December 26, 2004

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Events

December 1, 2004

• After 22 years, Tom Brokaw ends his career as anchor for the NBC Nightly News.
• Palestinian presidential election, 2005: Jailed Palestinian Marwan Barghouti joins the race to succeed Yasser Arafat, bringing the total to 10 candidates, drawing criticism from Arafat's Fatah movement. (BBC)
• The head of Brazil's AIDS program, Pedro Chequer, says the government will violate patents on anti-AIDS drugs by copying them, citing unsustainable increases in cost. (BBC)
• Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon ends the Likud-led coalition after he fires ministers from the secular Shinui party, which voted to defeat the annual budget over subsidies to religious parties. (Haaretz) (BBC) (Reuters)
• 2004 Ukrainian presidential election: The Verkhovna Rada (parliament of Ukraine) passes a vote of no confidence to dismiss Viktor Yanukovich as Prime Minister. The opposition led by Viktor Yushchenko agrees to continue negotiations and end the blockade of official buildings. (Reuters) (BBC)
• Serbia's interior minister says the "assassination attempt" on president Boris Tadić was a case of road rage against his motor convoy in Belgrade traffic. (Reuters)
• CBS and NBC refuse to air an advertisement by the United Church of Christ citing the advocacy of accepting homosexuals is "too controversial". The advertisement was accepted by numerous other networks including Fox, ABC and TBS. (CNN) (UCC)
• A French appeals court reduces former Prime Minister Alain Juppé's disqualification from holding public office from ten years to one, opening up the way for him to contend in the 2007 presidential election. (BBC)
• Ivorian Civil War: French officials acknowledge troops killed around 20 people during clashes with anti-French protestors, but maintain the French troops acted in self-defense and gave warning shots, contrary to Ivoirian police claims. (BBC)
• Chinese state media confirms all 166 miners missing after a coal mine explosion in central Shaanxi province on November 28 are dead. (Xinhua) (BBC)
• Rwandan troops are spotted by UN personnel in eastern Congo where Congolese officials say the troops are attacking and burning villages. The last invasion started the Congo Civil War, which resulted in the deaths of 3•4 million people. (Reuters)
• An Indonesian MD-82 from the charter airline Lion Air crashes in Central Java, killing at least 31 people and injuring at least 62 people. (CNN) (Reuters)
• A report commissioned by the Secretary-General of the United Nations calls for radical reform of the United Nations, including expansion of the Security Council. (AP)
• Egypt and Israel hold talks in Jerusalem to discuss the planned Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip. (BBC)
• U.S. President George W. Bush holds talks with Prime Minister Paul Martin of Canada in his first official visit to the country and agrees to work together to combat terrorism. (BBC)
• David Blunkett, United Kingdom Home Secretary, insists that he did no wrong in the controversy surrounding the alleged misuse of his position, and receives the backing of Prime Minister Tony Blair. Sir Alan Budd is appointed to carry out an independent enquiry. (BBC)

December 2, 2004

• 2004 U.S. presidential election controversy: The U.S. House Committee on the Judiciary requests Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell to respond to alleged voting irregularities. (House.gov (PDF))
• The Inter-American Court of Human Rights upholds Peru's conviction and continued imprisonment of U.S. citizen Lori Berenson on terrorism charges. (BBC) (AP)
• A spokesman for George W. Bush requests that Myanmar release dissident opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, whose house arrest was recently extended. (BBC)
• Nuclear program of Iran: United Nations inspectors wishing to inspect the Parchin military complex southeast of Tehran and Lavizan II in northeastern Tehran lack the legal authority according to United Nations diplomats. (Reuters)
• British Member of Parliament and anti-war activist George Galloway wins his libel case against the Daily Telegraph, which during the invasion of Iraq had published a story suggesting that Galloway had been in the pay of Saddam Hussein. (BBC)
• U.S. President George W. Bush nominates Nebraska Governor Mike Johanns to become the next Secretary of Agriculture. If confirmed by the Senate, Johanns would fill the Cabinet position currently held by resigning Secretary Ann Veneman. (Reuters) (Transcript)
• The life sentence of Mijailo Mijailović, killer of Swedish minister Anna Lindh, is confirmed by the Swedish Supreme Court (BBC) (Reuters) (Bloomberg)
• The European Union takes over from NATO in peacekeeping operations in Bosnia and Herzegovina, largely replacing the NATO-led SFOR with a new Eufor. (BBC)
• India announces a new effort to survey and decontaminate the area affected by the December 3, 1984, Bhopal chemical disaster. (BBC)
• Conflict in Iraq: The U.S. military, citing security concerns for the Iraqi transitional parliamentary election scheduled for January 30, 2005, announces the deployment of 1,500 additional troops to Iraq and tour extensions bringing the number to an all time high of 150,000. (Reuters) (CNN)

