in Helmand province.
(AP, 11/12/05)
2005 Nov 11, In
Afghanistan a Pakistani-owned plane carrying cargo for the US-led
coalition crashed into mountains near Kabul, killing at least eight
people.
(AP, 11/11/05)
2005 Nov 11, In an elaborate,
nationally televised gala at a Beijing sports arena to mark the
1,000-day countdown until the Games, senior Chinese leaders
introduced their Olympic mascots: cartoon renditions of a panda,
fish, Tibetan antelope, swallow and the Olympic flame, each one the
color of one of the Olympic rings.
(AP, 11/11/05)
2005 Nov 11, In Beijing the US
and North Korea urged each other to make concessions as a round of
six-nation talks aimed at ending the North's nuclear programs
concluded with no sign of progress or a date to meet again.
(AP, 11/11/05)
2005 Nov 11, Colombia's highest
court approved a law that clears the way for popular President
Alvaro Uribe to run for a second term next year.
(AP, 11/11/05)
2005 Nov 11, In Colombia a man
in a wheelchair who hijacked a Colombian airliner using hand
grenades was sentenced to eight years of house arrest.
(AP, 11/11/05)
2005 Nov 11, Forces tightened
security in central Paris, stationing riot police and bomb squads
along the Champs-Elysees as more than two weeks of arson and
vandalism persisted near the French capital.
(AP, 11/11/05)
2005 Nov 11, Germany's biggest
political parties reached a deal to form a coalition government,
sealing an accord that makes Angela Merkel the nation's first female
chancellor.
(AP, 11/11/05)
2005 Nov 11, Automaker
DaimlerChrysler AG ended its ill-fated involvement with Japan's
Mitsubishi Motors Co., selling its 12.4 percent stake in the company
to Goldman Sachs for an undisclosed price.
(AP, 11/11/05)
2005 Nov 11, US Secretary of
State Condoleezza Rice, on a surprise visit to Iraq, pressed for
unity among the country's religious factions. In Baghdad gunmen
opened fire on the compound of the Embassy of Oman, killing two
people and wounding two others. 3 Iraqi police officers were killed
when their vehicle was ambushed near Baqouba, 35 miles northeast of
Baghdad.
(AP, 11/11/05)(AP, 11/11/06)
2005 Nov 11, Al-Qaida in Iraq
claimed that four Iraqis, including a husband and wife, carried out
the Nov 9 suicide bombings against three Amman hotels, and police
arrested 120 Jordanians and Iraqis in the hunt for anyone who might
have aided them.
(AP, 11/11/05)
2005 Nov 11, An Internet report
said Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, the highest ranking leader still
at-large from Saddam Hussein's regime, died. The report was not
validated.
(AP, 11/12/05)(AP, 11/13/05)
2005 Nov 11, An Italian
prosecutor said that the Milan prosecutor's office has asked for the
extradition of 22 purported CIA operatives in the kidnapping of an
Egyptian cleric in 2003.
(AP, 11/11/05)
2005 Nov 11, An Italian
newspaper reported that a long-awaited Vatican document, to be
released Nov 29, says practicing gays, those with "deeply rooted"
homosexual tendencies or those who support gay culture cannot be
admitted to the priesthood.
(AP, 11/11/05)
2005 Nov 11, The Japanese
government announced that Yoshifumi Nishikawa, the former president
of Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp., will lead preparation of the
privatization of Japan's mammoth postal corporation. The
privatization begins October 2007.
(AP, 11/11/05)
2005 Nov 11, In Jordan
Moustapha Akkad, the Syrian-born producer of the "Halloween" horror
films, died from wounds sustained in the triple hotel bombings.
(AP, 11/11/05)
2005 Nov 11, Police fired on a
rally in Mombasa against Kenya's draft constitution, fatally
wounding four men. Police broke up the rally because President Mwai
Kibaki, who has supported the proposed constitution ahead of a
referendum on Nov. 21, was visiting the port city at the time.
(AP, 11/12/05)
2005 Nov 11, In Kuwait an
agricultural official said the deadly strain of bird flu has been
detected in a flamingo, the first known outbreak of the virus in the
Gulf region.
(AP, 11/11/05)
2005 Nov 11, Mexican agents
arrested Ricardo Garcia Urquiza, a former medical student, who
seized control of the remnants of the Juarez cartel.
(AP, 11/21/05)
2005 Nov 11, In Morocco police
arrested 17 members of a terrorist network, including two former
prisoners at the U.S. base in Guantanamo, Cuba. At least some of the
suspects were linked to al-Qaida in Iraq.
(AP, 11/20/05)
2005 Nov 11, In Russia a senior
prosecutor said Rasul Kudayev, who was held at the US military
prison at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, has been detained on suspicion of
involvement in the Oct 13 attacks on police in southern Russia. He
was said to have been involved in preparing and carrying out attacks
on government and law enforcement offices in Nalchik.
(AP, 11/11/05)
2005 Nov 11, The World Trade
Organization (WTO) approved Saudi Arabia's bid to become the 149th
member of the global group, winding up a 12-year negotiating process
slowed by the country's participation in the Arab League boycott of
Israel.
(AP, 11/11/05)
2005 Nov 11, The Hague war
crimes tribunal turned up the heat on Serbia, telling it to deliver
top fugitive Ratko Mladic by the end of this year or face
"excommunication."
(Reuters, 11/11/05)
2005 Nov 11, Zimbabwean war
veterans demanded that US ambassador Christopher Dell leave the
country, accusing him of trying to cause unrest and threatening to
demonstrate against him if he stays.
(AP, 11/11/05)
2005 Nov 12, Tornadoes hit
central Iowa and left one person dead.
(SSFC, 11/13/05, p.A13)
2005 Nov 12, The results of
Afghanistan's landmark legislative elections in September were
finalized after eight weeks of counting slowed by allegations of
fraud, and observers said supporters of President Hamid Karzai
appeared to be in the majority.
(AP, 11/12/05)
2005 Nov 12, Africa Union
leaders from Algeria, Ethiopia, Ghana, Nigeria, South Africa and
Senegal met in Abuja for a 2-day summit titled: "Africa and the
challenges of the global order: Desirability of union government,"
with the leaders discussing the broad principles of integration.
(AFP, 11/12/05)
2005 Nov 12, In Bahrain a
US-backed Mideast democracy and development summit, the Forum for
the Future, ended in rancor despite adoption of two initiatives that
are part of President Bush's push to expand political freedom in a
region dominated by monarchies and effective single-party rule. The
organization was established in 2004 by the G8, several Western
European countries and 22 Middle Eastern and North African nations
to foster reform in the region.
(AP, 11/12/05)(SSFC, 11/13/05, p.A3)
2005 Nov 12, In Dhaka,
Bangladesh, a 2-day summit aimed to alleviate poverty and boost
trade and cooperation among Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, the Maldives,
Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. The South Asian Association for
Regional Cooperation (SAARC) leaders called for greater cooperation
within the region to deal with the aftermath of disasters like the
Kashmir earthquake and last year's devastating tsunami. SAARC agreed
to accept Afghanistan as its 8th member.
(AFP, 11/12/05)(Econ, 11/19/05, p.44)
2005 Nov 12, In Dhaka,
Bangladesh, Nepal’s King Gyanendra, who sacked his elected
government earlier this year, repeated a pledge to hold
parliamentary elections in 2007 and urged his country's Maoist
rebels to put down their arms.
(AFP, 11/12/05)
2005 Nov 12, In Egypt hundreds
of Sudanese refugees staging a sit-in outside UN offices in Cairo
began a hunger strike to press their case for asylum.
(AFP, 11/12/05)
2005 Nov 12, Ethiopia said it
has released another 1,721 people detained in a massive round-up
during clashes between police and protesters earlier this month
which left at least 42 people dead.
(AP, 11/13/05)
2005 Nov 12, Some 3,000 police
fanned out around Paris to prevent any attempts to attack
high-profile targets such as the Eiffel Tower after a 16th straight
night of unrest and arson.
(AP, 11/12/05)
2005 Nov 12, UN
Secretary-General Kofi Annan met with Iraqi leaders to call for
reconciliation ahead of upcoming elections.
(AP, 11/12/05)
2005 Nov 12, At least four
people were killed and 24 wounded when a car bomb exploded near a
busy vegetable market in southeastern Baghdad.
(AP, 11/12/05)
2005 Nov 12, In Iraq 2 U.S.
Marines were killed in combat and an American soldier died in a
vehicle accident.
(AP, 11/13/05)
2005 Nov 12, Japan’s Hayabusa
probe successfully released its Minerva surface-exploring robot, but
Minerva appeared to start drifting away from the asteroid's surface.
The space agency said it is targeting actual landings on the
potato-shaped asteroid Itokawa on Nov. 19 and Nov. 25. The asteroid
was named after Hideo Itokawa, founder of Japan’s space program.
Hayabusa was the 1st spacecraft to use an ion engine as its main
propulsion device.
(AP, 11/13/05)(Econ, 11/26/05, p.94)
2005 Nov 12, Jordan's deputy
premier said 3 "non-Jordanian" suicide bombers belonging to al-Qaida
in Iraq carried out Amman's triple hotel attacks that killed at
least 57 people.
(AP, 11/12/05)
2005 Nov 12, In Kazakhstan
Zamanbek Nurkadilov (61), an outspoken critic of President Nursultan
Nazarbayev was found shot to death in his home.
(AP, 11/13/05)
2005 Nov 12, North Korea stood
by its demand for aid in exchange for shutting down a
plutonium-producing nuclear reactor, saying it won't act until
Washington offers concessions.
(AP, 11/12/05)
2005 Nov 12, In Yemen masked
attackers stabbed and wounded outspoken journalist Nabil Sabaie (27)
on one of the capital's main streets. Newspapers in recent months
have stepped up reports on Yemen's rampant corruption, identifying
ministers and other officials allegedly involved in stealing state
money. They also have increasingly scrutinized Pres. Saleh, his
family and the country's powerful military.
(AP, 11/28/05)
2005 Nov 13, Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice, in Jerusalem, strongly rebuked Iran's leadership,
saying "no civilized nation" can call for the annihilation of
another, a reference to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's
remark that Israel should be "wiped off the map."
(AP, 11/13/06)
2005 Nov 13, Time magazine
picked South Korea’s Snuppy, the first cloned dog, as the most
amazing invention of 2005. In Dec Dr. Hwang Woo Suk’s stem cell work
was discredited and doubt was cast on the cloning of Snuppy.
(AP, 11/13/05)(WSJ, 12/24/05, p.A1)
2005 Nov 13, It was reported
that within days after Hurricane Katrina hit, Lily Duke managed to
do what other relief agencies couldn't: get food and water to her
neighbors in New Orleans. Since then she's expanded her network,
distributing medicine, packaged lunches and bags of ice to as many
as 20,000 people a day.
(AP, 11/13/05)
2005 Nov 13, Koch Industries, a
private conglomerate in Kansas, agreed to buy Georgia-Pacific for
$13.2 billion, making it America’s biggest privately owned company.
(Econ, 11/19/05, p.67)
2005 Nov 13, In Lititz,
Pennsylvania, David G. Ludwig (18) killed 14-year-old Kara Beth
Borden's parents, Michael F. and Cathryn Lee Borden, after they and
their daughter argued about her curfew. David and Kara were arrested
Nov 14 in Indiana following a police chase and crash. On June 14,
2006, Ludwig agreed to a plea deal and was sentenced to two terms of
life imprisonment without chance of parole.
(AP, 11/14/05)(SFC, 11/15/05,
p.A10)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_G._Ludwig)
2005 Nov 13, Vine Deloria Jr.
(72), American Indian historian and activist, died.
(AP, 11/13/06)
2005 Nov 13, Dorothy Law Nolte
(b.1924), author of a famous parenting poem, died in California. In
1998 she authored “Children Learn What They Live,” which expanded on
her 1954 poem, originally written for the Torrance Herald.
(SFC, 11/14/05, p.B3)
2005 Nov 13, Around 20,000
opposition supporters demonstrated on the outskirts of the Azeri
capital Baku to demand that the government resign if it refuses to
re-run parliamentary elections held a week ago.
(AP, 11/13/05)
2005 Nov 13, In Bangladesh
Indian PM Manmohan Singh told the closing session of the 13th South
Asian Association for Regional Cooperation summit that Afghanistan
is to join SAARC.
(AFP, 11/13/05)
2005 Nov 13, Belgium said it
registered its worst night in a week of attacks on vehicles
apparently inspired by French events, with 29 cars, trucks and buses
torched around the country.
(AP, 11/13/05)
2005 Nov 13, In Belize Julia
Armstrong Minard (20), daughter of the late Lawrence Minard, a
former managing editor of Forbes magazine and founding editor of
Forbes Global magazine, was found dead in the Mayan town of Indian
Creek. Police on Nov 17 charged Agripo Ical (19) with killing
Minard.
(AP, 11/17/05)
2005 Nov 13, China's President
Hu Jintao has arrived in Spain for the final leg of a European trip
dominated by trade, but was again set to be dogged by protests over
his country's human rights record.
(AP, 11/13/05)
2005 Nov 13, In China's
northeast a series of explosions at a chemical plant in Jilin,
Xinhua, killed five people, left dozens hospitalized and forced more
than 10,000 others to flee their homes fearing contamination and
more blasts. Benzene leaked into the Songhua River and forced
officials to close the water supply to Harbin. News of the leak was
kept secret for days.
(AP, 11/14/05)(AP, 11/25/05)
2005 Nov 13, In France police
took 212 people into custody overnight. Rioters pelted police with
stones in the historic heart of Lyon, and youths rammed a burning
car into a center for retirees in southern France in a 17th night of
urban violence. The French insurance industry estimated damages so
far at $235 million including $23 million for damage to cars.
(AP, 11/13/05)(SSFC, 11/13/05, p.A19)
2005 Nov 13, Indian police
claimed a breakthrough in the Oct. 29 triple bombings in New Delhi
after arresting an alleged Kashmiri conspirator, and said they have
valuable information that could lead to the capture of four others,
including the bombers.
(AP, 11/13/05)
2005 Nov 13, Some 1,100 Iraqi
lawyers issued a statement on withdrawing from Saddam Hussein's
defense team, citing insufficient protection following the slayings
of two peers representing co-defendants of the ousted Iraqi leader.
Sunni Arab leaders demanded that U.S. and Iraqi troops suspend
military operations in heavily Sunni areas, accusing the Shiite-led
government of trying to divide the nation ahead of next month's
legislative elections.
(AP, 11/13/05)
2005 Nov 13, In Dublin,
Ireland, 2 men wearing bulletproof vests were shot to death at
point-blank range in what police said was the latest bloodshed in a
five-year turf war between drug-dealing gangs. The attack raised to
18 the number of gun killings within Ireland's criminal underworld
this year.
(AP, 11/14/05)
2005 Nov 13, Jordanian security
forces arrested Sajida Ubarak Atrous al-Rishawi (35), an Iraqi
woman, whose husband is suspected of blowing up one of three Amman
hotels. Al-Rishawi confessed on television to trying to blow herself
up with her husband in one of the three Nov. 9 suicide attacks in
Amman. This followed a tip off by an al-Qaida claim that a
husband-and-wife team participated in the attacks that killed 57
other people. Her husband was Ali Hussein Ali Shamari. The 2 other
bombers were identified as Rawad Jassem Mohammed Abed (23) and Safaa
Mohammed Ali (23). The bombers were from Fallujah.
(AP, 11/13/05)(SFC, 11/14/05, p.A3)
2005 Nov 13, In northeastern
Pakistan a bus with 50 people on board plunged into a river gorge in
the quake-stricken area.
(AP, 11/13/05)
2005 Nov 13, Prince Saud
al-Faisal, Saudi Arabia's foreign minister, said he is less worried
that US policies in Iraq will bring on a civil war there, and
pledged anew to contribute $1 billion for rebuilding that
war-ravaged country's shattered infrastructure.
(AP, 11/13/05)
2005 Nov 14, President Bush
hurled new arguments against Iraq war critics as he headed for Asia,
accusing some Democrats of "sending mixed signals to our troops and
the enemy."
(AP, 11/14/06)
2005 Nov 14, Alex Rodriguez of
the New York Yankees won his second American League Most Valuable
Player award in three seasons.
(AP, 11/14/06)
2005 Nov 14, AOL and Warner
Bros. announced plans to create a broadband network called In2TV to
streamcast old TV shows beginning in early 2006. They planned 2
minutes of advertising for each half hour.
(SFC, 11/15/05, p.C2)
2005 Nov 14, Host Marriott
Corp. said it had agreed to pay about $4.04 billion to acquire a
portfolio of 38 luxury and upscale hotels from Starwood Hotels and
Resorts Worldwide Inc.
(AP, 11/14/05)
2005 Nov 14, In Afghanistan 2
separate suicide attackers rammed cars laden with explosives into
vehicles belonging to NATO-led peacekeepers in Kabul, killing at
least one German soldier, 7 Afghans and wounding 11 other people.
(AP, 11/14/05)(WSJ, 11/16/05, p.A1)
2005 Nov 14, President Ilham
Aliev fired a third regional governor for alleged interference in
Azerbaijan's parliamentary elections, reacting sternly to Western
charges of voting irregularities.
(AP, 11/14/05)
2005 Nov 14, In Bangladesh 2
senior assistant judges of lower courts were killed and four others,
including the bomber himself, were injured in a bomb attack in the
southern district of Jhalakati. In 2006 a court sentenced Siddiq ul
Islam (aka Bangla Bhai) and Abdur Rahman to death by hanging for the
bombing.
(Econ, 6/3/06, p.40)
2005 Nov 14, Archbishop Geraldo
do Espirito Santo Avila (76), the head of the Brazilian Archdiocese
for the Military Services, died of cancer.
(AP, 11/15/05)
2005 Nov 14, The Economist
presented its annual awards to innovators in 7 categories. The
winners were: Bioscience: Herbert Boyer, co-founder of Genentech,
and Stanley Cohen, Stanford Prof. of Genetics; Computing and
communications: Sergey Brin and Larry Page , co-founders of Google;
Energy and the environment: Stanford Ovshinsky, president and chief
scientist for Energy conversion Devices; Social and economic
innovation: Victoria Hale, CEO of Institute for OneWorldHealth;
Business process innovation: Alpheus Bingham, chairman of
InnoCentive, an online forum for solution seekers; Consumer
products: the iPod team at Apple Corp.; No boundaries: Fujio
Masuoka, professor at Tohoku Univ. for the invention of flash
memory.
(Econ, 12/10/05, TQ p.15)
2005 Nov 14, Retired Gen.
Manuel Contreras (79), the head of Chile's secret police under Gen.
Augusto Pinochet, was sentenced to three years in prison for the
1976 killing of Julia Retamal, a teacher opposed to the dictator's
regime. Contreras was already serving a 12-year sentence for a
political killing.
(AP, 11/15/05)
2005 Nov 14, China reported a
new case of bird flu in poultry in the country's east, its ninth
outbreak since Oct. 19.
(AP, 11/14/05)
2005 Nov 14, It was reported
that Liu Qibing, a trader handling Chinese strategic commodity
reserves, had shorted some 100k to 200k tons of copper. Copper
prices moved up in response.
(Econ, 11/19/05, p.81)
2005 Nov 14, Gov. Arnold
Schwarzenegger arrived in China on a six-day mission to promote
California products and encourage Chinese officials to crack down on
the piracy of copyrighted music, movies and software.
(AP, 11/14/05)
2005 Nov 14, Hundreds of
Colombian television actors and workers marched through the streets
to protest a proposed free trade deal with the US that they claim
could hurt the local TV industry.
(AP, 11/15/05)
2005 Nov 14, EU Council
decision Nr. 2005/815/EB officially gave Vilnius, Lithuania, and
Linz, Austria, status as a European Capital of Culture for the year
2009.
(www.culturelive.lt/en/european_capitals_of_culture)
2005 Nov 14, The French
government approved a bill to extend a state of emergency for 3
months, giving itself more policing tools to stop the country's
worst civil unrest since the 1960s. Some 271 cars were burned
overnight.
(AP, 11/14/05)(SFC, 11/14/05, p.A10)
2005 Nov 14, Angela Merkel's
Christian Democratic party overwhelmingly approved a coalition
agreement with the Social Democrats that will make her Germany's
first woman chancellor.
(AP, 11/14/05)
2005 Nov 14, It was reported
that India's top oil exploration firm, Oil & Natural Gas Corp.,
and the world's largest steel maker, the Netherlands-based Mittal
Group, planned to build an oil refinery in Nigeria. They offered to
invest another $6 billion in building a power plant and railroads
there.
(AP, 11/14/05)
2005 Nov 14, Iraqi and US
troops, trying to stem the flow of insurgent fighters from Syria,
launched a dawn assault on a border town killing some 50 militants.
This continued Operation Steel curtain begun on Nov 5. Police in
Baghdad said a car bomb detonated near one of their patrols outside
a gate leading into the fortified Green Zone, killing two South
Africans.
(AP, 11/14/05)(SFC, 11/15/05, p.A3)
2005 Nov 14, Six people were
killed and 30 wounded when a roadside bomb exploded near two coaches
in the western Iraqi city of Ramadi.
(Reuters, 11/14/05)
2005 Nov 14, A UN report said
the Iraqi army and multinational forces violated international law
during military operations in western Iraq last month by arresting
doctors and occupying medical facilities.
(AP, 11/14/05)
2005 Nov 14, Israeli troops
killed Amjad Hanawi (34), a senior Hamas militant, during an early
raid and arrest attempt in Nablus.
(AP, 11/14/05)
2005 Nov 14, In Kashmir a
gunbattle erupted in the main business district of Srinagar after
Muslim militants attacked a police compound, killing two civilians
and two soldiers and injuring six civilians.
(AP, 11/14/05)
2005 Nov 14, Mexico said it
will sever diplomatic ties with Venezuela if Pres. Chavez doesn't
apologize for warning Mexican leader Vicente Fox: "Don't mess with
me." Mexico and Venezuela called their ambassadors home in a sharp
dispute between presidents Hugo Chavez and Vicente Fox over the
latter's relations with Washington.
(AP, 11/14/05)(AP, 11/15/05)
2005 Nov 14, In northern
Nigeria 12 children were trampled to death as panicked pupils fled
what they thought was a fire in their school at Kaduna.
(AP, 11/15/05)
2005 Nov 14, Russia and
Uzbekistan signed a far-reaching treaty opening the way for a
Russian military deployment in the Central Asian nation that evicted
U.S. forces and bristled at Western criticism of the brutal
suppression of a May uprising.
(AP, 11/15/05)
2005 Nov 14, It was reported
that a consortium led by Saudi Arabia's Oger Telecom has signed a
deal to take a majority stake in state-owned telecommunications
company Turk Telekom, sealing Turkey's largest privatization worth
6.55 billion dollars. Oger Telecom, part of the Oger group owned by
the family of slain former Lebanese PM Rafiq Hariri, had won the
tender for the 55% stake in July, in partnership with Italian
operator Telecom Italia.
(AFP, 11/14/05)
2005 Nov 14, Spanish court
officials said the National Court has received a prosecutor's report
on allegations that the CIA used an airport on the Spanish island of
Mallorca for a program of covert transfers of terror suspects. The
114-page report was submitted in July.
(AP, 11/14/05)
2005 Nov 14, Sri Lanka awarded
long-term resident and British science fiction writer Arthur C.
Clarke its highest civilian award for his contributions to science
and technology and his commitment to his adopted country.
(AP, 11/14/05)
2005 Nov 14, Mudslides killed
two fishermen and destroyed seven homes as heavy rains brought by a
tropical depression overflowed river banks and made roads impassable
in St. Vincent and the Grenadines.
(AP, 11/15/05)
2005 Nov 14, In Tanzania
Calixte Kalimanzira, a man who served as Rwanda's interior minister
during the slaughter of more than half a million people in 1994,
pleaded not guilty to three counts of genocide and crimes against
humanity.
(AP, 11/14/05)
2005 Nov 14, In Uganda
opposition leader Kizza Besigye was arrested and charged with
treason, which carries the death penalty, concealment of treason and
rape. His supporters rioted and clashed with security forces for two
days, leaving at least one man dead.
(AP, 11/18/05)
2005 Nov 14, Uzbekistan's
highest court convicted 15 men of organizing a May uprising that
ended when troops fired into the crowd, killing more than 180
people. They were sentenced to prison terms of up to 20 years.
(AP, 11/14/05)
2005 Nov 15, US President
George W. Bush has arrived in Japan to start a week-long trip to
Asia, seeking progress on the North Korean nuclear crisis and
looking to press China for political and economic reforms.
(AP, 11/15/05)
2005 Nov 15, Illinois Gov. Rod
Blagojevich signed into law his All Kids program, a plan to extend
comprehensive health care to every child in the state, making it the
1st state to try anything like it.
(Econ, 12/3/05, p.33)(http://tinyurl.com/9uu5p)
2005 Nov 15, The US Pension
Benefit Guaranty Corp. disclosed in an annual report that as of Sep.
30 it had $56.5 billion in assets to cover $79.2 billion in pension
liabilities.
(SFC, 11/16/05, p.C3)
2005 Nov 15, The FBI arrested
Candice R. Martinez, a 19-year-old woman, suspected of robbing four
Virginia banks while apparently talking on her cell phone.
(AP, 11/15/05)
2005 Nov 15, SF city
supervisors passed new laws requiring spaying and neutering of pit
bulls, five months after the fatal mauling of a 12-year-old boy by
his family's pit bulls. They also approved the city’s first-ever
medical marijuana regulations.
(AP, 11/16/05)(SFC, 11/16/05, p.B1)
2005 Nov 15,The US government
declared the Puget Sound orcas an endangered species.
(SFC, 11/16/05, p.A1)
2005 Nov 15, At the CMA Awards,
Lee Ann Womack won three trophies, including album of the year for
"There's More Where That Came From."
(AP, 11/15/06)
2005 Nov 15, Albert Pujols of
the St. Louis Cardinals won the National League MVP award.
(AP, 11/15/06)
2005 Nov 15, US Major League
baseball owners and players agreed to tougher policy aimed at
curbing the use of performance-enhancing drugs.
(SFC, 11/16/05, p.A1)
2005 Nov 15, The Mega Millions
lottery reached $315 million and was won by a group of 7 employees
at the Kaiser Permanente medical center at Garden Grove, Ca.
(SFC, 11/17/05, p.B6)
2005 Nov 15, Montana, after a
14-year hiatus, re-opened a hunting season on bison drifting across
the northern border of Yellowstone National Park.
(Econ, 11/26/05, p.40)
2005 Nov 15, Nearly 3 dozen
tornadoes hit Indiana, Kentucky, Missouri and Tennessee destroying
dozens of homes and killing 2 people.
(SFC, 11/17/05, p.A14)(WSJ, 11/17/05, p.A1)
2005 Nov 15, A bomb exploded
near US and Afghan troops as they patrolled in volatile eastern
Afghanistan, killing a U.S. soldier and wounding another.
(AP, 11/15/05)
2005 Nov 15, In Afghanistan air
strikes killed three al-Qaida suspects in Kunar province.
(AP, 11/17/05)
2005 Nov 15, Hundreds of
thousands of workers staged what unionists called the biggest
protest in Australia's history against PM John Howard's proposed
labor reforms.
(AP, 11/15/05)
2005 Nov 15, Andre Boisclair
(39) defeated Pauline Marois, the former Quebec deputy premier, to
lead Parti Quebecois 54% to 31%.
(Econ, 11/19/05, p.42)
2005 Nov 15, Jose Bove, a
militant French farmer best known for ransacking a half-built
McDonald's, was sentenced to four months in prison for destroying a
field of genetically modified corn planted by an American seed
company in southern France.
(AP, 11/15/05)
2005 Nov 15, Guatemala police
found five packages of cocaine and thousands of dollars in cash in
the office of Adam Castillo, the country’s top anti-drug cop,
shortly after he was lured to America and arrested on charges of
conspiring to ship cocaine into the US. Deputies Jorge Aguilar
Garcia and Rubilio Palacios were arrested with Castillo.
(AP, 11/17/05)
2005 Nov 15, In Haiti UN
peacekeepers and gang members traded gunfire in the volatile Cite
Soleil slum of the Haitian capital, leaving at least four people
dead.
(AP, 11/15/05)
2005 Nov 15, Iraq’s PM Ibrahim
al-Jaafari said more than 170 malnourished Iraqi detainees found at
an Interior Ministry detention center appear to have been tortured.
The Interior Ministry is controlled by Shiites. Sunni leaders have
accused Shiite-dominated security forces of detaining, torturing and
killing hundreds of Sunnis simply because of their religious
affiliation.
(AP, 11/15/05)
2005 Nov 15, Iraqi and US
forces fighting insurgents near the Syrian border ran into fierce
resistance, with troops encountering dozens of explosive booby traps
and killing at least 30 insurgents.
(AP, 11/15/05)
2005 Nov 15, Japanese Princess
Sayako (36), the emperor's only daughter, quit the world's oldest
monarchy and married Yoshiki Kuroda, a 40-year-old urban planner.
(AP, 11/15/05)
2005 Nov 15, Prodded by US Sec.
of State Condoleezza Rice, Israel and the Palestinians agreed on
details for opening the borders of the Gaza Strip and allowing freer
movement for Palestinians elsewhere.
(AP, 11/15/05)
2005 Nov 15, Israeli PM Ariel
Sharon's eldest son pleaded guilty to illegal fund-raising charges
stemming from his father's 1999 election campaign.
(AP, 11/15/05)
2005 Nov 15-2005 Nov 16,
Italian authorities arrested three Algerians believed to have links
to an Algerian militant group that has allied itself with Osama bin
Laden.
(AP, 11/17/05)
2005 Nov 15, Jordan introduced
strict security measures aimed at foreigners and said it was
drafting the country's first anti-terror specific legislation to
prevent further attacks like last week's the triple hotel bombings.
11 top officials resigned including Jordan’s national security
adviser.
(AP, 11/15/05)(SFC, 11/16/05, p.A19)
2005 Nov 15, A US Embassy
official said a 4th American has died from wounds sustained in last
week's triple hotel bombings in the Jordanian capital.
(AP, 11/16/05)
2005 Nov 15, In northwest
Mexico a tanker truck hauling toxic ammonium chloride slammed into a
passenger bus, killing 38 people as both vehicles plunged down an
embankment.
(AP, 11/16/05)
2005 Nov 15, Data was published
indicating that Mosquitrix, an experimental vaccine against malaria
given to children in Mozambique in 2003, had cut clinical cases by
35%. The vaccine was developed GlaxoSmithKline of Belgium.
(Econ, 11/19/05, p.85)
2005 Nov 15, In southern
Pakistan a powerful car bomb exploded outside a KFC restaurant,
setting off a massive fireball that overturned cars and shattered
steel and glass. 3 people were killed and 22 injured.
(AP, 11/15/05)
2005 Nov 15, In Russia an
explosion ripped through a police dormitory in St. Petersburg,
killing a retired police officer.
(AP, 11/15/05)
2005 Nov 15, The Serbian
government unanimously adopted a resolution rejecting independence
for Kosovo in UN-mediated talks on the future of the breakaway
province expected to begin next month.
(AP, 11/15/05)
2005 Nov 15, In South Korea 2
farmers were killed during a protest in Seoul ahead of WTO meetings.
The farmers were angry over moves to further open the country's rice
market.
(AP, 12/27/05)
2005 Nov 16, US President
George W. Bush arrived in South Korea ahead of a summit of Asia
Pacific leaders after making a bold call for China to launch
democratic reforms.
(AP, 11/16/05)
2005 Nov 16, Vice President
Dick Cheney joined the chorus of Republican criticism of Democrats
who contended the Bush administration had manipulated intelligence
on Iraq, an accusation Cheney called "one of the most dishonest and
reprehensible charges ever aired in this city."
(AP, 11/16/06)
2005 Nov 16, Hoping to reverse
the deterioration of pension plans, the US Senate voted to force
companies to make up underfunding and live up to promises made to
employees.
(AP, 11/16/06)
2005 Nov 16, The US House
passed a bill authorizing up to $38 million in federal funds to
preserve and restore 10 WW II internment camps, including Tule Lake
and Manzanar in California, as well as 17 assembly centers.
Nonprofits would need to come up with 75% of the money for the
projects.
(SFC, 11/17/05, p.A15)
2005 Nov 16, Former President
Clinton in Dubai, UAR, told Arab students that the US made a "big
mistake" when it invaded Iraq, stoking the partisan debate back home
over the war.
(AP, 11/16/05)
2005 Nov 16, Philip H. Bloom,
an American businessman living overseas, was charged for paying
kickbacks to U.S. occupation authorities to win reconstruction
contracts in Iraq.
(AP, 11/17/05)(SFC, 11/18/05, p.A15)
2005 Nov 16, At the National
Book Awards ceremony in NYC William T. Vollmann (46) won the fiction
award for “Europe Central.” Joan Didion (70) won the nonfiction
award for “The Year of Magical Thinking.” W.S. Merwin won the poetry
prize for “Migration: New and Selected Poems.” Special awards went
to Lawrence Ferlinghetti (86) and Norman Mailer (82).
(SFC, 11/17/05, p.A2)
2005 Nov 16,
IntercontinentalExchange (ICE), founded in 2000, made its debut on
the NYSE. Shares offered at $26 reached $39.25 at close.
(Econ, 11/19/05, p.79)
2005 Nov 16, Nokia Corp. said
it is paying $430 million to acquire Intellisync Corp., a provider
of wireless e-mail service for cellular carriers, adding to the
mobile phone maker's growing arsenal of products to compete with
BlackBerry.
(AP, 11/16/05)
2005 Nov 16, Kentucky reported
that drainage from land disturbed by mining and road construction
has caused acid levels to rise beyond acceptable levels in portions
of at least 35 streams across the state, killing fish and insects.
(AP, 11/16/05)
2005 Nov 16, Ralph Edwards
(b.1913), broadcasting pioneer and TV host of “This is Your Life”
(1952-1961), died in West Hollywood. Edwards first hit it big in
radio with “Truth or Consequences” in 1940.
(SFC, 11/17/05, p.B5)
2005 Nov 16, Henry Taube
(b.1916), Canadian-born Nobel Prize winner (1983) and former
Stanford Univ. chemist, died at his home on the Stanford campus.
(SFC, 11/19/05, p.B5)
2005 Nov 16, Afghan Defense
Minister Rahim Wardak said Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida network has
increased its activities in Afghanistan, smuggling in explosives,
high-tech weapons and millions of dollars in cash for a resurgent
terror campaign.
(AP, 11/16/05)
2005 Nov 16, A suicide bomber
rammed a car laden with explosives into a convoy carrying Westerners
in the main southern city of Kandahar, killing three Afghan
civilians and wounding four others.
(AP, 11/16/05)
2005 Nov 16, Home Secretary
Charles Clarke ordered that British citizen Babar Ahmad be
extradited to the United States to face terrorism charges under
controversial new rules allowing countries to seek extradition
without producing evidence of a crime.
(AP, 11/16/05)
2005 Nov 16, Britain’s National
Statistics office said the number of people claiming jobless
benefits increased by a higher-than-expected 12,100 from September
to a total of 890,100 people at the end of October.
(AP, 11/16/05)
2005 Nov 16, In Chechnya a
group of Russian soldiers, alleged to be drunk, began flagging down
cars and demanding money in the Grozny suburb of Staraya Sunzha. 3
civilians were killed and 3 servicemen were detained.
(SSFC, 11/20/05, p.A22)
2005 Nov 16, Chinese President
Hu Jintao arrived in Seoul for talks with South Korea's president
and an annual meeting of Asia-Pacific leaders, the first time in a
decade a Chinese president has visited South Korea.
(AP, 11/15/05)
2005 Nov 16, China reported its
first three confirmed human cases of bird flu as the government
raced to vaccinate billions of chickens, ducks and other poultry in
a massive effort to stop the spread of the virus. 2 cases were
confirmed in the province of Hunan in central China and one in Anhui
in the east.
(AP, 11/16/05)
2005 Nov 16, Two dozen
Colombian rebels laid down their arms in the 1st group
demobilization ceremony of leftist guerrillas since Pres. Alvaro
Uribe took office 3 years ago.
(AP, 11/17/05)
2005 Nov 16, In Egypt the
Muslim Brotherhood won 20% of the overall vote in the first round of
parliamentary elections, according to initial official results
released after a day of intense runoff balloting. The group is
banned but members as individuals doubled their parliamentary seats
to 34. The ruling party won 112 seats.
(AP, 11/16/05)(WSJ, 11/17/05, p.A1)
2005 Nov 16, The Italian Senate
passed constitutional reform that imposed an eccentric form of
proportional representation. It was designed to give the prime
minister presidential powers.
(Econ, 2/9/08,
p.56)(www.wsws.org/articles/2005/dec2005/ital-d02.shtml)
2005 Nov 16, A private research
agency said corporate bankruptcies in Japan climbed 23 percent to
825 cases in October from the previous month, the first increase in
two months.
(AP, 11/16/05)
2005 Nov 16, In Kashmir a car
bomb exploded in the main business district of Srinagar, the summer
capital of India's Jammu-Kashmir state, killing at least two people
and injuring 40.
(AP, 11/16/05)
2005 Nov 16, Mexico’s Supreme
Court ruled that rape within marriage is a crime.
(SFC, 11/17/05, p.A12)
2005 Nov 16, A court set up by
Sudan to try war crimes in its violence-plagued Darfur region issued
its 1st sentences, condemning to death 2 soldiers in the torture
killing of a Sudanese citizen.
(AP, 11/16/05)
2005 Nov 16, In Thailand
suspected Muslim separatists stormed 2 houses in a southern village
and opened fire on the families with assault rifles, killing 9
people and injuring 9 others.
(AP, 11/16/05)
2005 Nov 16, A UN technology
summit opened in Tunisia after an 11th-hour agreement that leaves
the United States with ultimate oversight of the main computers that
direct the Internet's flow of information, commerce and dissent.
(AP, 11/16/05)
2005 Nov 16, More than 150
international rights groups petitioned African governments and the
continent's main political union to act on what they called a
humanitarian crisis in Zimbabwe.
(Reuters, 11/17/05)
2005 Nov 17, Pennsylvania
Democratic congressman John Murtha argued that it was time to bring
US troops home from Iraq.
(Econ, 11/26/05, p.35)
2005 Nov 17, Andy Stevens (37),
a California CHP officer, was shot and killed during a routine
traffic stop in Yolo County. Police the next day arrested suspects
Brendt Anthony Volarvich (20) in Rocklin and Gregory Fred Zielesch
(47) of Woodland. Volarvich was later convicted of murder and
sentenced to death. In 2009 a Sacramento district court upheld a
murder conviction against Zielesch and his sentence of 57 years to
life in prison.
(SFC, 11/18/05, p.B2)(SFC, 11/19/05, p.B3)(SFC,
11/25/09, p.C2)
2005 Nov 17, A jury in
Sarasota, Fla., convicted mechanic Joseph Smith (37) of kidnapping,
raping and strangling 11-year-old Carlie Brucia, whose Feb 1, 2004,
abduction had been captured by a car-wash security camera. On
December 1, 2005, a jury, by a vote of 10 to 2, returned a
recommendation for the death penalty. On March 15, 2006, the day
before what would have been Carlie's fourteenth birthday, he was
sentenced to two terms of life imprisonment on the charges of sexual
battery and kidnapping, and was sentenced to death by lethal
injection for murder.
(AP,
11/17/06)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlie_Brucia)
2005 Nov 17, Robert Stein of
North Carolina, arrested on Nov 14, was charged with accepting
kickbacks and bribes during his tenure as a controller and financial
officer of the US occupation authority in Iraq. He steered
construction contracts to Philip Bloom, who was charged with a range
of crimes on Nov 16.
(SFC, 11/18/05, p.A15)
2005 Nov 17, In Chicago Conrad
Black (61), press magnate, was charged with helping to steal $51.8
million from Hollinger Int’l. Black was said to be in Canada.
(SFC, 11/18/05, p.C3)
2005 Nov 17, Australian
researchers confirmed they have scrapped 10 years of research into
genetically modified peas because the altered version caused lung
inflammation in mice.
(AFP, 11/18/05)
2005 Nov 17, Austria’s Interior
Ministry said British historian David Irving has been arrested on a
warrant accusing him of denying the Holocaust.
(AP, 11/17/05)
2005 Nov 17, President Bush in
South Korea took a hardline stance against North Korea, saying the
US won't help the communist nation build a civilian nuclear reactor
to produce electricity until it dismantles its nuclear weapons
programs.
(AP, 11/17/05)
2005 Nov 17, In Brazil a
congressional investigation said it found no evidence of an alleged
bribes-for-votes scheme.