December 3 2004

• Dragomir Milošević, the general who besieged Sarajevo for three years during the Bosnian Civil War surrenders to the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. 12,000 people died during the siege. (AFP) (Link dead as of 04:01, 15 January 2007 (UTC))
• The People's Republic of China launches a new long-range nuclear submarine and an accompanying class of ballistic missiles, with a range in excess of 7,400 km (4,600 miles), developed by the People's Liberation Army. (AP) (Link dead as of 04:01, 15 January 2007 (UTC))
• 2004 United States election voting controversies: The House Judiciary Committee schedules a public congressional forum on voting irregularities in Ohio on December 8. (House.gov (PDF))
• Yukos loses an appeal to halt the auctioning off of its main production unit. President of Russia Vladimir Putin, while on his three day visit to India, says Indian firms are welcomed to bid. (BBC)
• Kosovo's parliament elects a former KLA commander, Ramush Haradinaj, who has been questioned twice by UN war crimes investigators. (BBC)
• Conflict in Iraq:
  • A car bomb explodes outside a Shi'a mosque in a Baghdad Sunni district, killing 14 worshippers and wounding 19. Mortars land on a police station in Baghdad, followed by an assault which kills 12 people and results in the freeing of 50 prisoners. A website allegedly tied to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, claims responsibility for the police station attack. (BBC) (Reuters) (Link dead as of 04:01, 15 January 2007 (UTC))
  • The United States Agency for International Development states they aim to boost the availability of electricity throughout Iraq to 18 hours a day by the end of next year from 11 to 15 hours now, estimably higher than before the 2003 U.S. invasion. (Reuters) (Link dead as of 04:01, 15 January 2007 (UTC))
  • The Ukrainian parliament, embroiled in the presidential election controversy, votes to ask outgoing president Leonid Kuchma to withdraw Ukraine's 1,600 troops in Iraq. (Reuters) (Link dead as of 04:01, 15 January 2007 (UTC))
  • German security forces arrest three alleged members of Ansar al-Islam who are suspected of planning the assassination of Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi while he was on a state visit to Germany. (CNN) (Der Spiegel (German)
• U.S. President George W. Bush nominates former New York City Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik to replace outgoing Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge in the Cabinet position. Secretary of Health and Human Services Tommy Thompson also announces his resignation. (Reuters) (Link dead as of 04:01, 15 January 2007 (UTC))
• Following warnings by separatist group ETA, a number of devices explode in Madrid. (Reuters) (Link dead as of 04:01, 15 January 2007 (UTC)) (BBC) (Wikinews)
• The Supreme Court of Ukraine rules that the 2004 second round presidential results are invalid and requires a new vote to be completed within three weeks without determining whether the second round will be re-run or an entirely new election will be run. (BBC) (Yahoo! News) (Link dead as of 04:01, 15 January 2007 (UTC))
• Former Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of Israel and Holocaust survivor Yisrael Meir Lau says that "Jewish history in Europe is nearing its end" and called the Jewish Agency to prepare for the absorption of Europe's Jews in Israel. Lau conveyed concern over rise in antisemitism and fading of the Holocaust remembrance in Europe.(Haaretz) (Link dead as of 04:01, 15 January 2007 (UTC))
• Rwanda denies it has sent any troops to Congo. Reuters (Link dead as of 04:01, 15 January 2007 (UTC)) quotes unnamed diplomatic sources that claim that the troops were there only temporarily. (BBC) (Reuters) (Link dead as of 04:01, 15 January 2007 (UTC))
• Brazilian paleontologists of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro announce a find of a new dinosaur species, Unaysaurus tolentinoi. The find also shows links to Europe when both continents were part of Pangaea. (Reuters) (Link dead as of 04:01, 15 January 2007 (UTC)) (BBC) (News 24)
• Typhoon Nanmadol slams into the island of Luzon in the Philippines, less than a week after tropical depression locally called "Winnie" caused landslides and floods in the region also affected by the earlier typhoons Muifa and Merbok. Floods and landslides by Winnie killed at least 495 persons. More people are expected to be declared missing or dead as typhoon Nanmadol leaves the country later today. (CNN) (Inquirer/GMA7)
• Dissident investors in Disney, including former board member Roy Disney, nephew of the company founder Walt Disney, announced that they will not nominate a slate of alternate directors for the 2005 annual meeting. The announcement is a sign of an easing of tensions at that corporation's board. thestreet.com