(AP, 11/17/05)
2005 Nov 17, Sergei Abramov,
the prime minister of Chechnya was in a serious condition after a
car crash on the way to a Moscow airport. His aide said it was too
early to rule out an assassination attempt.
(AP, 11/18/05)
2005 Nov 17, Chinese President
Hu Jintao assured a Pacific Rim forum in South Korea that there is
nothing to fear from his fast-developing country, which he said has
great potential to contribute to global peace.
(AP, 11/17/05)
2005 Nov 17, European
parliamentarians voted 407 to 155 on the draft REACH regulation for
the registration, evaluation and authorization of chemicals.
(Econ, 11/26/05, p.77)
2005 Nov 17, French police
declared the all-clear after three weeks of rioting which has left
the government stunned, bruised and casting around for explanations.
(AFP, 11/17/05)
2005 Nov 17, France released
its annual Beaujolais Nouveau from the 2005 harvest. The annual
release is made every 3rd Thursday in November.
(SFC, 11/22/05, p.F2)
2005 Nov 17, Israeli President
Moshe Katsav met with Pope Benedict XVI and other top Roman Catholic
officials to discuss a long-standing tax dispute that has irritated
relations between Israel and the Holy See.
(AP, 11/17/05)
2005 Nov 17, Israeli forces
killed two Palestinian militants during a West Bank arrest raid,
riddling their car with bullets when it tried to run a roadblock
outside the town of Jenin.
(AP, 11/17/05)
2005 Nov 17, Mexico's Supreme
Court voted 11-1 that the Pascual Cooperative, a bottler
specializing in Mexico's traditional fruit-flavored and fruit-based
soft drinks, did not rate protection as a public interest.
(AP, 11/18/05)
2005 Nov 17, In Pakistan a
court official said 3 men from an underground Pakistani tribal group
have confessed to involvement in a car bomb blast near a US fast
food chain outlet that killed 3 people. Police said the trio belong
to a group called the Baluchistan Liberation Army.
(AFP, 11/17/05)
2005 Nov 17, Greenpeace
activists in small inflatable boats stopped a ship carrying
genetically engineered soybean meal from unloading in a Polish port.
Greenpeace says genetically engineered soy is causing massive
environmental problems in Argentina, including deforestation, a
dramatic increase in the use of toxic herbicides and soil
infertility.
(AP, 11/17/05)
2005 Nov 17, Paul Bisengimana,
former Rwandan mayor, pleaded guilty to charges of murder and
extermination related to the 1994 genocide of more than half a
million Rwandans. He was accused of participating in the killing of
several thousand people who had sought refuge in a church. He
changed his previous plea of not guilty after striking a deal with
prosecutors under which they dropped 10 other charges.
(AP, 11/17/05)
2005 Nov 17, Saudi judicial
officials said a Saudi high-school chemistry teacher, accused of
discussing religion with his students, was sentenced to 750 lashes
and 40 months in prison for blasphemy following a trial on Nov 12.
(AP, 11/17/05)
2005 Nov 17-2005 Nov 20,
Singapore hosted the World Cyber Games (WCG). Some 700 participants
competed in 8 games with prize money topping $2.5 million.
(Econ, 11/26/05,
p.54)(www.worldcybergames.com/main.asp)
2005 Nov 17, In Sri Lanka
well-armed rebels and sporadic explosions blocked thousands of Sri
Lankans from voting for a new president to help the country end
decades of civil war and recover from last year's devastating
tsunami. Ex-Premier Wickremesinghe, favoring Tamil rebel talks,
faced Premier Rajapakse, a skeptic on peace.
(AP, 11/17/05)(WSJ, 11/17/05, p.A1)
2005 Nov 17, It was reported
that Syria had detained 4 Australian-Iraqi women at the Damascus
airport for allegedly trying to take gun parts hidden in a child's
toy onto a plane bound for Australia.
(AFP, 11/17/05)
2005 Nov 17, In Venezuela
officials said the government will expand a land reform program next
year to take control of some 3.7 million acres of "idle" farm land
and turn it over to cooperatives of poor farmers.
(AP, 11/17/05)
2005 Nov 17, UN officials said
Zimbabwe has backtracked on its refusal to allow the UN to help
build emergency housing for people whose homes were demolished in a
government eviction campaign.
(AP, 11/17/05)
2005 Nov 18, The US
Republican-controlled House spurned a call for an immediate pullout
of troops from Iraq in a 403-3 vote hastily arranged by the GOP that
Democrats denounced as politically motivated.
(AP, 11/18/06)
2005 Nov 18, The US Senate
voted to extend $60 billion in tax cuts for individuals and
businesses but added a $5 billion tax on big oil companies, drawing
a veto threat from the White House. Congress voted itself a $3,100
pay raise. Pres. Bush signed the raise into law 2 weeks later.
(Reuters, 11/19/05)(SFC, 12/6/05, p.A3)
2005 Nov 18, US officials said
that US and Canadian police have arrested 291 people in a major drug
bust that was given unprecedented cooperation by Vietnamese agents.
The 2-year operation covered ecstasy, which was shipped into Canada
in powder form, turned into pills and then smuggled across the
border along with massive amounts of marijuana.
(AFP, 11/18/05)
2005 Nov 18, In Washington DC
Michael Scanlon (35) was charged with conspiring with former
lobbyist Jack Abramoff to bribe government officials and bilk
millions of dollars from Indian tribes. In March, 2002, Ohio Rep.
Robert Ney agreed to back legislative language to benefit the Tigua
tribe of El Paso, Texas, a client of Abramoff and Scanlon.
(SFC, 11/19/05, p.A3)
2005 Nov 18, A civil jury in
Florida ruled 10-2 that Robert Blake (72), former “Baretta” TV star,
intentionally caused the 2001 death of Bonny Lee Bakley, and ordered
him to pay her children $30 million.
(SFC, 11/19/05, p.A2)
2005 Nov 18, A federal jury in
Tennessee held that Nicolas Carranza (72), a former Salvadoran
colonel, was responsible for murder and torture during the 1980s
civil war in El Salvador and ordered him to pay $6 million in
damages to his accusers.
(SFC, 11/19/05, p.A5)
2005 Nov 18, Scott Winfield
Davis (40), was arrested in Palo Alto, Ca., for the 1996 Atlanta
shooting death of David Coffin Jr., heir to a Connecticut family
that founded the Dexter Corp. Initial charges against Davis were
dropped in 1998 due to insufficient evidence. David Coffin Jr. On
December 4, 2006, a jury in Fulton County, Georgia, found Davis
guilty on all counts of malice murder and felony murder.
(SFC, 11/19/05,
p.B3)(www.atlantada.org/featuredarticle/ScottDavis.htm)
2005 Nov 18, In Pennsylvania an
oil painting by Jackson Pollock and a silkscreen by Andy Warhol were
stolen from the Everhart Museum by thieves who shattered a glass
door in the back of the building. The thieves had disappeared by the
time police arrived, four minutes after the alarm sounded at 2:30
a.m.
(AP, 11/19/05)
2005 Nov 18, Ford Motor Co.,
said it plans to eliminate 4,000 salaried jobs, or 10% of its North
American white-collar work force, as part of a larger restructuring
plan.
(Reuters, 11/18/05)
2005 Nov 18, Cisco Systems Inc.
agreed to acquire the cable TV technology company Scientific-Atlanta
Inc. for about $6.9 billion in a move that would create a one-stop
shop, and market leader, in distributing television to living rooms
over the Internet.
(AP, 11/18/05)
2005 Nov 18, Swiss Reinsurance
Co., the world's second-largest reinsurer, said it will acquire most
of General Electric Co.'s insurance unit for $6.8 billion in cash
and stock.
(AP, 11/18/05)
2005 Nov 18, Tropical Storm
Gamma, the 24th storm of the busiest hurricane season on record,
formed off the coast of Central America, and forecasters said it
could threaten Florida by the beginning of next week.
(AP, 11/18/05)
2005 Nov 18, The relationship
of star anise to bird flu was documented by Peter S. Goodman in an
article for the Washington Post.
(www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/17/AR2005111701855.html)
2005 Nov 18, Scientists
reported that a single gene in mice, which controlled the production
of a protein called stathmin, can turn cautious animals into daring
ones.
(SFC, 11/18/05, p.A2)
2005 Nov 18, In Afghanistan a
Portuguese soldier was killed and three others were wounded when an
explosion struck their vehicles outside Kabul.
(AP, 11/18/05)
2005 Nov 18, In Bradford,
England, a gang of men shot and killed Sharon Beshenivsky (38), an
unarmed policewoman, and wounded another. Police arrested six people
in connection with the crime. In October 2006 Muzzaker Imtiaz Shah
(25), one of 5 men due to be tried, admitted the killing. In 2007
Mustaf Jama (27) was arrested in Somalia and flown back to Britain
to face charges related to the murder. Five people were already
convicted in connection with Beshenivsky's death.
(AP, 11/19/05)(AFP, 10/11/06)(AFP, 11/2/07)
2005 Nov 18, In Canada
officials said a strain of H5 bird flu was found in a duck on a
commercial farm in British Columbia's Fraser Valley. Tests soon
confirmed that the strain was nonlethal.
(AP, 11/19/05)(WSJ, 11/21/05, p.A1)
2005 Nov 18, China and Chile
signed a free-trade agreement on behalf of their nations, the first
between China and a Latin American country.
(AP, 11/18/05)
2005 Nov 18, In Colombia
Indians who have seized control of 18 large farms vowed to stage
protests across the country after land reform talks with President
Alvaro Uribe ended without any agreements.
(AP, 11/18/05)
2005 Nov 18, Conservative
leader Angela Merkel took a last step toward becoming Germany's
first female chancellor when she and other party officials signed a
hard-won agreement to form a left-right coalition government.
(AP, 11/19/05)
2005 Nov 18, In Honduras Herlan
Colindres (16), a street gang member implicated in 17 killings
including a U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agent, escaped from
a juvenile prison for the fifth time in three years, just as he
promised.
(AP, 11/20/05)
2005 Nov 18, In eastern Iraq
suicide bombers killed at least 75 worshippers at two mosques
including 2 suicide bombers who detonated themselves inside a Shiite
mosque in Khanaqin, a town near the Iranian border, killing at least
35 people. In Baghdad two car bombs targeted a hotel housing foreign
journalists and killed eight Iraqis.
(AP, 11/18/05)(AP, 11/19/05)(SFC, 11/19/05, p.A1)
2005 Nov 18, An Italian judge
who refuses to hear cases because there are crucifixes in the
nation's courtrooms was convicted of failing to carry out his
official duties and sentenced to seven months in jail.
(AP, 11/18/05)
2005 Nov 18, In Kuwait a bus
carrying US troops overturned, killing one American soldier and
injuring 19 others.
(AP, 11/18/05)
2005 Nov 18, A Dutch television
show claimed to have knocked down a chain of 4,155,476 dominoes in a
new world record, but organizers conceded the event was overshadowed
by the earlier shooting of an errant sparrow. The bird caused some
23,000 dominoes to fall on Nov 14. The record was later adjusted to
4,002,146 after a legal expert ruled that a person had illegally
caused 153,340 dominoes to fall.
(AP, 11/18/05)(SFC, 11/23/05,
p.A2)(www.dodemus.nl/)
2005 Nov 18, In Gaza 2 rival
clans and Palestinian police exchanged fire in a dispute over land
in the area of a former Israeli settlement, killing Naef Astal (17)
and wounding 5 people.
(AP, 11/19/05)
2005 Nov 18, Peru’s government
renewed a state of emergency in several isolated jungle and highland
provinces amid reports of leftist rebel activity.
(AP, 11/18/05)
2005 Nov 18, A Russian UN
official accused of money laundering was released on $500,000 bail
posted by his government. Vladimir Kuznetsov (48), who chaired the
powerful UN budget oversight committee, had been jailed since Sept.
1 on charges that he conspired with a UN procurement officer to
launder hundreds of thousands of dollars from foreign companies
seeking contracts with the world body.
(AP, 11/18/05)
2005 Nov 18, An election
official said PM Mahinda Rajapakse, a hard-liner toward Tamil
rebels, won Sri Lanka's presidential election by a narrow margin.
Suspected separatist rebels in Akkaraipattu tossed grenades into a
Mosque during morning prayers, killing at least four Muslim
worshippers. Rajapakse later appointed his 3 brothers to run
important ministries.
(AP, 11/18/05)(Econ, 6/9/07, p.26)
2005 Nov 18, South Korean riot
police used high pressure hoses to hold back protesters chanting
anti-Bush slogans from the site of the APEC summit at Busan.
(WSJ, 11/19/05, p.A1)
2005 Nov 18, South Korea
announced plans to pull a third of its troops out of Iraq, a day
after President Bush met with his South Korean counterpart and
praised him as a staunch ally in the Iraq conflict.
(AP, 11/18/05)
2005 Nov 18, Turkey’s energy
minister said oil from a U.S.-backed Caspian pipeline has crossed
the Turkish border from Georgia on its way to a Mediterranean port
for where it will be exported to the West.
(AP, 11/18/05)
2005 Nov 18, In Turkey a bomb
placed in a trash can exploded near a fairground in Istanbul,
killing one person and injuring 12.
(AP, 11/18/05)
2005 Nov 19, Bush and other
Pacific Rim leaders in South Korea urged Europe to show new
flexibility on farm subsidies, an issue that has stalled global
trade negotiations. The 21 APEC leaders promised to boost
cooperation on fighting terrorism and preparing for a possible flu
pandemic. They endorsed a roadmap for lifting trade barriers across
APEC member countries and launched an initiative to protect
intellectual property.
(AP, 11/19/05)(SFC, 11/19/05, p.A8)
2005 Nov 19, President Bush
arrived in Beijing for talks with Chinese leaders following the APEC
meeting in South Korea. A US official said China will buy 70 Boeing
737 airliners as President Bush arrived on a visit expected to
include discussion of Beijing's surging trade surplus with the US.
(AP, 11/19/05)(AP, 11/19/06)
2005 Nov 19, Tropical Storm
Gamma deluged the coast of Central America.
(AP, 11/19/06)
2005 Nov 19, Thousands of
people gathered in a Baku square as Azerbaijan's opposition parties
protested against disputed parliamentary elections, the latest rally
in a campaign that has made little headway.
(AP, 11/19/05)
2005 Nov 19, Brazil's president
ordered the intelligence service to make dictatorship-era documents
public by the end of the year.
(AP, 11/20/05)
2005 Nov 19, In Cairo, Egypt,
Shiite and Kurdish delegates stormed out of an Iraqi reconciliation
conference, halting the effort to patch over ethnic and religious
fault lines threatening to drag the country into a full civil war.
(AP, 11/19/05)
2005 Nov 19, India and Pakistan
opened their disputed border in Kashmir for the first time in 58
years, a temporary measure to allow divided families to check on
each other after the region's devastating earthquake.
(AP, 11/19/05)
2005 Nov 19, A car bomb
exploded among shoppers at an outdoor market in a mostly Shiite
neighborhood in southeast Baghdad, killing 13 people and wounding
about 20 others. A suicide bomber detonated his car in a crowd of
Shiite mourners north of Baghdad, killing at least 50 people. 5 US
soldiers were killed and 5 others were wounded in a pair of roadside
bombings in northern Iraq. An ambush on a joint US-Iraqi patrol
northwest of Baghdad left 15 civilians, 8 insurgents and a US Marine
dead from a roadside bomb and the firefight that followed. It was
later reported that Marines killed 24 civilians including women and
children in retaliation for the death of a Marine in a roadside
bombing in Haditha. In 2006 4 Marines were charged with murder and 4
officers were charged with crimes related to their alleged failure
to investigate and report the slayings. The four Marines charged
with murder for the Haditha deaths were: Staff Sgt. Frank D.
Wuterich; Sgt. Sanick P. Dela Cruz; Lance Cpl. Justin L. Sharratt;
and Lance Cpl. Stephen B. Tatum. In 2007 murder charges were dropped
against Sgt. Dela Cruz after he agreed to provide testimony in the
case. All charges against Sharratt and Stone were dropped on Aug 9.
In 2008 charges of involuntary manslaughter against Tatum were
dropped. In 2008 Charges against Lt. Col. Jeffrey Chessani, who was
accused of failing to investigate the killings, were also dismissed.
(AP, 11/20/05)(Econ, 6/3/06, p.27)(SFC, 12/22/06,
p.A1)(AP, 1/6/07)(SFC, 4/18/07, p.A9)(SFC, 8/10/07, p.A7)(SFC,
3/29/08, p.A3)(WSJ, 6/18/08, p.A2)
2005 Nov 19, Iraqi and US
forces raided a farmhouse in northern Iraq at dawn, searching for
suspected members of al-Qaida in Iraq. Eight insurgents and four
Iraqi policemen were killed. In Mosul 2 US soldiers were killed by
small-arms fire.
(AP, 11/19/05)(SFC, 11/23/05, p.A3)
2005 Nov 19, Pope Benedict XVI
and Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi discussed relations between
the Catholic Church and Italy, amid accusations that the church
interferes in the country's domestic affairs.
(AP, 11/19/05)
2005 Nov 19, It was reported
that the Nipah virus, naturally found in bats, had moved to
Malaysian pigs. It killed about 40% of the 265 people it had
infected.
(Econ, 11/19/05, p.85)
2005 Nov 19, Prince Albert II
formally ascended to Monaco's throne in ceremonies that mixed royal
pomp with an emotional remembrance for his late father, Rainier III.
(AP, 11/19/05)
2005 Nov 19, In Peru Fernando
Zevallos, the founder of an airline that was Peru's largest until he
landed on Washington's list of "drug kingpins," was arrested on
cocaine trafficking and homicide charges.
(AP, 11/19/05)
2005 Nov 19, Sudanese troops
and rebels clashed in the western Darfur region clashed and a rebel
group said 14 civilians and eight insurgents had been killed in the
past 48 hours.
(Reuters, 11/20/05)
2005 Nov 19, Pope Benedict XVI
curbed the independence of Franciscan friars running the famed St.
Francis Basilica in Assisi, decreeing they must now get permission
for their activities from the local bishop.
(AP, 11/20/05)
2005 Nov 20, US President
George W. Bush pressed President Hu Jintao to rein in China's
swelling trade surplus and push forward currency reform after
calling for greater religious freedom. Hu Jintao has rebuffed Bush's
calls to allow greater religious and political freedom but promised
to show more flexibility on Sino-US economic disputes.
(AP, 11/20/05)
2005 Nov 20, In Tacoma, Wash.,
Dominick Sergio Maldonado (20) went on a shooting spree at a crowded
shopping mall. 7 people were injured, one critically, before he was
arrested. Maldonado has been charged with attempted murder and
kidnapping.
(AP, 11/20/06)
2005 Nov 20, Chris Whitley
(45), a chameleon singer-songwriter who oscillated between roots
rock 'n' roll, blues and alt-rock, died of lung cancer in Houston.
He recorded 11 albums since his 1991 debut, "Living with the Law,"
including “Dirt Floor" (1998) and this year's "Soft Dangerous
Shores."
(AP, 11/23/05)
2005 Nov 20, In Brazil TV da
Gente (Our TV), the 1st channel to be directed at Brazil’s black
population, was launched.
(SSFC, 11/27/05, p.A21)
2005 Nov 20, British military
said a British soldier was killed and four wounded by a roadside
bomb in Iraq's southern city of Basra. A total of 98 British
soldiers have been killed in Iraq, including 65 in hostile action,
since the US-led invasion in March 2003.
(AFP, 11/20/05)
2005 Nov 20, China reported two
new outbreaks of bird flu in which almost 3,700 poultry died and
more than 7,000 were culled as provinces hit by the deadly virus
tightened preventive measures.
(Reuters, 11/20/05)
2005 Nov 20, A helicopter
carrying a Colombian congressman and five others crashed Sunday in a
storm in the mountains north of Bogota, killing all aboard.
Conservative Party congressman Roberto Camacho, Cundinamarca state
deputy Efren Bejerano and former Cundinamarca deputy governor Adolfo
Leon were among those killed.
(AP, 11/20/05)
2005 Nov 20, Widespread
violence marred the second round of Egypt's parliamentary vote, with
police saying a campaign worker was shot and killed in Alexandria
and witnesses reporting scores of injuries. Police arrested 400
Muslim Brotherhood activists in a crackdown on the Islamist group.