December 4, 2004

• The Mozambique presidential election vote count continues in all of the country, with Frelimo and its candidate Armando Guebuza leading, according to the preliminary results already known, and especially in Maputo, Gaza and Inhambane, traditional regions of influence for the party in power. (Wikinews)
• Militants blow up a vehicle in Pulwama, Jammu and Kashmir, India killing a major, nine soldiers of the Rashtriya Rifles and two civilians using an improvised explosive device. (Reuters)
• Peruvian-born María Julia Mantilla García is crowned Miss World. (Reuters)

December 5, 2004

• In Taiwan, rallies are held in support of candidates in elections to the Legislative Yuan. Party sources estimate that separate rallies held in Taipei by the Kuomintang and Taiwan Solidarity Union drew around 100,000 each. (VOA) (TaipeiTimes)
• A referendum in Hungary to grant citizenship to ethnic Hungarians living in other countries appears to have failed due to insufficient turnout. The proposal has angered the governments of countries with significant Hungarian populations, particularly Romania. The Prime Minister of Hungary, Ferenc Gyurcsány, opposed the referendum. (Reuters)
• 2004 United States election voting controversies:
  • Hundreds gather at the Ohio statehouse to demand a recount of votes, citing fraud that took votes from John Kerry and gave them to George W. Bush.
  • A lawsuit challenging the Volusia County, Florida, election is thrown out for being a day late. The suit claims paperwork is missing from 59 of Volusia's 179 precincts and that precinct printouts show different numbers. (AP)
• The Thai government drops millions of origami cranes on its restive, predominantly Muslim provinces of Narathiwat, Pattani and Yala, saying that they are a gesture of goodwill and peace. (Channel News Asia) (BBC)
• Iraq War:
  • More than 20 are killed and many more injured in a series of attacks on Iraqis working for the United States by Iraqi insurgents today. (ABC) (BBC) (Reuters)
• French Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin seeks to ban Hizbullah's TV channel al-Manar from broadcasting in France due to purported anti-Semitic content, most recently involving a commentator speaking of "Zionist attempts to transmit AIDS to Arab countries". al-Manar claims to be anti-Israeli rather than anti-Semitic. (BBC)
• In a prisoner exchange between Israel and Egypt, Egypt releases Azzam Azzam, an Israeli Druze businessman sentenced to 15 years imprisonment by Egypt in 1997 on charges of spying for Israel, while Israel releases six Egyptian students who allegedly infiltrated Israel to kidnap soldiers. (Haaretz) (BBC)
• With more than 1000 people dead or missing, devastation in the northern agricultural regions, and damaged infrastructure after Monday's storm and Thursday's Typhoon Nanmadol, Philippines President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo suspends logging and pledges to prosecute violators. (Malaysia Star) (Boston Globe) (New York Times)