(AP, 11/20/05)(Reuters, 11/20/05)
2005 Nov 20, Tropical Storm
Gamma weakened into a tropical depression after it deluged the
Central American coast, killing 14 people in Honduras and Belize. 2
US newlyweds were among the dead in Belize.
(AP, 11/20/05)(WSJ, 11/22/05, p.A1)
2005 Nov 20, Iran’s Parliament
approved a bill requiring the government to block international
inspections of its atomic facilities if the UN nuclear monitoring
agency refers Iran to the Security Council for possible sanctions.
(AP, 11/20/05)
2005 Nov 20, In Iraq a car bomb
exploded by a convoy carrying the mayor of Madaen killing 5
civilians. 3 bodies, all blindfolded and shot in the head, were
found in Sadr City. A headless body was found south of Baghdad. A
policeman was shot dead in Baghdad. A roadside bomb in Baghdad
killed a child and wounded 5 others. A US soldier was killed by
small arms fire north of Baghdad. A US marine died from wounds
suffered the previous day in Karma.
(SFC, 11/21/05, p.A6)
2005 Nov 20, Israel's dovish
Labor Party voted Sunday to pull out of PM Ariel Sharon's coalition
government, virtually assuring early general elections in March.
(AP, 11/20/05)
2005 Nov 20, Project manager
Junichiro Kawaguchi said Hayabusa, a Japanese spacecraft, has failed
to land on the Itokawa asteroid in the 2nd setback for the landmark
mission aiming to bring samples from such a celestial body to Earth
for the first time. The space agency, after evaluating more data,
said on Nov 23 that Hayabusa did land for a half-hour, but failed to
collect any material.
(AFP, 11/20/05)(SFC, 11/23/05, p.A16)
2005 Nov 20, Russian President
Vladimir Putin started a three-day visit to Japan but it appears
unlikely there will be any progress in settling a 60-year
territorial dispute that has prevented the two nations from formally
ending World War II hostilities.
(AP, 11/20/05)
2005 Nov 20, In Turkey 12
people were detained after Kurdish demonstrators hurled Molotov
cocktails and stones at the police during a protest in Istanbul.
(AFP, 11/20/05)
2005 Nov 20, The Vatican
beatified 13 Mexicans who died during a Roman Catholic uprising in
the late 1920s that was crushed by the Mexican government.
(AP, 11/20/05)
2005 Nov 20, Zimbabwe President
Robert Mugabe said he will turn to nuclear power by processing
recently discovered uranium deposits to resolve its chronic
electricity shortage.
(AP, 11/20/05)
2005 Nov 21, President Bush,
the first US chief executive to visit Mongolia, saluted Mongolia's
"fearless warriors" for helping his embattled effort to establish
democracy in the heart of the Middle East.
(AP, 11/21/05)
2005 Nov 21, The US federal
Centers for Disease Control said a man from Great Britain has been
diagnosed with the human form of mad cow disease, the 2nd documented
US case of the illness.
(AP, 11/22/05)
2005 Nov 21, Camden, NJ, was
named the most dangerous city in the USA for the 2nd year in a row
by the Morgan Quitno, a Kansa-based publishing and research company.
(SFC, 11/21/05, p.A2)
2005 Nov 21, In New Mexico,
police arrested Monsignor Dale Fushek (53), former vicar gen’l. of
the Phoenix Roman Catholic Diocese, on sex charges involving boys
and young men. On May 22, 2006, three of the 10 misdemeanor counts
were dismissed at the request of the prosecution. On December 5,
2006, the lawsuit filed on January 27, 2005, was settled by the
Diocese of Phoenix for $100,000. The settlement does not imply any
admission of guilt, according to the Diocesan attorney Mike Haran.
The case was dismissed with prejudice, which means it cannot be
refiled.
(SFC, 11/22/05,
p.A6)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dale_Fushek)
2005 Nov 21, General Motors
Corp. said it will eliminate 30,000 jobs and close nine North
American assembly, stamping and powertrain plants by 2008 as part of
an effort to get production in line with demand and position the
world's biggest automaker to start making money again after
absorbing nearly $4 billion in losses so far this year.
(AP, 11/21/05)
2005 Nov 21, Intel Corp. and
Micron Tech. announced plans to form a joint venture, IM Flash
Technologies LLC, to make flash memory for consumer tech gadgets.
(SFC, 11/22/05, p.C1)
2005 Nov 21, Hugh Sidey (78),
Time magazine political columnist, died in Paris.
(AP, 11/21/06)
2005 Nov 21, British
authorities said Diepreye Alamieyeseigha (1953), the governor of
Nigeria’s oil-rich state Bayelsa, has skipped bail and returned
home. He had been arrested and charged in Britain for laundering
millions.
(AP, 11/21/05)
2005 Nov 21, China ordered
already strict anti-bird flu measures tightened following two new
outbreaks in poultry, while Romania said it would destroy 2,000 farm
birds after finding the virus in hens and North Korea tightened
border controls.
(AP, 11/21/05)
2005 Nov 21, In Egypt ballot
results showed that the banned Muslim Brotherhood won about a
quarter of the parliamentary seats open in the second round of
balloting despite widespread violence that marred the voting.
(Reuters, 11/21/05)(AP, 11/22/05)
2005 Nov 21, In Egypt Iraqi
leaders backed a Sunni call for a timetable for the withdrawal of
U.S.-led forces and said Iraq's opposition had a "legitimate right"
of resistance. The announcement concluded a reconciliation
conference backed by the Arab League.
(AP, 11/22/05)(SFC, 11/22/05, p.A1)(WSJ,
11/22/05, p.A1)
2005 Nov 21, Egyptian forces
shot dead Salem Khadr al-Shnub, a Bedouin leader in the Sinai
peninsula. He was wanted over his suspected involvement in a string
of deadly bombings in the area. Two of Shnub's relatives, Sallam
Sweilam and Sallam Sallam Sweilam, were also killed in the clashes.
(AP, 11/21/05)
2005 Nov 21, EU foreign
ministers authorized the start of negotiations on an agreement to
prepare Bosnia for EU membership a decade after the Balkan nation
was ravaged by Europe's worst fighting since World War II. Leaders
of Bosnia's three major ethnic groups signed an accord designed to
unify the Balkans by remaking the government's constitutional
structure.
(AP, 11/21/05)(AP, 11/22/05)
2005 Nov 21, EU defense
ministers adopted a plan to open up their $35 billion arms industry
to increased cross-border competition within the 25-nation bloc, a
landmark move designed to cut costs for tight military budgets.
(AP, 11/21/05)
2005 Nov 21, France's PM
Villepin pledged to find more jobs for youths from poor suburbs,
where unrest continued to simmer and a high school guard suffered a
fatal heart attack trying to extinguish blazing cars.
(AP, 11/21/05)
2005 Nov 21, US forces
mistakenly fired on a civilian vehicle outside an American base in a
city north of Baghdad, killing 5 people, including 2 children.
Gunmen in Tarmiya killed 4 police officers. In Basra gunmen killed a
Sunni cleric. A US soldier was killed by a roadside bomb near
Habaniya.
(AP, 11/21/05)(SFC, 11/22/05, p.A13)(SFC,
11/23/05, p.A3)
2005 Nov 21, PM Ariel Sharon
asked Israel's president to dissolve parliament, pushing for a quick
March election just hours after deciding to leave his hard-line
Likud Party and to form a new centrist party.
(AP, 11/21/05)
2005 Nov 21, Kenya held a
referendum on the country’s 1st proper constitution since
independence. Voters divided into 2 factions over the referendum:
bananas called for a yes vote and oranges said no. Voters rejected
the new constitution (57-43%), supported by Pres. Kibaki, the most
serious political setback since he was elected nearly 3 years ago.
(AP, 11/22/05)(Econ, 11/26/05, p.58)
2005 Nov 21, Hezbollah
guerrillas in Lebanon fired mortars and rockets at Israeli troops in
a disputed border area, the first clash between the two sides in
five months. 4 Hezbollah guerrillas were killed in raids meant to
capture Israeli troops along the Lebanon border.
(AP, 11/21/05)(WSJ, 11/22/05, p.A1)
2005 Nov 21, The leaders of
Russia and Japan said the settlement of a 60-year-old dispute that
kept their nations from formally ending their World War II
hostilities requires closer economic cooperation and patient
trust-building as Tokyo backed Moscow's bid to join the World Trade
Organization.
(AP, 11/21/05)
2005 Nov 21, Moscow police
launched operation “Counterfeit,” a citywide sting operations aimed
at shutting down producers and sellers of counterfeit music, movies
and software, in the latest clampdown on rampant piracy that
threatens Russia's bid to join the WTO.
(AP, 11/24/05)
2005 Nov 21, Turkey's prime
minister rushed to the overwhelmingly Kurdish southeast and urged
calm after weeks of rioting, vowing that his government would
investigate charges that security forces, and not Kurdish
guerrillas, were behind a recent fatal bombing.
(AP, 11/21/05)
2005 Nov 21, A UN count of HIV
infections around the world topped 40.3 million.
(SFC, 11/22/05, p.A1)
2005 Nov 21, In Venezuela Pres.
Chavez pledged to help build a natural gas pipeline stretching from
Venezuela to Argentina during talks with Argentine leader Nestor
Kirchner.
(AP, 11/21/05)
2005 Nov 21, In Yemen a
tribesman threatened to kill two Swiss tourists he kidnapped if the
government uses force to free them. Hasan Ahmed al-Dhamen said that
he would kill his two hostages, a man and a woman, if security
forces tried to raid his hide-out.
(AP, 11/21/05)
2005 Nov 21, Zimbabwe's
state-owned national airline grounded its entire fleet after running
out of fuel as the southern African country's economy continues to
crumble.
(Reuters, 11/22/05)
2005 Nov 22, The US Commerce
Dept. said it will comply with a Nafta panel’s order to drastically
cut US duties on imports of Canadian softwood lumber. In December
the Commerce Dept. Said it will cut import duties in half to 10.81%.
Canada continued to press for duties to be dropped entirely.
(WSJ, 11/23/05, p.A14)(WSJ, 12/7/05, p.A16)
2005 Nov 22, The US said it has
lifted an arms embargo against Indonesia, ending a six-year ban on
military aid to the world's most populous Muslim nation imposed due
to human rights concerns.
(AP, 11/22/05)
2005 Nov 22, Massachusetts
signed an agreement with Venezuela to obtain discounted home heating
oil. Democrat Rep. William Delahunt helped broker the deal.
(WSJ, 11/23/05, p.A14)
2005 Nov 22, A federal jury in
Virginia found Ahmed Omar Abu Ali (24), a US citizen, guilty of
numerous charges to commit acts of terrorism. Abu Ali was arrested
in Medina in June 2003 as Saudi authorities were investigating a
wave of bombings. In 2008 a federal appeals court upheld the
conviction, but ordered a new sentencing hearing. In 2009 he was
sentenced to life in prison for plotting to kill Pres. George W.
Bush.
(SFC, 11/23/05, p.A14)(SFC, 6/7/08, p.A3)(SFC,
7/27/09, p.A5)
2005 Nov 22, An indictment
against Jose Padilla, a U.S. citizen held without charges for more
than three years on suspicion of plotting a "dirty bomb" attack in
the US, was unsealed with three counts alleging he conspired to
"murder, maim and kidnap" people overseas.
(AP, 11/22/05)
2005 Nov 22, Ted Koppel hosted
his final edition of ABC News' "Nightline."
(AP, 11/22/06)
2005 Nov 22, Winners were
announced at the 33rd annual American Music Awards in LA. In the
Pop-Rock category winners included Male artist: Will Smith; Female
artist: Gwen Stefani; Band, duo or group: The Black Eyed Peas;
Album: "American Idiot," Green Day.
(AP, 11/23/05)
2005 Nov 22, Motor Trend
magazine named the Honda Civic as 2006 Car of the Year.
(AP, 11/22/05)
2005 Nov 22, Microsoft released
its Xbox 360 videogame console.
(WSJ, 11/22/05, p.A1)
2005 Nov 22, In southern
Afghanistan a roadside bomb tore through an American armored
vehicle, killing a U.S. soldier and an Afghan interpreter. Militants
near Kabul shot and killed an Afghan working as the head of security
for a Turkish construction company. Villagers found the body of
Maniappan Raman Kutty, a kidnapped Indian, who had almost been
decapitated, in Nimroz province's Dilaram district.
(AP, 11/23/05)
2005 Nov 22, At least 100,000
opposition demonstrators told Bangladesh's Islamist-allied
government to "quit now" as they rallied in the capital while police
kept watch to avert religious extremist violence.
(AP, 11/22/05)
2005 Nov 22, China’s
northeastern city of Harbin said its water system will be shut down
for four days to check for contamination from a Nov. 13 chemical
plant explosion, setting off panic buying of bottled water among its
3 million residents.
(AP, 11/22/05)(AP, 11/25/05)
2005 Nov 22, A woman farmer in
east China died from bird flu after contact with sick poultry,
becoming the third confirmed human case in the country and the 2nd
confirmed fatality.
(AFP, 11/23/05)
2005 Nov 22, French President
Jacques Chirac called for negotiations to end a nationwide rail
strike that caused commuter chaos and posed a new threat to his
government, just days after urban riots abated.
(Reuters, 11/22/05)
2005 Nov 22, French union
leaders decided to recommend an end to a strike that disrupted
French train service, saying they were satisfied with concessions
offered by the national rail operator SNCF.
(AP, 11/22/05)
2005 Nov 22, Angela Merkel was
elected as Germany's first female chancellor, taking power at the
helm of an unwieldy alliance of the right and left that now
officially has the job of turning around Europe's biggest economy.
(AP, 11/22/05)
2005 Nov 22, In Honduras
officials raised the death toll from a tropical storm that hit over
the weekend to 32 with 13 people missing.
(AP, 11/22/05)
2005 Nov 22, In India elections
results left the Rashtrija Janata Dal party (RJD) with just 54 of
243 seats in Bihar’s legislative assembly. Laloo Prasad Yadav
and the RJD had ruled Bihar, a state of 83 million people, since
1990. Bihar elected Nitish Kumar as chief minister.
(Econ, 11/26/05, p.50)(Econ, 1/6/07, p.36)
2005 Nov 22, Iraqi and US
troops launched an operation in predominately Sunni western Iraq to
prevent insurgents from stopping the vote in that city.
(AP, 11/23/05)
2005 Nov 22, In Iraq insurgents
in Kirkuk exploded a car bomb amid a police convoy killing 21 people
including at least 9 police officers.
(SFC, 11/23/05, p.A3)(WSJ, 11/23/05, p.A1)
2005 Nov 22, Israeli warplanes
struck in Lebanon in what Israeli Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz
described as the largest-scale Israeli response to cross-border
attacks by Lebanese guerrillas since 2000.
(AP, 11/22/05)
2005 Nov 22, Japan's Liberal
Democratic Party marked its 50th anniversary by unveiling a proposed
revision to the country's pacifist constitution that would end the
ban on having a military and give the armed forces a more assertive
international role.
(AP, 11/22/05)
2005 Nov 22, Ministers from the
114 members of the Nonaligned Movement ended a 2-day conference in
Malaysia and agreed to launch an Internet-based news network to
counter what they called prejudiced reporting by Western media.
Bernama, Malaysia’s state news agency, will oversee the network.
(WSJ, 11/23/05, p.A14)
2005 Nov 22, Nepal's communist
rebels and seven main political parties said they have reached an
agreement to bolster opposition to King Gyanendra.
(AP, 11/22/05)
2005 Nov 22, Detectives
arrested a suspected Irish Republican Army dissident on suspicion of
involvement in a 1998 car-bombing that killed 29 people in Omagh.
(AP, 11/22/05)
2005 Nov 22, The United States
and its partners in an energy consortium terminated a project to
build two light-water atomic reactors for North Korea as an
incentive to convince Pyongyang to dismantle its nuclear weapons
program.
(AP, 11/23/05)
2005 Nov 22, Nestle SA, the
world's biggest food company, said it has recalled hundreds of
thousands of gallons of baby milk from France, Portugal, Spain and
Italy after traces of ink from the packaging were found in the
product.
(AP, 11/22/05)
2005 Nov 22, A gunman opened
fire with a Kalashnikov assault rifle at a primary school in
Turkey's troubled southeast, killing one male teacher and wounding
four other people.
(AP, 11/22/05)
2005 Nov 22, Pope Benedict XVI
created the diocese of Ba Ria, in the Vietnam province of the same
name, by dividing up the existing diocese of Xuan Loc. He named
Monsignor Thomas Nguen Van Tram bishop of Ba Ria. Vietnam had an
estimated 6 million Catholics.
(AP, 11/22/05)
2005 Nov 22, The UN’s food and
farming body renewed its plea for more effort to improve agriculture
in poor countries to ease hunger and malnutrition which kill nearly
6 million children a year.
(AP, 11/22/05)
2005 Nov 22, Vietnamese health
officials said a teenager has been confirmed with the H5N1 bird flu
virus.
(Reuters, 11/22/05)
2005 Nov 23, A federal jury in
New York convicted Uzair Paracha (25), a Pakistani man detained in
2003, of providing material support to terrorists and other related
charges. His father was being held as an enemy combatant at
Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
(SFC, 11/23/05, p.A15)
2005 Nov 23, Dr. Thomas Dawber
(92) died in Florida. He led the revolutionary Framingham Heart
Study (1949-1966) that identified the major risk factors for heart
disease.
(www.nytimes.com/2005/12/01/national/01dawber.html)
2005 Nov 23, A commuter train
slammed into several vehicles caught in a traffic jam on a busy road
in Elmwood Park, Ill., starting a chain reaction that injured at
least 10 people.
(AP, 11/23/06)
2005 Nov 23, In SF 2 killings
on Turk Street raised the city’s homicide toll this year to 90, 2
more than in all of 2004.
(SFC, 11/24/05, p.B1)
2005 Nov 23, In California
several men, who appeared to be Black Muslims, vandalized 2 West
Oakland corner markets. Police later arrested Yusuf Bey IV (19) and
Donald Eugene Cunningham (73) and sought 4 others. Suspects Kahlil
Raheem (24) and Yasir Hakeem Azzem (19) were arrested Dec 7.
Suspects Dyamen Namer Williams (19) and Demetrius Lamar Harvey (20)
were arrested Jan 2. Elijah Allen (33) was arrested Feb 21, 2006. In
2008 all the suspects pleaded no contest.
(SFC, 11/30/05, p.A1)(SFC, 12/9/05, p.B3)(SFC,
1/4/06, p.B5)(SFC, 2/22/06, p.B10)(SFC, 7/31/08, p.B3)
2005 Nov 23, Constance Cummings
(95) American-born actress died in Oxfordshire, England.
(AP, 11/23/06)
2005 Nov 23, Suspected Taliban
militants shot to death three Afghan police, a day after a roadside
bombing killed a US service member in the same Uruzgan province.
(AP, 11/24/05)
2005 Nov 23, A UN report said
cultivation of opium poppies decreased in Afghanistan this year for
the first time since 2001, a success that saw one in every five
farmers abandon the drug-producing plant for legal crops.
(AP, 11/24/05)
2005 Nov 23, Australia's PM
John Howard visited Pakistan's devastated earthquake zone and
announced a further 37 million dollars in aid for victims of the
disaster.
(AP, 11/23/05)
2005 Nov 23, In Britain and
Wales the early pub closing times, that had governed drinking in
Britain since their introduction during World War I, were set to end
at midnight. The laws had required most pubs to close at 11 p.m.
Monday to Saturday and 10:30 p.m. on Sundays. New rules allowed
pubs, bars, shops, restaurants and clubs to apply to open any hours
they like, although each license must be approved by local
authorities.
(AP, 11/23/05)
2005 Nov 23, In Chile former
dictator Gen. Augusto Pinochet was indicted and put under house
arrest on charges of tax evasion and corruption related to his
multimillion-dollar overseas accounts.
(AP, 11/23/05)
2005 Nov 23, In Colombia
soldiers near Villa Hermosa captured Arcesio Lamus, leader of the
Bolshevik Front of the National Liberation Army, suspected of
carrying out more than a dozen kidnappings and other terrorist
attacks over the past two decades.
(AP, 11/24/05)
2005 Nov 23, Cuba announced a
major increase in government salaries saying that it wanted to
reward workers with high productivity and advanced university
degrees.
(AP, 11/23/05)
2005 Nov 23, Egypt's
parliamentary polls claimed a 2nd victim when supporters of a
newly-elected MP seized backers of a losing candidate, tied them to
the back of tractors and dragged them through the streets.
(AFP, 11/23/05)
2005 Nov 23, France's Cabinet
approved a plan to put a tax on airline tickets starting next year
to finance efforts against poverty and disease in the developing
world.
(AP, 11/23/05)
2005 Nov 23, Georgian President
Mikhail Saakashvili predicted his country will become a member of
the Western military alliance NATO by 2009.
(Reuters, 11/24/05)
2005 Nov 23, Gunmen wearing
Iraqi army uniforms broke into the home of Khadim Sarhid
al-Hemaiyem, a senior Sunni leader, and killed him, his three sons
and son-in-law.
(AP, 11/23/05)
2005 Nov 23, Hezbollah
guerrillas clashed with Israeli soldiers on the southern Lebanese
border.
(AP, 11/23/05)
2005 Nov 23, Officials declared
Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf the winner of Liberia's first postwar
balloting, making her Africa's first elected female president. She
pledged in her acceptance speech to end Liberia's history of
corrupt, brutal and male-dominated rule.
(AP, 11/23/05)
2005 Nov 23, A NATO official
said Uzbekistan has told NATO allies they can no longer use its
territory or airspace to support peacekeeping missions in
neighboring Afghanistan.
(AP, 11/23/05)
2005 Nov 23, In Nigeria a
Bayelsa state government spokesman said an impeachment notice has
been filed against Governor Diepreye Alamieyeseigha, who skipped
bail in London, accusing him of money laundering, holding illegal
foreign bank accounts, corruptly enriching his family and
misappropriating public funds among other offenses.
(AP, 11/23/05)
2005 Nov 23, In Peru officials
said police will begin patrolling Peru's famed Inca Trail following
the recent armed robbery of 13 tourists.
(AP, 11/24/05)
2005 Nov 23, Poland's two
leading newspapers blacked out large sections of their front pages
in an eye-catching protest against media repression in neighboring
Belarus.
(AP, 11/23/05)
2005 Nov 23, Spanish police
arrested 11 people suspected of financing and giving logistical
support to an Islamic extremist group linked to al-Qaida.
(AP, 11/23/05)
2005 Nov 23, Sudan and Uganda
said they have renewed a deal letting Ugandan troops pursue leaders
of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) rebels deep into Sudanese
territory.
(AP, 11/23/05)
2005 Nov 24, A giant balloon in
the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York snagged a street
light and caused part of it to fall, injuring a woman and a child.
(AP, 11/24/06)
2005 Nov 24, Actor Pat Morita
(73), whose portrayal of the wise and dry-witted Mr. Miyagi in "The
Karate Kid" (1984) earned him an Oscar nomination, died at his home
in Las Vegas.
(AP, 11/25/05)
2005 Nov 24, In Canada
opposition parties introduced a no-confidence motion that is
expected to topple PM Paul Martin's government and force a
parliamentary election campaign during the Christmas holidays.
(AP, 11/24/05)
2005 Nov 24, Former Chilean
dictator Gen. Augusto Pinochet was indicted on human rights charges
and placed under house arrest, hours after he made bail on unrelated
corruption charges filed only a day earlier.
(AP, 11/24/05)
2005 Nov 24, A man in south
China was sentenced to death for leading a gang that kidnapped 38
children and sold them to other families for adoption.
(AP, 11/25/05)
2005 Nov 24, In China a slick
of river-borne toxins from a chemical plant explosion flowed into
Harbin as the government dug wells after shutting down its water
system to protect residents. A 50-mile-long patch of water carrying
toxic benzene began entering Harbin, a city of 3.8 million people in
China's northeast, before dawn. A chemical plant explosion Nov. 13
in the nearby city of Jilin spewed toxic benzene into the Songhua
River.
(AP, 11/24/05)
2005 Nov 24, In southwestern
China an explosion at the Yingte Chemical Company in Dianjiang
killed one worker. This prompted fears of a 2nd benzene leak and
warnings to residents not to drink river water.
(AP, 11/25/05)
2005 Nov 24, Colombian
President Alvaro Uribe met with Venezuela's Hugo Chavez to try to
help bridge differences in Latin America.
(AP, 11/24/05)
2005 Nov 24, In southwestern
Colombia the Galeras volcano became active at dawn and dumped heaps
of ash on the city of Pasto, 12 miles away.
(AP, 11/24/05)
2005 Nov 24, In Costa Rica
thousands of supporters of a free trade pact for Central America
marched through San Jose. The group of about 5,000 mainly workers
and business owners urged Congress to approve the pact known as
CAFTA.
(AP, 11/24/05)
2005 Nov 24, Indonesia expelled
Sidney Jones, an American expert on Southeast Asian terrorist
networks for one year, saying her activities could cause public
disorder.
(AP, 11/25/05)
2005 Nov 24, In central Iraq a
suicide car bomber targeting US troops handing out toys to children
at a hospital killed 34 people, including 4 police guards, 3 women
and 2 children.
(AP, 11/24/05)(Reuters, 11/24/05)
2005 Nov 24, A suicide car
bomber attacked a crowded market in Hilla, south of Baghdad, on
Thursday killing at least 4 people and wounding 23 others.
(Reuters, 11/24/05)
2005 Nov 24, In Israel Ariel
Sharon's fledgling political party "Forward" officially registered
itself.
(AP, 11/24/05)
2005 Nov 24, The anti-terror
bureau of PM Ariel Sharon's office issued an unprecedented alert,
warning that Hezbollah has launched an effort to kidnap Israelis
anywhere in the world.
(AP, 11/26/05)
2005 Nov 24, Iyad Abu Rob, a
top Islamic Jihad militant, surrendered to Israeli soldiers in
Jenin. In a separate operation, 2 wanted men surrendered after
Israeli troops surrounded two houses in the village of Kfar Kalil
near Nablus. Another man was shot, but his condition was not known.
(AP, 11/24/05)
2005 Nov 24, Japan finalized an
agreement to forgive $6.1 billion of Iraqi debt, or about 80% of the
total owed by Baghdad.
(AP, 11/24/05)
2005 Nov 24, Jordan's King
Abdullah II named Marouf al-Bakhit as the new prime minister hours
after the resignation of Adnan Badran. The king urged the new PM to
launch an all-out war against Islamic militancy in the wake of the
triple hotel bombings earlier this month that killed 63 people.
(AP, 11/24/05)(SFC, 11/25/05, p.A3)
2005 Nov 24, In Northern
Ireland Abbas Boutrab (32), an Algerian man, was convicted of
possessing information on making a concealed bomb that could be used
to blow up a commercial airliner. Police initially arrested Boutrab
in 2003 on suspicion of being an illegal immigrant.
(AP, 11/24/05)
2005 Nov 24, Peruvian lawmakers
voted to trim a hefty year-end bonus, bowing to public outrage in
one of Latin America's poorest countries.
(AP, 11/24/05)
2005 Nov 24, In Peru 16 people
were killed when a passenger bus plunged into a river.
(AP, 11/24/05)
2005 Nov 24, Russia’s Pres.
Putin vowed to make sure a controversial bill tightening state
control over the nonprofit sector doesn’t harm civil society.
(WSJ, 11/25/05, p.A9)
2005 Nov 24, Serbia's president
Boris Tadic formally proposed dividing Kosovo between its
independence-seeking Albanian majority and a Serb minority as the
chief UN mediator met with government officials.
(AP, 11/25/05)
2005 Nov 24, The UN food agency
said the United States has thrown a lifeline to six southern African
countries, donating food aid valued at $45 million. The food will be
distributed across Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Swaziland, Zambia
and Zimbabwe.
(AP, 11/24/05)
2005 Nov 24, Uzbek authorities
arrested Rukhitdin Fahrutdinov (38), an alleged Islamic radical and
their most wanted fugitive, who had been hiding out in neighboring
Kazakhstan. Human Rights Watch said Fahrutdinov was detained in
Shymkent with at least 8 other Uzbek suspects and that all were
extradited secretly and forcibly.
(AP, 12/24/05)
2005 Nov 25, It was reported
that thieves in Baltimore had stolen some 130 aluminum light poles
over the last few weeks.
(SFC, 11/25/05, p.A8)
2005 Nov 25, Massachusetts’
attorney general said it is opening an investigation into several
supermarkets that opened on Thanksgiving in defiance of the state’s
Puritan-era blue laws.
(SFC, 11/26/05, p.C2)
2005 Nov 25, Nine inmates
escaped from the Yakima County Jail in Washington state; all were
recaptured, although one was at large for three weeks.
(AP, 11/25/06)
2005 Nov 25, Members of the
Convention on Migratory Species (CMS) gave the title of "endangered"
to 11 new species.
(AP, 11/25/05)
2005 Nov 25, In Afghanistan a
Swedish soldier died from wounds suffered in a roadside bomb blast.
He was one of 4 wounded by the blast in Mazar-e-Sharif.
(AP, 11/26/05)
2005 Nov 25, The European
Project for Ice Coring in Antarctica reported that carbon dioxide in
the current atmosphere is greater than at any time during the last
650,000 years.
(SFC, 11/25/05, p.A1)
2005 Nov 25, In Belgium a
one-day strike interrupted production at the Volkswagen AG plant in
the outskirts of Brussels as trade unions protested planned
government changes to retirement policy.
(AP, 11/25/05)
2005 Nov 25, George Best (59),
one of the most dazzling players in soccer history who also reveled
in a hard-drinking, playboy lifestyle, died in London after decades
of alcohol abuse.
(AP, 11/25/05)
2005 Nov 25, Canada pledged
$4.3 billion in a landmark deal with Indian and northern Inuit
communities to help lift them from the poverty and disease that has
plagued their neglected reserves for more than a century.
(AP, 11/26/05)
2005 Nov 25, Pushing China's
foreign exchange reform ahead by another step, the central bank
carried out its first currency swap deals with local banks in a move
that could help bring more flexibility to the market.
(AP, 11/25/05)
2005 Nov 25, China's Ministry
of Agriculture confirmed a bird flu outbreak in Zalantun city in
northern China's Inner Mongolia bringing to 23 the number of
outbreaks of the disease.
(Reuters, 11/25/05)
2005 Nov 25, Newspapers in
Dubai reported that police had raided a hotel chalet in Ghantout and
arrested 26 men as they celebrated a wedding ceremony. 22 of the 26
arrested were from the Emirates.
(SSFC, 11/27/05, p.A23)
2005 Nov 25, EU Enlargement
Commissioner Olli Rehn officially opened landmark negotiations on
closer ties between Bosnia and the 25-member European Union.
(AP, 11/25/05)
2005 Nov 25, In Guadeloupe
youths set up flaming tire barricades and threw rocks at police in
clashes sparked by a motorcycle crash at a police checkpoint.
(AP, 11/25/05)
2005 Nov 25, In India more than
60 people were feared drowned after two crowded buses were washed
away in floods in the southern state of Tamil Nadu.
(AP, 11/25/05)
2005 Nov 25, Indonesia said it
would begin producing the bird flu drug Tamiflu, while Vietnam and
China reported new outbreaks of the virus among poultry.
(AP, 11/25/05)
2005 Nov 25, Susanne Osthoff, a
German aid worker and archaeologist, was kidnapped in Iraq; she was
released more than three weeks later.
(AP, 11/25/06)
2005 Nov 25, Israel handed over
the remains of three Hezbollah guerrillas to Lebanon in a bid to
defuse tensions after fierce border clashes, but Hezbollah's leader
said his group will keep trying to kidnap Israeli soldiers.
(AP, 11/25/05)
2005 Nov 25, Across Italy
public transportation ground to a halt, public offices shut down and
thousands rallied as part of a general strike against the
government's 2006 budget.
(AP, 11/25/05)
2005 Nov 25, In Lithuania the
prosecutor general's office said a Lithuanian man suspected of
helping Nazis round up Jews during World War II will stand trial in
a Vilnius court. Algimantas Dailide (84), who moved to the US in
1955 and lived there until he was deported in 2003 for lying about
his wartime past, is accused of being a member of the Nazi-sponsored
Lithuanian Security Police, known as the Saugumas, which took part
in the arrests of Jews during the war.
(AP, 11/25/05)
2005 Nov 25, Palestinian leader
Mahmoud Abbas opened the Gaza-Egypt border in a festive ceremony, a
milestone for the Palestinians who for the first time took control
of a frontier crossing without Israeli veto powers and gained some
freedom of movement.
(AP, 11/25/05)
2005 Nov 25, Palestinian leader
Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah party held primaries in six West Bank cities to
choose candidates for a January parliament election.
(AP, 11/25/05)
2005 Nov 25, Poland's defense
minister signed an order that will give researchers access to most
of the Warsaw Pact's top-secret archives, including decisions
related to the 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia.
(AP, 11/25/05)
2005 Nov 25, Hissene Habre,
Chad's former dictator, was freed after a Senegalese court said it
had no jurisdiction to rule on his extradition to Belgium to stand
trial for war crimes.
(AP, 11/25/05)
2005 Nov 25, Slovakia joined
the European Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM) as a first step towards
adopting the European Union's common euro currency.
(AFP, 11/26/05)
2005 Nov 25, Swiss authorities
said they will block major foreign acquisitions by the
telecommunications operator Swisscom because of financial risk to
the state, which holds most of the company's shares.
(AFP, 11/25/05)
2005 Nov 25, In Vietnam former
British glam rocker Gary Glitter was charged with committing
"obscene acts with children" and could face more serious charges
that carry the death penalty.
(AP, 11/25/05)
2005 Nov 26, The US military
said 4 US soldiers face disciplinary action for burning the bodies
of two Taliban rebels, but they will not be charged with crimes
because their actions were motivated by hygienic concerns.
(AP, 11/26/05)
2005 Nov 26, The SF Bay Area
crab fleet ended their pricing standoff after pacific Seafood agreed
to a $1.75 price per pound.
(SSFC, 11/27/05, p.A1)
2005 Nov 26, Stan Berenstain
(82), who with wife Jan wrote and illustrated the Berenstain Bear
books, died in suburban Philadelphia.
(AP, 11/26/06)
2005 Nov 26, Afghanistan’s
defense ministry said troops foiled a bomb attack in Kabul with the
arrest of six suspected militants and their explosives-packed
vehicle.
(AFP, 11/26/05)
2005 Nov 26, Suspected Taliban
militants burned down a district police headquarters and abducted
four officers.
(AP, 11/26/05)
2005 Nov 26, In Azerbaijan
truncheon-wielding police in riot gear beat opposition protesters
who gathered in Baku shouting "Freedom!" and demanding a revote of
disputed parliamentary elections.
(AP, 11/26/05)
2005 Nov 25, In Bangladesh
thousands of women rallied in Dhaka to demand that developed nations
open their doors to workers and products from poor nations.
(AP, 11/25/05)
2005 Nov 26, Bosnia's southern
town of Mostar unveiled the world's first statue of kung fu legend
Bruce Lee, paying homage to a childhood hero of all its divided
ethnic groups.
(Reuters, 11/28/05)
2005 Nov 26, A magnitude 5.7
earthquake shook part of central China, killing at least 15 people,
injuring more than 450 and destroying hundreds of buildings.
(AP, 11/26/05)
2005 Nov 26, Police detained at
least 140 members of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood as Egyptians voted
in a parliamentary runoff.
(AP, 11/26/05)
2005 Nov 26, In India
Sohrabuddin Sheikh, a suspected extortioner whose murdered. The
police initially claimed that Sohrabuddin was a terrorist with
Lashkar-e-Toiba connections, and had died while trying to escape.
The killing was orchestrated by senior police officers of the Indian
Police Service, and was allegedly ordered by Gujarat minister for
home Amit Shah.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sohrabuddin_Sheikh_fake_encounter)
2005 Nov 26, Vijaypat Singhania
(67), an Indian textile millionaire, apparently broke the world
record for the highest flight in a hot air balloon. His son Gautam
Singhania said the 44-ton balloon climbed nearly 70,000 feet. The
previous world record was 64,997 feet, set by Sweden's Per
Lindstrand in Plano, Texas, in June 1988.
(AP, 11/26/05)
2005 Nov 26, In Iraq a suicide
bomber drove his pickup truck into a crowded gas station north of
Baghdad and killed 12 people. A 2nd car bomb targeting a convoy of
foreigners killed four others in the capital.
(AP, 11/26/05)
2005 Nov 26, A US Marine died
when his vehicle was hit by a roadside bomb near Camp Taqaddum, 45
miles west of Baghdad. Iraqi police arrested 8 Sunni Arabs in the
northern city of Kirkuk for allegedly plotting to assassinate the
investigating judge who prepared the case against Saddam Hussein.
(AP, 11/27/05)
2005 Nov 26, In Iraq 4
humanitarian workers, including two Canadians, were kidnapped.
Canadian hostages James Loney (41), and Harmeet Singh Sooden (32);
Tom Fox (54), of Clear Brook, Va., and Norman Kember (74), of
London, had been warned repeatedly by Iraqi and Western security
officials before being abducted that they were taking a grave risk
by moving around Baghdad without bodyguards. Fox’s body was found
Mar 9, 2006.
(CP, 11/27/05)(AP, 1/28/06)(AP, 3/11/06)
2005 Nov 26, Japan reported
that its space probe Hayabusa had landed on the surface of the
Itokawa asteroid and then collected rock samples that could give
clues to the origin of the solar system. Data on the sample
collection was later subject to question.
(Reuters, 11/26/05)(AP, 12/07/05)
2005 Nov 26, Preliminary
results showed jailed Palestinian uprising leader Marwan Barghouti
and other younger activists swept Fatah primaries, signaling a
change of generations that could make the corruption-tainted ruling
party more attractive to voters in Jan. 25 parliament elections.
(AP, 11/26/05)
2005 Nov 26, In Zimbabwe senate
elections drew a low turnout under partial boycotting by the
opposition over accusations the poll is designed to consolidate
President Robert Mugabe's rule.
(Reuters, 11/26/05)
2005 Nov 27, In Santa Maria,
Ca., a Greyhound bus overturned, killing two people and injuring
dozens of others.
(AP, 11/27/05)
2005 Nov 27, Actress Jocelyn
Brando (86), older sister of Marlon Brando, died in Santa Monica,
Calif.
(AP, 11/27/06)
2005 Nov 27, Joe Jones (79)
died in Los Angeles. He sang the 1961 hit "You Talk Too Much."
(AP, 11/27/06)
2005 Nov 27, Residents of
Chechnya began voting in the latest in a series of elections that
are part of efforts to bring stability and peace.
(AP, 11/27/05)
2005 Nov 27, Running water was
restored in Harbin, China, a city of 3.8 million people where a
chemical spill forced a 5-day shutdown. Officials warned it was not
immediately safe to drink.
(AP, 11/27/05)
2005 Nov 27, In northeast China
coal dust caught fire at the Dongfeng coal mine in the city of Qitai
while 221 miners were working underground. The final death toll
reached 171. In 2007 the owner and four employees of the mine were
sentenced to prison terms ranging from 3 1/2 to six years.
(AP, 11/28/05)(AP, 12/06/05)(AP, 12/22/07)
2005 Nov 27, Colombian
President Alvaro Uribe formally announced that he will run for a
second term in next year's elections, saying he needed four more
years to accomplish his goals of restoring security to the country
and spurring economic growth.
(AP, 11/27/05)
2005 Nov 27, In Egypt the
outlawed Muslim Brotherhood captured 29 more seats in weekend
parliamentary runoff elections.
(AP, 11/27/05)
2005 Nov 27, Doctors in France
performed the world's first partial face transplant on a woman
disfigured by a dog bite; Isabelle Dinoire received the lips, nose
and chin of a brain-dead woman in a 15-hour operation.
(AP, 11/27/06)
2005 Nov 27, Gabon President
Omar Bongo, Africa's longest-serving ruler, was re-elected to
another seven-year term in office with a landslide 79% of the vote.
(AP, 11/29/05)
2005 Nov 27, Hondurans voted
for president with Porfiro Lobo, a hard-line death penalty proponent
of the ruling National Party, favored over Manuel Zelaya, the
Liberal Party candidate. Opposition candidate Mel Zelaya, who vowed
to reinvigorate the economy by eliminating government corruption,
was elected as the country's new president.
(WSJ, 11/26/05, p.A1)(AP, 11/28/05)
2005 Nov 27, Honduran police
recaptured Herlan Colindres (16), who is accused of killing Timothy
Markey, a US Drug Enforcement Administration agent on July 29 this
year. It was Colindres’ second escape in less than four months and
the fifth in three years.
(AP, 11/27/05)
2005 Nov 27, In southern Iran
an earthquake measuring at least magnitude-5.9 shook a sparsely
populated area, flattening seven villages and killing 10 people.
(AP, 11/27/05)
2005 Nov 27, Voters in
Liechtenstein soundly rejected an initiative that critics said would
have prevented abortion, birth control, assisted suicide and living
wills.
(AP, 11/27/05)
2005 Nov 27, A Home Ministry
source said Myanmar's military junta has extended opposition leader
and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi's period of house
arrest for another 12 months.
(AP, 11/27/05)
2005 Nov 27, Philippine
President Gloria Arroyo declared the 23rd Southeast Asian Games open
in a glittering ceremony at the Aquino sports stadium in Central
Manila. An estimated 5,336 athletes will compete in 41 events which
will run from November 27 to December 5. The 11 participating
countries included Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia,
Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, East Timor and
Vietnam.
(AP, 11/27/05)
2005 Nov 27, Two women were
elected to a chamber of commerce in Jiddah, the first to win any
such post in Saudi Arabia, where women are largely barred from
political life.
(AP, 11/30/05)
2005 Nov 27, Senegal's foreign
minister said the African Union will decide the fate of Chad's
former dictator, wanted in Belgium for trial on human-rights abuses
allegedly committed during his regime.
(AP, 11/28/05)
2005 Nov 27, Pirates freed a
Ukrainian cargo ship seized nearly 40 days ago off the coast of
Somalia. The Panahia and its 22 crew members were seized Oct 18. It
was not immediately clear if the $700,000 ransom demanded by the
pirates had been paid.
(AP, 11/27/05)
2005 Nov 27, Swiss voters
approved a blanket five-year ban on the use of genetically modified
organisms in farming. Switzerland already prohibits most of such
technology from being used in agriculture.
(AP, 11/27/05)
2005 Nov 27, In Yemen a
suspected al-Qaida ally was executed by a firing squad after being
convicted of killing a prominent politician and plotting a deadly
attack on three American missionaries in 2002.
(AP, 11/27/05)
2005 Nov 27, Zimbabwe's ruling
party swept an overwhelming majority of seats in a newly created
Senate, according to partial results from an election marked by
record-low turnout and a deeply divided opposition.
(AP, 11/27/05)
2005 Nov 28, Randy "Duke"
Cunningham (63), a Republican US congressman, resigned after
pleading guilty in San Diego, Ca., to taking 2.4 million dollars in
bribes in return from a military contractor to influence the award
of defense deals. Cunningham’s exploits as a Navy fighter pilot
inspired the 1986 film “Top Gun.” In 2007 Seth Hettena authored
“Feasting on the Spoils: The Life and Times of Randy “Duke”
Cunningham, History’s Most Corrupt Congressman,” and Marcus Stern,
Jerry Kammer, Dean Calbreath, and George E. Condon Jr. authored, a
team from the San Diego Tribune, ”The Wrong Stuff.”
(AFP, 11/28/05)(Econ, 12/3/05, p.32)
2005 Nov 28, A new phenomenon
called “Cyber Monday” took effect as millions of Americans returned
to work after the Thanksgiving and used office computers to shop for
Christmas presents.
(Econ, 12/3/05, p.57)
2005 Nov 28, Drugmaker Merck
& Co. said it will cut 7,000 jobs, 11% of its work force, and
close or sell five manufacturing plants in the first phase of a
reorganization meant to save up to $4 billion by the end of the
decade.
(AP, 11/28/05)
2005 Nov 28, Marc Lawrence
(95), actor who often played the bad guy, died in Palm Springs. His
films included “Shepherd of the Hills” (1941) and “From Dusk Till
Dawn” (1996).
(SFC, 12/6/05, p.B5)
2005 Nov 28, In Canada
opposition parties seized upon a corruption scandal to bring down
the minority government of PM Paul Martin in a vote of no
confidence. The Conservative Party teamed up with the New Democratic
and Bloc Quebecois parties to bring down the government, claiming
the ruling Liberal Party had lost its moral authority.
(AP, 11/29/05)
2005 Nov 28, Thousands of
environmentalists and government officials from around the world
gathered in Montreal for a UN conference to brainstorm on how to
slow the effects of greenhouses gases and global warming. The US
defended its decision not to sign the Kyoto Protocol, saying during
the opening of a global summit on climate change that it is doing
more than most countries to protect the earth's atmosphere.
(AP, 11/28/05)
2005 Nov 28, A top pro-Kremlin
party led in early returns from Chechnya's first parliamentary
election since federal troops reinvaded more than six years ago, and
President Vladimir Putin hailed the vote as a key to restoring law
and order.
(AP, 11/28/05)
2005 Nov 28, In eastern
Democratic Republic of Congo, at least 60 people were killed when
they were swept off the roof of a train into the river below as the
train crossed a bridge.
(AP, 11/29/05)
2005 Nov 28, Egyptian police
arrested nearly 200 Muslim Brotherhood activists in a crackdown the
opposition Islamist group said was designed to weaken its chances in
parliamentary elections this week.
(AP, 11/28/05)
2005 Nov 28, EU Justice and
Home Affairs Commissioner Franco Frattini warned that that any of
the 25 bloc nations found to have operated secret CIA prisons could
have their EU voting rights suspended.
(AP, 11/28/05)
2005 Nov 28, The European Union
managed to get Israel and its Arab neighbors to endorse an
anti-terrorism code of conduct at the end of a fractious two-day
summit.
(AP, 11/28/05)
2005 Nov 28, In Iraq the trial
of Saddam Hussein resumed with the former Iraqi president trying to
take command of the courtroom and angrily complaining about being
shackled and mistreated by foreign guards.
(AP, 11/28/05)
2005 Nov 28, Sheik Bashir Hadi
Fakhreddine, Sunni imam of Bilal al-Habashi mosque in Kirkuk,
kidnapped 10 days ago in eastern Baghdad along with his friend Seif
Abdullah, were found dead in Baghdad.
(AP, 11/29/05)
2005 Nov 28, Mexico changed its
constitution to allow state and local police to pursue drug
traffickers, removing a major stumbling block in anti-drug efforts
that had long been the exclusive realm of federal officers.
(AP, 11/28/05)
2005 Nov 28, Nepal's Supreme
Court ordered an end to a discriminatory practice that required
women under age 35 to get written consent from her parents or
husband to get a passport. The law had been previously enforced as a
measure to fight the trafficking of women.
(AP, 11/29/05)
2005 Nov 28, In Nigeria
hundreds of troops armed with rocket launchers and machine guns
manned check points in the oil-producing Bayelsa state as protesters
staged rival rallies over the impeachment of the state governor.
(AP, 11/28/05)
2005 Nov 28, North Korea
demanded compensation from the United States over a scuttled project
to build two nuclear reactors in the communist nation under a 1994
agreement.
(AP, 11/28/05)
2005 Nov 28, The Palestinians'
ruling Fatah Party halted its primary election across the Gaza Strip
after angry gunmen shot in the air at several polling stations,
stole some ballot boxes and destroyed others.
(AP, 11/28/05)
2005 Nov 28, Spain agreed to
sell 12 military planes and eight patrol boats to Venezuela in a $2
billion deal that the United States has threatened to block.
(AP, 11/29/05)
2005 Nov 29, Broad areas of the
Dakotas remained shut down by the Plains' first blizzard of the
season, with highways closed by blowing, drifting snow and thousands
of people without electricity as temperatures hit the low teens. In
Colorado eastbound I-70 was closed.
(AP, 11/29/05)(WSJ, 11/29/05, p.A1)
2005 Nov 29, In Gainesville,
Ga, Lisa Lynette (37) was indicted on charges of child molestation,
statutory rape and enticing a child for indecent purposes. She was
arrested soon after her Nov 8 wedding to the boy whose child she
carried.
(SFC, 12/1/05, p.A3)
2005 Nov 29, Ohio carried out
the nation's 999th execution since 1977, putting to death a man who
strangled his mother-in-law while high on cocaine and later killed
his 5-year-old stepdaughter to cover up the crime.
(AP, 11/29/05)
2005 Nov 29, In Virginia Gov.
Mark Warner granted clemency to convicted killer Robin Lovitt, who
faced death for the 1998 killing of Clayton Dicks, a pool hall
manager in Arlington.
(SFC, 11/30/05, p.A16)
2005 Nov 29, Actress Wendie Jo
Sperber (47), who starred opposite Tom Hanks on TV's "Bosom Buddies"
and who in his words became "a walking inspiration" after she
contracted cancer, died in Los Angeles.
(AP, 12/01/05)
2005 Nov 29, In Bangladesh
suicide bombers targeting courthouses in 2 cities killed at least
eight people and injured 66 in what appeared to be the latest attack
by militant Muslims intent on imposing harsh Islamic law.
(AP, 11/29/05)(SFC, 11/30/05, p.A14)
2005 Nov 29, France's lower
house of parliament overwhelmingly approved a tough new
anti-terrorism bill that, among other measures, would increase the
use of video surveillance and allow police more time to question
terror suspects.
(AP, 11/29/05)
2005 Nov 29, Iraq's interior
ministry banned all non-Iraqi Arabs from entering the country until
further notice as part of security measures for the Dec. 15 general
elections. Al-Jazeera broadcast video of four Western peace
activists held hostage by a previously unknown group, the Swords of
Righteousness Brigade. 3 of the hostages were later released, but
one of them, American Tom Fox, was killed. Photos broadcast showed a
blindfolded German woman being led away by armed captors in the
latest kidnapping of a Westerner in Iraq. Six Iranian pilgrims,
meanwhile, were abducted by gunmen north of Baghdad. Two US soldiers
were killed when their patrol was hit by a roadside bomb north of
Baghdad.
(AP, 12/02/05)(AP, 11/29/06)
2005 Nov 29, In Jordan more
than 370 members of the clan of al-Qaida in Iraq leader Abu Musab
al-Zarqawi joined his family in publishing a full-page letter in
Jordanian newspapers disowning him.
(AP, 11/29/05)
2005 Nov 29, Mexico's Supreme
Court ruled that suspects facing life in prison can be extradited,
overturning a 4-year-old ban that had prevented many of the
country's most notorious criminals from being sent to the United
States.
(AP, 11/29/05)
2005 Nov 29, CINTRA sold
Mexicana airlines and its subsidiary, Click Mexicana, to the Mexican
hotel chain Grupo Posadas for USD$165.5 million.
(Econ, 8/14/10,
p.53)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexicana_de_Aviaci%C3%B3n)
2005 Nov 29, In Northern
Ireland 2 bank employees were arrested on suspicion of involvement
in the Dec 20, 2004, robbery of their Belfast bank, raising
questions about whether the British-record theft could have been an
inside job.
(AP, 11/29/05)
2005 Nov 29, A panel in North
Ossetia investigating last year's bloody school hostage siege in the
southern Russian town of Beslan blamed the authorities for botching
the rescue efforts and urged them to punish the culprits.
(AP, 11/29/05)
2005 Nov 29, In South Africa
the mother of Deon van der Walt (47), acclaimed opera singer, found
her son in his bedroom with two gunshot wounds to his chest. She
also found her husband with a gunshot wound to the temple and a gun
by his side. The family lived on a wine estate in the town of Paarl,
just outside Cape Town.
(AP, 11/30/05)
2005 Nov 29, A Sudanese Darfur
rebel faction said it attacked a town in West Darfur state, killing
37 soldiers and police, to push for its inclusion in peace talks due
to open in the Nigerian capital Abuja later in the day.
(AP, 11/29/05)
2005 Nov 29, The Vatican
published its long-awaited document on gays in the clergy, saying
men with "deep-seated" homosexual tendencies should not be ordained
but those with a "transitory problem" could be if they had overcome
them for three years.
(AP, 11/29/05)
2005 Nov 29, Thousands of
people lined the streets as the Roman Catholic Church ordained 57
new priests in an unprecedented ceremony that added the single
largest number of priests in Vietnam at one time.
(AP, 11/29/05)
2005 Nov 30, President Bush
gave an unflinching defense of his Iraq war strategy in a speech at
the U.S. Naval Academy, refusing to set a timetable for US troop
withdrawals and asserting that once-shaky Iraqi troops were proving
increasingly capable.
(AP, 11/30/06)
2005 Nov 30, The Atlantic storm
season ended with a record 26 as tropical storm Epsilon formed
without posing a risk.
(WSJ, 11/30/05, p.A1)
2005 Nov 30, After almost a
year of research into data from the space probe Huygens, scientists
reported that Saturn's moon Titan resembles Earth in many ways but
is unlikely to support life.
(Reuters, 11/30/05)
2005 Nov 30, Actress Jean
Parker died in Woodland Hills, Calif., at age 90.
(AP, 11/30/06)
2005 Nov 30, Human Rights Watch
in Italy released a list of 26 “ghost detainees” held by the US
incommunicado at secret foreign prisons.
(SFC, 12/2/05, p.A19)
2005 Nov 30, Belgian police
arrested 14 people in raids on several homes as part of a probe into
a woman thought to be the first European female suicide bomber in
Iraq.
(AFP, 11/30/05)
2005 Nov 30, Brazils’
government said federal police are evicting settlers and loggers
from an Amazon area that experts believe is home to one of the
world's most isolated Indian tribes.
(AP, 11/30/05)
2005 Nov 30, In London
Uganda-born John Sentamu was enthroned as the first black archbishop
in the Church of England.
(AP, 11/30/05)
2005 Nov 30, Dalianhe, China,
shut down its water system as a toxic slick caused by the Nov 13
chemical plant explosion at Jilin arrived on the Songhua River.
(AP, 11/30/05)
2005 Nov 30, SF mayor Gavin
Newsom signed a new memorandum of agreement with Shanghai Mayor Han
Zheng, the 8th since the 2 cities forged a formal relationship in
1980.
(SFC, 12/1/05, p.B10)
2005 Nov 30, In Cuba Panama's
President Martin Torrijos greeted dozens of his compatriots as they
arrived in Havana for free eye operations, the latest sign of
warming relations between the two countries.
(AP, 12/01/05)
2005 Nov 30, Ecuador swore in a
new Supreme Court, seven months after former President Lucio
Gutierrez dismissed the entire bench, a move that led to his ouster.
(AP, 11/30/05)
2005 Nov 30, The Muslim
Brotherhood said Egyptian police rounded up hundreds of Muslim
Brotherhood organizers in the two days before the last stage of
parliamentary elections, bringing the total in two weeks to over
1,600.
(AP, 11/30/05)
2005 Nov 30, French doctors
performed the world’s 1st partial face transplant. They operated on
a woman (38) disfigured by a dog bite.
(SFC, 12/1/05, p.A1)
2005 Nov 30, Iraqi and US
troops launched a joint operation in an area west of Baghdad used to
rig car bombs. American soldiers rounded up 33 suspected insurgents
in southern parts of Baghdad. Gunmen shot to death 9 Shiite Muslim
laborers near Baquba.
(SFC, 12/1/05, p.A17)
2005 Nov 30, Shimon Peres quit
Israel's Labor Party, his political home of six decades, to campaign
for Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's new organization. Israel's
Supreme Court ruled that a suspected Israeli mob boss, described by
US prosecutors as one of the world's most wanted drug traffickers,
can be extradited to the US.
(AP, 11/30/05)(AP, 11/30/06)
2005 Nov 30, A Tokyo appeals
court ordered the Japanese government to pay more than $27 million
in compensation to residents affected by noise from a US air base,
raising the amount awarded by a lower court.
(AP, 11/30/05)
2005 Nov 30, In Japan police
arrested Juan Carlos Pizarro Yagi (30), a Peruvian man of Japanese
descent, for the murder of 7-year-old schoolgirl whose body was
found Nov 22 in a cardboard box in western Japan. A DNA match led to
the arrest.
(AP, 12/01/05)
2005 Nov 30, Mexican officials
said that they are investigating a homemade DVD purporting to show
four drug hitmen for the Gulf Cartel being beaten and interrogated,
then one of them being shot in the head.
(AP, 12/01/05)
2005 Nov 30, The Yugoslav war
crimes tribunal acquitted Fatmir Limaj, a senior officer of the
Kosovo Albanian rebels, of torturing and murdering ethnic Serbian
and Albanian civilians at a prison camp during the 1998-1999 war. A
2nd defendant, Isak Musliu, was also acquitted, while the third,
Haradin Bala, was sentenced to 13 years in prison for executing nine
prisoners in the woods in July 1998.
(AP, 12/01/05)
2005 Nov, China decided to
implement int’l. accounting standards. Rules to this end went into
effect in January 2007.
(Econ, 1/13/07, p.63)
2005 Nov, Colombia announced a
5-fold increase in its aid budget for its “desplazados,” refugees
uprooted by internal strife, to over $400 million a year.
(Econ, 2/11/06, p.38)
2005 Nov, Congolese soldiers
engaged in a 6-day operation to clear militias from Virunga National
Park. 14 rebels were killed and 321 captured.
(WSJ, 11/19/05, p.A8)
2005 Nov, India’s government
partially freed the market for distressed debt. This allowed
foreigners to take direct stakes of up to 49% in companies managing
distressed assets.
(Econ, 12/10/05, p.84)
2005 Nov, In Italy opposition
politicians claimed that tax evasion adds up to as much as $234
billion a year.
(Econ, 11/26/05, Italy p.12)
2005 Nov, John Githongo,
Kenya’s former adviser on corruption, sent a 36-page summary of his
investigations to Pres. Kibaki and to the Kenya Anti-Corruption
Commission. When neither responded he passed the dossier to a Kenyan
newspaper, the Daily Nation, which began exposing the contents on
Jan 22, 2006.
(Econ, 1/28/06, p.45)
2005 Nov, In western Spain
officers of Seprona, the environmental unit of the paramilitary
Civil Guard, arrested hunters skinning a Bengal tiger. Agents also
found another tiger and lion in cages waiting their turn to be
hunted. In the 1st half of the year officers confiscated 678
illegally imported live animals.
(WSJ, 4/12/06, p.A1)
2005 Nov, Bill Browder,
manager of a large Russian investment fund, was turned back from
Russia when he landed in Moscow as a threat to national security. In
2008 Browder complained that a gang of bent policemen had stolen his
Russian companies and used them to embezzle $230 million of state
funds. His lawyer, Sergei Magnitsky, died in 2009 while in jail.
(Econ, 3/25/06, p.70)(Econ, 11/28/09, p.57)
2005 Nov, Jacques Diouf of
Senegal was re-elected as the UN’s head of the Rome-based Food and
Agriculture Organization (FAO).
(Econ, 11/26/05, p.60)
2005 Nov-2005 Dec, In San
Francisco between 39,488 and 53,988 gallons of diesel fuel leaked
over 4 weeks from an underground storage tank at the John Muir Motor
Coach yard at 1095 Indiana St. Muni workers had disabled an alarm
system that would have warned of the leak. In 2009 the US EPA sought
a $250,000 settlement for the leak which allowed fuel to enter a
storm drain leading the SF Bay.
(SFC, 11/3/09, p.C1)
2005 Dec 1, The US government
signed an agreement in Kabul committing itself to grants over five
years for development in war-ravaged Afghanistan that could amount
to about five billion dollars.
(AFP, 12/01/05)
2005 Dec 1, A jury in Sarasota,
Fla., recommended the death sentence for Joseph Smith, the killer of
11-year-old Carlie Brucia.
(AP, 12/1/06)
2005 Dec 1, A dog and its owner
found the bodies of Sarah and Philip Gehring, two children who'd
been fatally shot by their father and buried in rural Ohio.
(AP, 12/1/06)
2005 Dec 1, Countries across
the globe marked the 18th World AIDS Day as the UN warned that
drastic action was needed to counter the global epidemic. The number
of people living with HIV in 2005 was 40.3 million, the highest
figure ever.
(AFP, 12/01/05)
2005 Dec 1, Scientists reported
that current flow in the Atlantic had slowed 30% over the past
5 decades. Computer models had predicted that global warming could
disrupt the way Earth regulates heat.
(SFC, 12/1/05, p.A7)
2005 Dec 1, Howard Gotlieb
(79), archivist at Boston Univ., died.
(Econ, 12/10/05, p.98)
2005 Dec 1, Reserve Bank of
Australia (RBA) board member Robert Gerard announced his
resignation, a week after revelations about his disputes with the
tax office.
(AFP, 12/01/05)
2005 Dec 1, Australia and East
Timor finalized a revenue-sharing pact covering the $5 billion
Sunrise natural-gas project.
(WSJ, 12/2/05, p.A8)
2005 Dec 1, Researchers in
Gabon reported that 3 species of fruit bats served as the animal
reservoir of the Ebola virus. The deadly disease 1st emerged in
1976.
(SFC, 12/1/05, p.A7)
2005 Dec 1, In Bangladesh a
bomb thrown by an Islamic militant disguised as a tea vendor
exploded outside a government building in Gazipur, killing one
person and wounding at least 29. The militant was hurt and captured
after the blast.
(AP, 12/01/05)
2005 Dec 1, In Bangladesh 9
wedding guests died of suspected alcohol poisoning from drinking
toxic home-brewed liquor the previous evening in a northeastern
village.
(AP, 12/01/05)
2005 Dec 1, Brazil's Congress
voted to expel Rep. Jose Dirceu (59), the president's former
chief-of-staff, and bar him from holding public office for 8 years
amid a corruption scandal that has rocked the government.
(AP, 12/01/05)
2005 Dec 1, Brazilian
authorities said they have arrested three more men suspected of
taking part in the August $70 million cash heist, and that a fourth
allegedly has been kidnapped.
(AP, 12/01/05)
2005 Dec 1, In Egypt riot
police battled voters, killing one person and blocking entry to
polling stations in opposition strongholds in the third and final
round of legislative elections.
(AP, 12/01/05)
2005 Dec 1, In Salamina,
Greece, an 80-year-old woman was found strangled to death. Police
the next day arrested 3 children (7,8,14) for the robbery and
strangling.
(AP, 12/01/05)
2005 Dec 1, Thousands marched
in anti-AIDS rallies in India's plagued northeast, while China
rolled out a campaign targeting millions of migrant workers to mark
World AIDS Day.
(AP, 12/01/05)
2005 Dec 1, In Iraq 10 Marines
on foot patrol were killed and 11 wounded by a roadside bomb near
Fallujah in one of the deadliest attack on American troops in recent
months.
(AP, 12/02/05)
2005 Dec 1, The Mexican
Attorney General's office said 11 federal agents were charged with
kidnapping for picking up four alleged drug hit men and possibly
helping kill them.
(AP, 12/02/05)
2005 Dec 1, Hamza Rabia, one of
al-Qaida's top five leaders, a key associate of Ayman al-Zawahri,
was tracked down with US help and killed by Pakistani security
forces in a rocket attack near the Afghan border. Pakistani
authorities said he was killed with 5 other militants.
(AP, 12/03/05)(SSFC, 12/4/05, p.A3)
2005 Dec 1, Russian press said
the Far East city of Khabarovsk, in the path of a toxic spill from a
Chinese plant explosion, has enough drinking water reserves to last
more than 10 days.
(AP, 12/01/05)
2005 Dec 1, South Africa's
highest court ruled it is unconstitutional to prevent gay people
from marrying, paving the way for the country to become the first to
legalize same-sex unions on a continent where homosexuality remains
largely taboo.
(AP, 12/01/05)
2005 Dec 1, About 60,000 South
Korean workers defied a government warning by going on strike to
demand better protection for part-time workers.
(AP, 12/01/05)
2005 Dec 1, in northern
Switzerland a pack of dogs mauled a boy walking to his kindergarten
class killing him instantly.
(AP, 12/01/05)
2005 Dec 1, The United Arab
Emirates announced it will hold a limited form of voting to pick
members of a consultative council, a small step toward widening
political participation in a country that has never held elections.
(AP, 12/01/05)
2005 Dec 1, A UN Security
Council committee called on all governments to freeze the assets and
travel of two individuals linked to international gunrunner Victor
Bout over past arms sales to Liberia. The council added Syrian-born
accountant Richard Ammar Chichakli of Texas and Ukrainian-born
businessman Valeriy Naydo, with an address in the United Arab
Emirates, to its list of people whose assets and travel are to be
frozen around the world.
(AP, 12/01/05)
2005 Dec 1, Zimbabwe signed an
agreement with the UN food agency to feed at least 3 million people
after previously denying major shortages.
(AP, 12/01/05)
2005 Dec 2, In North Carolina
Kenneth Lee Boyd, a double murderer who said he didn't want to be
known as a number, became the 1,000th person executed in the United
States since capital punishment resumed 28 years ago.
(AP, 12/02/05)
2005 Dec 2, The G-7 finance
ministers and central bankers discussed interest rates, high energy
prices, inflation and trade imbalances for the final time under
Britain's leadership. The meeting was Alan Greenspan's last G-7
appearance as Federal Reserve chairman.
(AP, 12/02/05)
2005 Dec 2, In southern
Afghanistan a remote-controlled bomb ripped through a vehicle
killing a district government chief and two police officers and
wounding three others.
(AP, 12/03/05)
2005 Dec 2, Peter Menegazzo,
one of Australia's main cattle barons, was among four people killed
in a light plane crash in the Outback.
(AP, 12/03/05)
2005 Dec 2, Belarus' lower
house of parliament passed legislation that would make it a crime to
discredit the state, be a member of the political opposition or an
advocate for human rights.
(AP, 12/02/05)
2005 Dec 2, Manfred Nowak, the
first UN torture investigator to visit China said that abuse was
still widespread and authorities subjected detainees to electric
shocks, beatings and sleep deprivation. He also accused the
government of obstructing his work.
(AP, 12/02/05)
2005 Dec 2, China’s state news
said police in southern China have arrested 16 people allegedly
involved in kidnapping and selling baby girls as young as newborns
to foreigners.
(AP, 12/03/05)
2005 Dec 2, Jiamusi, a second
city in northeast China, shut down a water plant on a poisoned
river, fearing contamination from the approaching toxic chemicals.
The slick on the Amur River, which is fed by the Songhua River,
originally 50 miles long, now stretched for 90 miles.
(AP, 12/03/05)
2005 Dec 2, In China 16 workers
were killed and 42 others trapped in two separate coal mine
accidents.
(AFP, 12/03/05)
2005 Dec 2, In Colombia
officials said several hundred members of a right-wing paramilitary
militia that held sway for years over much of Colombia's
coffee-growing region have agreed to lay down their arms in exchange
for a government amnesty.
(AP, 12/02/05)
2005 Dec 2, Election officials
said that Egypt's leading opposition group did not win any seats
outright in the final round of parliamentary voting, which was
marred by violence and police barring thousands from casting
ballots.
(AP, 12/02/05)
2005 Dec 2, A Finnish man was
jailed for 11 years for sexually abusing dozens of boys during trips
to Thailand in what the court called the biggest pedophile case in
Finland's history. Jouko Jaatinen (43) was detained in April on
suspicion of molesting at least 445 Thai boys aged 13 or younger
over the last 15 years and creating massive amounts of pornography.
(AP, 12/02/05)
2005 Dec 2, In eastern Germany
a fire at a shelter for the homeless killed nine people.
(AP, 12/02/05)
2005 Dec 2, Honduras' ruling
party said it had enlisted 300 lawyers to check results of the
country's disputed presidential election for evidence of fraud.
Officials still hadn't declared Honduras' new president, five days
after the country's contentious election.
(AP, 12/02/05)(AP, 12/03/05)
2005 Dec 2, India’s hybrid
species of national affiliation called Overseas Citizenship of India
(OCI) became operational. It was made available to anyone who was an
Indian citizen post 1950, and to their children and grandchildren
wherever they were born. The Citizenship (Amendment) Ordinance 2005
was promulgated by the President of India and came into force on 28
June 2005.
(http://tinyurl.com/yxrrhs)(WSJ, 12/15/06,
p.B1)(www.immihelp.com/nri/dual.html)
2005 Dec 2, In Iraq 3 US
soldiers from the 48th Brigade Combat Team were killed in a traffic
accident south of Baghdad.
(AP, 12/02/05)
2005 Dec 2, Former Iraqi PM
Muhammad Hamza al-Zubaydi (67), one of the top Saddam Hussein-era
leaders captured in Iraq, died at a U.S. military hospital in
Baghdad.
(AP, 12/05/05)
2005 Dec 2, Israeli officials
said Palestinians have allowed up to 15 militants wanted by Israel
to return to the Gaza Strip, violating a U.S.-brokered agreement
that was to have let Israel monitor who enters the area from Egypt.
(AP, 12/02/05)
2005 Dec 2, African leaders and
French President Jacques Chirac converged on Mali for a two-day
summit expected to focus on Africa's conflict hotspots, immigration
and the problems of African youth.
(AFP, 12/02/05)
2005 Dec 2, The Mexico City
government said 5 federal agents arrested in connection with the
videotaped torture and killing of drug hitmen have been released
from prison for lack of evidence.
(AP, 12/03/05)
2005 Dec 2, In Nepal tens of
thousands of people marched in Kathmandu to demand restoration of
democracy.
(AP, 12/02/05)
2005 Dec 2, In the Netherlands
a broad coalition of political parties unveiled a pilot program to
regulate marijuana farming on the model of tobacco, which opponents
say would be tantamount to legalizing growing the drug.
(AP, 12/02/05)
2005 Dec 2, In Nigeria rebel
leaders from the western Sudanese region of Darfur rejected an
African Union draft agreement on power-sharing between their forces
and the government in Khartoum, pushing the sides' seventh session
of peace talks close to stalemate.
(AFP, 12/02/05)
2005 Dec 2, Russian media
reported that Russia plans to sell more than $1 billion worth of
tactical surface-to-air missiles and other defense hardware to Iran.
(AP, 12/02/05)
2005 Dec 2, It was reported
that a money-laundering scandal that started in Germany has spread
to other countries and implicated Leonid Reiman, Russia’s
telecommunications minister and close Putin ally. Prosecutors
suspected that Mr. Reiman had set up a network of shell companies
and trusts to conceal over $1 billion in assets.
(WSJ, 12/2/05, p.A3)(WSJ, 1/19/06, p.A8)
2005 Dec 2, Singapore executed
25-year-old Australian Nguyen Tuong Van for drug trafficking, after
he had a "beautiful last visit" with his family. Australia's leader
protested the sentence, saying it would damage ties.
(AP, 12/02/05)
2005 Dec 2, In Kiev 9
presidents from Baltic and Black Sea nations pledged to strengthen
democracy in a region traditionally considered Russia's
neighborhood. They included Estonia, Georgia, Latvia, Lithuania,
Macedonia, Moldova, Slovenia, Romania and the Ukraine.
(AP, 12/02/05)
2005 Dec 3, In Silicon Valley,
Ca., Adobe Systems merged with Macromedia.
(Econ, 12/10/05, p.70)
2005 Dec 3, Retired Navy vice
admiral Frederick L. "Dick" Ashworth, the weaponeer aboard the B-29
that dropped the atomic bomb on Nagasaki, Japan, died in Phoenix at
age 93.
(AP, 12/3/06)
2005 Dec 3, Peter Haas Sr.
(86), former CEO and president of Levi Strauss, died in SF.
(SFC, 12/5/05, p.B4)
2005 Dec 3, In Bangladesh
police said they had arrested over 200 suspected Islamic militants
in a three-day sweep after suicide bombers killed at least nine
people and wounded scores in a spate of attacks this week.
(AFP, 12/03/05)
2005 Dec 3, In Brazil the Greek
billionaire Athina Roussel Onassis (20) married Alvaro Afonso de
Miranda (32) a Brazilian Olympic equestrian in a palm-tree lined
estate in Sao Paulo.
(AP, 12/04/05)
2005 Dec 3, Economic officials
from the world's richest countries resumed their pressure on China
to adopt a more flexible exchange rate as they concluded a meeting
in London.
(AP, 12/3/06)
2005 Dec 3, British girls
Olivia Bazlinton (14) and Charlotte Thompson (13) died when they
were hit by an express train in Elsenham. In 2011 the rail regulator
said Network Rail will be prosecuted over the deaths of the two
young girls killed at a level crossing.
(AFP,
11/25/11)(http://olivia-renee-bazlinton.gonetoosoon.org/)
2005 Dec 3, In Canada tens of
thousands of people demonstrated in Montreal, host of the UN Climate
Change Conference, to demand that governments worldwide take
concrete measures against global warming.
(AP, 12/04/05)
2005 Dec 3, It was reported
that the Central African Republic has ordered radio and television
stations to stop broadcasting songs which encourage men to dump
their wives, saying such music is a hindrance to the country's
development.
(Reuters, 12/03/05)
2005 Dec 3, Chechnya’s top
election official said a Kremlin-backed political party has won the
largest number of seats in the new parliament.
(AP, 12/03/05)
2005 Dec 3, Iran's hard-line
constitutional watchdog approved a bill blocking international
inspections of atomic facilities if the nation is referred to the
U.N. Security Council for possible sanctions.
(AP, 12/03/05)
2005 Dec 3, In Iraq insurgents
ambushed an Iraqi patrol northeast of Baghdad, detonating a roadside
bomb and then firing on the patrol, killing 19 and wounding two.
(Reuters, 12/03/05)
2005 Dec 3, Troops exhumed the
remains of 25 bodies from a mass grave near a former Syrian military
base in eastern Lebanon. About 17,000 Lebanese who disappeared
during 1975-90 civil war are still missing, including 61 Lebanese
soldiers.
(AP, 12/03/05)
2005 Dec 3, Malaysia's state
media said Southeast Asian lawmakers want Myanmar expelled from the
ASEAN regional grouping unless it frees democracy icon Aung San Suu
Kyi and other political prisoners within a year.
(Reuters, 12/03/05)
2005 Dec 3, Myanmar’s
government confirmed for the first time that it has extended
pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi's detention for six months.
(AP, 12/03/05)
2005 Dec 3, Taiwan's opposition
Nationalist Party won an overwhelming victory in island-wide
municipal elections, putting it in position to push its agenda of
reunification with China during the 2008 presidential campaign.
(AP, 12/03/05)
2005 Dec 3, Ukraine reported
its first outbreak of bird flu, discovered among some 1,500 dead
chickens and geese in the Black Sea region of Crimea.
(AP, 12/03/05)
2005 Dec 3, A rupture in an oil
pipeline caused a fire in western Venezuela, but firefighters
quickly brought the blaze under control. Evidence of sabotage was
soon found. [see Dec 5]
(AP, 12/04/05)(AP, 12/05/05)
2005 Dec 4, Members of the
former Sept. 11 commission said the US was at great risk for more
terrorist attacks because Congress and the White House had failed to
enact several strong security measures.
(AP, 12/4/06)
2005 Dec 4, In Washington, D.C.
Robert Redford, Tina Turner, Tony Bennett, Julie Harris and
ballerina Suzanne Farrell headlined the annual Kennedy Center
Honors.
(AP, 12/4/06)
2005 Dec 4, Film producer Gregg
Hoffman (42), who developed an eight-minute film into the horror hit
"Saw" and its gory successor "Saw II," died unexpectedly after
complaining of pain.
(AP, 12/06/05)
2005 Dec 4, In Afghanistan a
suicide bomber detonated explosives on a street in the southern city
of Kandahar, killing himself and a civilian and wounding two
passers-by.
(AP, 12/04/05)
2005 Dec 4, Chinese Premier Wen
Jiabao arrived in France for a four-day visit. The Chinese
government and the European aircraft manufacturing consortium Airbus
signed a cooperation agreement at a public ceremony in Toulouse that
may pave the way for the opening of an aircraft assembly plant in
China.
(AFP, 12/04/05)
2005 Dec 4, Croatia won its
first Davis Cup title.
(AP, 12/4/06)
2005 Dec 4, Tens of thousands
of protesters marched through the streets of Hong Kong to pressure
the government to speed up political reforms that would allow voters
to pick the territory's leader and entire legislature.
(AP, 12/04/05)
2005 Dec 4, Unidentified gunmen
killed a parliamentary candidate and an Iraqi police commander in
separate attacks while a bomb that detonated as a police patrol
passed through central Baghdad killed three civilians.
(AP, 12/04/05)
2005 Dec 4, Israeli aircraft
fired missiles at an abandoned building and a rocket launching
ground in the northern Gaza Strip in the first aerial attack on Gaza
in more than a month.
(AP, 12/04/05)
2005 Dec 4, Oil-rich Kazakhstan
voted in a presidential election widely expected to give Nursultan
Nazarbayev another seven-year term.
(AP, 12/04/05)
2005 Dec 4, In Mali at a
weekend Franco-African summit President Jacques Chirac called upon
the US to remove the subsidies to their cotton producers. Chirac
also urged rich countries to double development aid, as African
leaders warned tackling poverty was crucial to stem a growing tide
of illegal immigration.
(AP, 12/05/05)
2005 Dec 4, In Russia, the
snow-covered roof of an indoor swimming pool collapsed onto parents
and children in Chusovoi, a Ural Mountains town, killing 14 people,
including 10 children.
(AP, 12/05/05)
2005 Dec 4, In Sri Lanka a land
mine killed 6 Sri Lankan soldiers with 3 wounded in a northern area
that is home to most of the country's Tamil minority. A government
soldier near the northern city of Jaffna. The military blamed the
Tamil Tiger rebels for attacks.
(AP, 12/04/05)(AP, 12/05/05)
2005 Dec 4, Syrian security
forces clashed with militants planning to launch terror attacks in
the northern city of Aleppo. Five people were wounded, including two
militants.
(AP, 12/04/05)
2005 Dec 4, Thailand's King
Bhumibol Adulyadej publicly rebuked PM Thaksin for pursuing lawsuits
against media outlets that oppose his policies.
(www.bangkokpost.net/breaking_news/breakingnews.php?id=69917)
2005 Dec 5, Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice denied the United States engaged in torture or
lesser forms of cruel treatment against terror suspects.
(AP, 12/5/06)
2005 ABC News named Elizabeth
Vargas and Bob Woodruff co-anchors of "World News Tonight,"
replacing the late Peter Jennings.
(AP, 12/5/06)
2005 Dec 5, Intel Chairman
Craig Barrett said the chip-maker will invest more than $1 billion
in the next five years to expand its operations in India and in
local technology companies.
(AP, 12/05/05)
2005 Dec 5, A new version of
King Kong, directed by Peter Jackson, premiered in NYC.
(Econ, 12/10/05, p.68)
2005 Dec 5, Edward L. Masry,
the personal-injury lawyer portrayed by Albert Finney in the
Oscar-winning movie "Erin Brockovich," died in Thousand Oaks,
Calif., at age 73.
(AP, 12/5/06)
2005 Dec 5, Austria officially
finished paying out nearly $350 million in restitution to former
slave and forced laborers compelled to work during WW II under Nazi
control.
(SFC, 12/6/05, p.A8)
2005 Dec 5, Gay couples in
Britain began registering for civil partnerships as a law took
effect giving them many of the same legal rights as married
heterosexuals.
(AP, 12/05/05)
2005 Dec 5, China ordered 150
Airbus single-aisle A320 airliners, more than twice as many plane
orders as the company's U.S.-based rival Boeing Co. snagged from
China last month.
(AP, 12/05/05)
2005 Dec 5, In Congo a
magnitude 6.8 earthquake struck the Lake Tanganyika region of East
Africa toppling dozens of homes in Kalemie and burying children in
the rubble. Several people were reported killed.
(AP, 12/05/05)(WSJ, 12/6/05, p.A1)
2005 Dec 5, France's highest
administrative body ruled that Sikhs can wear their turbans in
drivers' license photos, overturning an earlier denial of a license
to a Sikh who refused to take off his turban for the photo.
(AP, 12/06/05)
2005 Dec 5, UN peacekeepers at
a checkpoint in Port-au-Prince opened fire on a car full of Haitian
police officers wounding two.
(AP, 12/09/05)
2005 Dec 5, In India a freight
train derailed, killing six people and injuring 50 others in a
remote district of eastern Orissa state.
(AP, 12/05/05)
2005 Dec 5, In Iraq
unidentified gunmen abducted Bernard Planche, a French engineer, as
he was on his way to work in Baghdad. He was later freed. The trial
of Saddam Hussein resumed in Baghdad.
(AP, 12/05/05)(AP, 12/5/06)
2005 Dec 5, Opposition leaders
in Kazakhstan said that the overwhelming re-election of President
Nursultan Nazarbayev should be declared invalid, and foreign
observers said the balloting did not meet international standards.
(AP, 12/05/05)
2005 Dec 5, Myanmar's military
junta reopened a key national constitutional convention.
(AP, 12/05/05)
2005 Dec 5, Frits Philips
(100), Dutch businessman, grandson of the founder of Philips, died.
He turned a family business into Philips Electronics in 40 years of
leadership.
(WSJ, 12/7/05, p.A1)(http://tinyurl.com/dfnu4)
2005 Dec 5, In southeastern
Nigeria Separatist protesters demanding authorities release their
leader shut down businesses and banks, and an activist said security
forces opened fire on the crowd, killing three people.
(AP, 12/05/05)
2005 Dec 5, A Palestinian
suicide bomber blew himself up among shoppers waiting to enter a
mall in the Israeli town of Netanya, killing at least 5 people and
wounding more than 30 others.
(AP, 12/05/05)
2005 Dec 5, Officials said
courts in Uzbekistan have convicted another 58 alleged participants
of the May uprising in Andijan and sentenced them to up to 20 years
in prison.
(AP, 12/05/05)
2005 Dec 5, In Venezuela
President Hugo Chavez's governing party won full control of the
167-National Assembly, claiming a sweeping victory in congressional
elections boycotted by major opposition parties.
(AP, 12/05/05)
2005 Dec 5, In Venezuela a Dec
3 explosion that damaged an oil pipeline supplying the country's
largest refinery was reported to have been caused by government foes
attempting to disrupt congressional elections. Interior Minister
Jesse Chacon said investigators found remnants of C-4 explosives at
three spots on the pipeline.
(AP, 12/05/05)
2005 Dec 6, US Sec. of State
Condoleeza Rice signed an agreement with Romania to open US military
bases there. One site was identified by Human Rights Watch as the
site for a clandestine prison.
(WSJ, 12/7/05, p.A16)
2005 Dec 6, Sami Al-Arian, a
former Florida professor accused of helping lead a terrorist group
that carried out suicide bombings against Israel, was acquitted on
nearly half the charges against him by a federal court jury in
Tampa, Fla.; the jury deadlocked on the other charges.
(AP, 12/6/06)
2005 Dec 6, Philadelphia won
the first NHL scoreless game that was decided by a shootout, beating
Calgary 1-0.
(AP, 12/6/06)
2005 Dec 6, The NYSE voted to
acquire Archipelago Holdings in a $9 billion transaction that would
transform the Big Board into a for-profit company with new,
high-tech trading capabilities.
(SFC, 12/7/05, p.C1)
2005 Dec 6, SF hired Nathaniel
Ford Sr. to run the Municipal Transportation Agency (MUNI) for a
5-year contract with a base salary of $298,000. Ford was enticed
away from the Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority where his base was
$205,000.
(SFC, 12/7/05, p.B4)
2005 Dec 6, In SF police
officer Andrew Cohen (39) was suspended for producing department
videos that mocked minorities. 24 other officers were soon suspended
for their involvement in the video productions. In 2006 18 officers
filed a $20 million lawsuit against SF for defamation and
discrimination.
(SFC, 12/8/05, p.A1,16)(SFC, 12/10/05,
p.A11)(SFC, 8/11/06, p.B7)
2005 Dec 6, In Spokane, Wash.,
voters said Mayor James E. West (1951-2006) must leave office this
month in a special election sparked by allegations he used a city
computer to woo gay men over the Internet. Certification of the vote
was expected on Dec 16.
(AP, 12/07/05)(SSFC, 7/23/06, p.B6)
2005 Dec 6, Afghan government
forces killed nine Taliban insurgents and arrested six others in a
raid on a rebel camp in a volatile southern province.
(AP, 12/06/05)
2005 Dec 6, Microsoft Corp.
said it would set up 30 new innovation centers around the world,
adding to its existing 60, in partnership with local governments,
academic institutions and industry organizations.
(AP, 12/06/05)
2005 Dec 6, A German man filed
a lawsuit in Virginia claiming he was held captive and tortured by
US government agents after being mistakenly identified as an
associate of the Sept. 11 hijackers. Khaled El-Masri said he was
arrested Dec 31, 2003 while attempting to enter Macedonia for a
holiday trip and flown to Afghanistan. During five months in
captivity he was subjected to "torture and other cruel, inhuman or
degrading treatment.
(AP, 12/06/05)
2005 Dec 6, Britain's
Conservative Party crowned David Cameron (39) as its new leader,
hoping to end an election losing streak as PM Tony Blair's power and
popularity sag.
(AP, 12/06/05)
2005 Dec 6, Canada’s central
bank raised interest rates for the 3rd time in a row by a quarter
point to 3.25%, its highest point in nearly 2½ years.
(WSJ, 12/7/05, p.A16)
2005 Dec 6-2005 Dec 7, In
southern China police allegedly killed as many as 10-20 protesters
in a dispute over land use in Dongzhou. Villagers were angry over
land confiscations and plans to construct a wind power plant. Armed
police sealed off the village following the violent clashes. State
news later reported 3 villagers killed and 8 wounded.
(AP, 12/09/05)(SFC, 12/9/05, p.A15)(SSFC,
12/11/05, p.A2)
2005 Dec 6, China reported that
a 10-year old girl in the Guangxi region had tested positive for
bird flu, its 4th case of the deadly H5N1 strain.
(WSJ, 12/7/05, p.A1)
2005 Dec 6, Indonesia’s central
bank raised interest rates by one-half percentage point to 12.75%
signaling a continuation of its tight monetary policy.
(WSJ, 12/7/05, p.A16)
2005 Dec 6, The World Wildlife
Fund said a catlike creature photographed by camera traps on Borneo
Island is likely to be a new species of carnivore.
(AP, 12/07/05)
2005 Dec 6, A C-130 Iranian
military transport plane crashed into a 10-story apartment building
as it was trying to make an emergency landing, ripping open the top
of the structure and igniting a huge fire. At least 115 people were
killed including 21 on the ground in the Azadi suburb of Tehran.
(AP, 12/06/05)(SFC, 12/7/05, p.A3)
2005 Dec 6, In Iraq 2 suicide
bombers struck Baghdad's police academy, killing at least 43 people
and wounding at least 72 more. Al-Jazeera broadcast an insurgent
video claiming to have kidnapped a US security consultant.
(SFC, 12/7/05, p.A1)(AP, 12/6/06)
2005 Dec 6, Israel clamped an
open-ended closure on the West Bank and Gaza, banning virtually all
Palestinians from Israel, and arrested 15 Palestinian militants in a
first response to the suicide bombing that killed five Israelis
outside a shopping mall.
(AP, 12/06/05)
2005 Dec 6, Japan's Cabinet
approved measures to demolish buildings designed using falsified
earthquake safety data and to relocate residents amid a widening
construction scandal. Some 60 of over 200 hotels and condominium
complexes designed by Hidetsugu Aneha were ordered to be pulled down
due to faked earthquake-resistance data.
(AP, 12/06/05)(Econ, 12/10/05, p.46)
2005 Dec 6, Kyodo News said
Japan plans to extend its humanitarian military mission to Iraq into
2006 but could pull its ground forces in the middle of the year if
the British and Australian troops guarding them leave.
(AP, 12/06/05)
2005 Dec 6, Morocco's national
airline completed an order for four Boeing Co. 787 jets and took out
an option for one more.
(AP, 12/06/05)
2005 Dec 6, Separatist radicals
faced off against heavily-armed Nigerian police in eastern cities as
a protest to demand an independent homeland for the
40-million-strong Igbo people entered its second day.
(AFP, 12/06/05)
2005 Dec 6, In Saudi Arabia
representatives of Islamic countries met ahead of a two-day summit,
with delegates saying the world's largest Islamic organization must
reform to face new challenges.
(AP, 12/06/05)
2005 Dec 6, South Africa
charged ex-Deputy Pres. Jacob Zuma with rape.
(WSJ, 12/7/05, p.A1)(Econ, 12/10/05, p.56)
2005 Dec 6, In Sri Lanka a land
mine blast killed 6 soldiers in the northern city of Jaffna.
(AP, 12/06/05)
2005 Dec 6, The UN top election
official, Carina Perelli of Uruguay, vowed to fight her dismissal
over sexual harassment charges, which she rejected as false and
complained that she was being denied due process.
(AFP, 12/07/05)
2005 Dec 7, In Miami, Florida,
US Air Marshals shot and killed Rigoberto Alpizar on suspicion of
having a bomb. No bomb was found, and federal officials later
concluded there was no link to terrorism. Witnesses said his wife,
Anne, frantically tried to explain he was bipolar, a mental illness
also known as manic-depression, and was off his medication.
(AP, 12/08/05)
2005 Dec 7, New Jersey Sen. Jon
Corzine picked Rep. Menendez to serve out his Senate term. Wining
the governorship let him appoint his own successor.
(WSJ, 12/8/05, p.A1)
2005 Dec 7, US Congress voted
to add nearly 5,000 acres of Rancho Corral de Tiera, an area between
Half Moon Bay and Pacifica, to California’s Golden Gate National
Recreation Area. Congress still needed to appropriate $15 million to
buy the land from the Peninsula Open Space Trust.
(SFC, 12/8/05, p.B1)
2005 Dec 7, A new economic
report said a sustained decline will hit the U.S. housing market
next year, costing the nation as many as 800,000 jobs.
(AP, 12/07/05)
2005 Dec 7, In Clearlake, Ca.,
Shannon Edmonds (31) shot and killed 2 of 3 intruders at his home.
Renato Hughes Jr. (21), the 3rd intruder, was charged with 2 counts
of 1st degree murder under a controversial legal theory. In 2008
Hughes was acquitted of murder by a jury in Contra Costa County. He
was found guilty of 2 lesser charges, assault and burglary. The jury
deadlocked on a final charge of assault causing great bodily injury.
On Sep 8 Hughes was sentenced to 8 years in prison with credit for
33 months in custody.
(SFC, 2/7/06, p.B8)(SFC, 8/9/08, p.B1)(SFC,
8/12/08, p.B3)(SFC, 9/9/08, p.B3)
2005 Dec 7, An Afghan court
cleared an American, but convicted two Britons and an Indian of
gun-smuggling charges and gave them two-year suspended sentences,
following a one-day trial that one of them called a "circus." Sargon
Heinrich of Rio Vista, Cal., Naveen Joshi of India and Peter Eaton
and Mike Shaw, both of Britain, had been jailed since their Oct. 13
arrests.
(AP, 12/07/05)
2005 Dec 7, Australia’s
Treasurer Peter Costello unveiled details of the nation’s Future
Fund with seed capital of $13.56 billion to cover public service
pension liabilities.
(WSJ, 12/8/05, p.A14)
2005 Dec 7, In Chile Gen.
Augusto Pinochet was stripped of his legal immunity by an appeals
court, allowing his trial in the disappearance of 29 additional
dissidents during his 1973-90 dictatorship.
(AP, 12/07/05)
2005 Dec 7, In northern China
an explosion tore through the Liuguantun coal mine in Hebei province
and killed at least 91 workers. Police arrested seven people accused
of responsibility for a coal mine disaster.
(AFP, 12/11/05)
2005 Dec 7, Some 25 American
anti-war activists marched from the eastern Cuban city of Santiago
toward the US naval base at Guantanamo Bay to protest treatment of
terror suspects there.
(AP, 12/07/05)
2005 Dec 7, The UN rejected an
Eritrean order to expel Western members of the peacekeeping mission
that monitors its tense border with Ethiopia amid concerns that war
between the two countries could re-ignite.
(AP, 12/07/05)
2005 Dec 7, The EU and host
Canada piled pressure on the US to join an international pact to
curb greenhouse gas emissions and limit the predicted chaos from
global warming.
(Reuters, 12/08/05)
2005 Dec 7, European businesses
rushed to sign up for the new ".eu" Internet domain name, putting in
100,000 Web site applications by the end of its first day available.
(AP, 12/08/05)
2005 Dec 7, The European
aircraft manufacturer Airbus said that German Wings, a low-cost
airline, had placed a firm order for 18 Airbus 319 airliners.
(AFP, 12/07/05)
2005 Dec 7, In Egypt police
fired tear gas and rubber bullets at crowds trying to break through
blockades of polling stations in an opposition stronghold, the final
day of parliamentary elections, and a hospital official said two
people were killed.
(AP, 12/07/05)
2005 Dec 7, Honduras'
ruling-party candidate for president conceded defeat, even though
official results were still unavailable 10 days after the election
because of vote-counting delays.
(AP, 12/07/05)
2005 Dec 7, In Iraq gunmen
killed three police officers when they burst into a hospital in the
northern city of Kirkuk and freed a wounded man who had been
arrested for plotting to kill a judge in the Saddam Hussein trial.
(AP, 12/07/05)
2005 Dec 7, In Iraq gunmen
kidnapped the 8-year-old son of a bodyguard for a judge in the trial
of Saddam Hussein.
(AP, 12/07/05)
2005 Dec 7, An Israeli aircraft
fired a missile at a car carrying Palestinian militants, killing at
least one militant and wounding 10 others.
(AP, 12/07/05)
2005 Dec 7, Kazakhstan's Pres.
Nursultan Nazarbayev was officially declared the winner of last
weekend's election, while the opposition insisted the vote was
manipulated.
(AP, 12/07/05)
2005 Dec 7, The Hague war
crimes tribunal sentenced Miroslav Bralo (aka Cicko), a former
Bosnian Croat soldier, to 20 years in jail on eight counts of war
crimes and human rights abuses committed during the 1993
Muslim-Croat war in central Bosnia.
(Reuters, 12/07/05)
2005 Dec 7, In Northern Ireland
Chris Ward (24), a Northern Bank supervisor who claimed he aided a
gang of robbers under the threat of death, was charged as a willing
participant in the record Dec 20, 2004, $50 million heist.
(AP, 12/07/05)
2005 Dec 7, Peru and the US
completed negotiations on a free-trade agreement.
(WSJ, 12/8/05, p.A14)
2005 Dec 7, In Russia an
explosion, apparently caused by a natural gas leak, killed one
person and injured at least five others at a Moscow apartment
building.
(AP, 12/07/05)
2005 Dec 7, The governing
African National Congress accepted the withdrawal of Jacob Zuma, its
popular deputy president from leadership duties for the duration of
his rape trial.
(AP, 12/07/05)
2005 Dec 7, Spanish authorities
arrested former Gen. Ante Gotovina, the top Croatian war crimes
suspect, after four years on the run. He was captured in the Canary
Islands when special police agents surprised him as he dined in a
luxury beach hotel.
(AP, 12/08/05)
2005 Dec 7, A UN court in
Tanzania trying masterminds of Rwanda's genocide convicted Paul
Bisengimana, former mayor of Gikoro, for abetting the 1994
slaughter, but dropped three counts including genocide.
(AP, 12/07/05)
2005 Dec 7, In Thailand a
5-year-old boy became the country’s 2nd bird flu fatality in two
months.
(AP, 12/9/05)
2005 Dec 8, The US Supreme
Court ruled that the government can seize part of a person’s monthly
Social Security benefit to pay off old student loans.
(SFC, 12/8/05, p.A5)
2005 Dec 8, US federal
prosecutors announced six arrests of eco-sabotage suspects following
a 9-year investigation in 4 arson cases in Oregon dating to 1998 and
2001 and a toppled power line in Bend, Oregon in 1999.
(SFC, 12/9/05, p.A6)
2005 Dec 8, The US government
reported that life expectancy in the US had risen to 77.6 years.
Obesity and hypertension plagued the 55-64 cohort.
(WSJ, 12/8/05, p.A1)
2005 Dec 8, Project Homeless
Connect, a one-day homeless aid fair that began in SF a year ago,
went national with attention given to some 6,000 homeless in 21 US
cities.
(SFC, 12/9/05, p.B3)
2005 Dec 8, In Chicago a
Southwest Airlines jet trying to land amid heavy snow plowed off a
runway at Midway airport and into a street, killing a 6-year-old boy
in a car.
(AP, 12/09/05)
2005 Dec 8, Firestone, a
multinational rubber manufacturing giant known for its automobile
tires, has come under fire from human rights and environmental
groups for its alleged use of child labor and slave-like working
conditions at a plantation in Liberia.
(http://us.oneworld.net/article/view/123600/1/)
2005 Dec 8, The New England
Journal of Medicine reported that the bacterial infection
Clostridium difficile (D. diff) appeared to be spreading rapidly
around the country. Patients taking new heartburn drugs like
Prilosec, Prevacid, Pepcid and Zantac appeared to be more vulnerable
to the bug.
(SFC, 12/31/05, p.A14)
2005 Dec 8, Scientists said as
wetlands disappear and shorelines are degraded, the Great Lakes are
losing their ability to cope with environmental stress and ward off
a catastrophic breakdown.
(CP, 12/08/05)
2005 Dec 8, Scientists
published the complete DNA sequence for dogs based on a boxer named
Tasha. The gene count was estimated at 19,300, most of which
resemble human genes. A preliminary sequence was announced in 2003.
(SFC, 12/8/05, p.A4)(WSJ, 12/8/05, p.A1)
2005 Dec 8, The Int’l.
Committee of the Red Cross decided to recognize Israel’s new “Red
Crystal” medical emblem alongside the Red Cross and Red Crescent
symbols.
(SFC, 12/8/05, p.A1)
2005 Dec 8, In Afghanistan the
election board certified Pres. Karzai’s 34 appointees for the upper
house of parliament. The 1st meeting of parliament was scheduled for
Dec. 19.
(SFC, 12/9/05, p.A17)
2005 Dec 8, NATO foreign
ministers approved plans to send up to 6,000 troops into southern
Afghanistan, a major expansion of the alliance's peacekeeping
mission into some of the most dangerous parts of the country.
(AP, 12/08/05)
2005 Dec 8, In the first visit
to Australia by a Turkish leader, PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan criticized
military solutions to the so-called "war on terror", saying the
US-led invasion of Iraq had transformed the country into a training
ground for extremists.
(AFP, 12/08/05)
2005 Dec 8, In Netrokona,
Bangladesh, a suicide bomber on a bicycle rode into a crowd and
detonated his explosives, killing 7 other people and wounding
dozens. Police detained 8 suspects the next day.
(AP, 12/09/05)
2005 Dec 8, In Barbados leaders
of Caribbean nations held a summit to discuss health care
cooperation and cultural exchanges, but a major focus was on Cuba
and its thorny relationship with the United States.
(AP, 12/08/05)
2005 Dec 8, Britain's highest
court ruled that evidence obtained in other countries through
torture may not be used in British courts.
(AP, 12/08/05)
2005 Dec 8, After half a
century, London's red Routemaster buses rattled into retirement.
Thousands of fans said farewell to the hop-on, hop-off buses, this
last full day of regular service for the icon.
(AP, 12/08/05)
2005 Dec 8, Paul Wolfowitz,
head of the World Bank, issued a statement to Chad expressing
serious concerns about proposed changes to the use of petrodollars.
(SFC, 12/30/05, p.C2)
2005 Dec 8, China announced a
fifth human case of bird flu, a 31-year-old female farmer who fell
ill after contact with dead birds but has since recovered.
(AP, 12/08/05)
2005 Dec 8, Preliminary results
in Egypt's elections gave the leading opposition group, the Muslim
Brotherhood, a record 19% of the seats in parliament after a
four-week election that counted 11 fatalities.
(AP, 12/08/05)(Reuters, 12/08/05)
2005 Dec 8, An Ethiopian court
sentenced to death Major Melaku Tefera, one of Marxist dictator
Mengistu Haile Mariam's top soldiers, for genocide and abetting the
murder of 971 people during the country's 1977-78 "Red Terror"
campaign.
(AP, 12/09/05)
2005 Dec 8, In Iraq a suicide
bomber who jumped on a bus after security checks had been completed
detonated an explosives belt among passengers heading to a Shiite
city, killing 32 people and wounding 44.
(AP, 12/08/05)
2005 Dec 8, An Iraqi insurgent
group said in an Internet posting that it killed a U.S. security
consultant it had taken hostage.
(AP, 12/08/05)
2005 Dec 8, In Iraq a US
soldier attached to a Marine unit died while on guard duty at a base
near the town of Fallujah.
(AP, 12/10/05)
2005 Dec 8, An Israeli
airstrike in the northern Gaza Strip killed two Palestinian
militants and a Palestinian stabbing attack killed an Israeli in the
West Bank in a new spasm of violence.
(AP, 12/08/05)
2005 Dec 8, It was reported
that a new Italian law required businesses, that offered Internet
access to the public, to ask clients for ID and to log the owner’s
name a document type.
(SFC, 12/8/05, p.C5)
2005 Dec 8, In Japan a typing
error caused Mizuho Securities Co. to lose at least 27 billion yen,
or $225 million, on a stock