December 6, 2004

• Former Houston Rockets star Calvin Murphy acquitted of charges that he molested his five daughters. (Houston Chronicle)
• Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams recommends that Sinn Féin support a British-Irish power-sharing plan for Northern Ireland that involves the public decommissioning of the arms held by the Irish Republican Army. Ian Paisley of the loyalist Democratic Unionist Party may become first minister of Northern Ireland, with former IRA member Martin McGuinness as his deputy. (BBC)
• United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan has come under fire after reports claim that his son received payments from a Swiss company that won a lucrative contract under the UN Oil for Food program. (BBC)
• The U.S. consular compound in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, is stormed by gunmen, who kill nine Saudis in a four-hour battle but do not gain entry to the consulate building itself. Saudi security forces kill three of the gunmen, arrest two others, and pursue several more. There are no Americans dead, though some are slightly wounded. (BBC) (Reuters/AFP)
• In Spain the Basque separatist group ETA detonate seven bombs in bars, cafes and town squares across the country. The cities attacked are León, Ávila, Santillana del Mar, Ciudad Real, Málaga, Valladolid, and Alicante. All the attacks were preceded by warnings and nobody was seriously hurt. (BBC)
• Ukrainian presidential election controversy: EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana has returned to Ukraine for talks on the country's political crisis.(BBC)

December 7, 2004

• The New Zealand Special Air Service (NZSAS) is awarded the United States Presidential Unit Citation for services in Afghanistan.^[1]
• The Supreme Court of the United States hears oral argument in Granholm v. Heald.
• Frans van Anraat is arrested in the Netherlands for shipping chemical weapons precursors to Saddam Hussein during the Iran•Iraq War (CNN)
• High-profile New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, a Democrat, announces his campaign for Governor in 2006. (Yahoo)
• Israeli-Palestinian conflict
  • Two Hamas militants, two Islamic Jihad members, and an Israeli soldier have died following clashes in the central Gaza Strip. (BBC)
  • Shahar Dvir-Zeliger, a Jewish settler in Nablus, is sentenced to eight years imprisonment for membership of an extremist group. He was found guilty of being a member of the Bat Ayin cell, which has killed eight Palestinians. (BBC)
  • An entire Israel Defense Forces elite unit is suspended from duty while investigations continue into what B'Tselem alleges was a killing of an unnarmed injured Palestinian man. (BBC)
• 2004 U.S. presidential election controversy:
  • Ken Blackwell, Ohio Secretary of State and co-chair of the 2004 George W. Bush campaign in Ohio • certifies election results. Two parallel vote count efforts are pending, one claims evidence that John Kerry is the legitimate winner of Ohio. (Associated Press) (NYT)
• The U.S. military discusses plans for mandatory visibly worn ID badges, forced labor, DNA testing, and retina scans at "citizen processing centers" for all residents of the rebellious Iraqi city of Fallujah, saying they plan to make it a model city for the whole of Iraq. (Boston Globe)
• Hamid Karzai is inaugurated as President of Afghanistan. (CNN) (BBC)

December 8, 2004

• Delegates from twelve South American countries meeting in Cuzco, Peru, sign a deal creating the South American Community of Nations, a bloc modelled on the European Union. (BBC)
• The Israeli government indicates that it will recognize same-sex partnerships for certain benefits, and will introduce legislation formalizing this status. (365gay.com)
• Civil unions in New Zealand: Parliament passes civil union legislation by 65 votes to 55. The new law provides a way for de facto couples, including same-sex couples, to gain legal recognition of their relationships, but stops short of same-sex marriage. (Scoop) (TVNZ)
• The White House affirms that, despite reports to the contrary, John Snow will remain Treasury Secretary during President George W. Bush's second term of office. Meanwhile, Secretary of Veterans Affairs Anthony Principi announces his expected resignation. (CNN)
• The United States Senate follows the U.S. House of Representatives in approving a complete overhaul of government intelligence services, creating the post of United States Director of National Intelligence. (BBC)
• The European Union says it is not ready to lift its 15-year-old arms embargo on the People's Republic of China, set after the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989. (BBC)
• Malaysian Deputy Home Affairs Minister Tan Chai Ho announces that once an extended amnesty sought by Indonesia comes to an end later that year, illegal immigrants will face up to five years in prison and a whipping; their employers will also be punished. More than 18,000 undocumented migrants have already been whipped since the 2002 amendment to the Malaysian Immigration Act. (China View) (Channel News Asia)
• IBM announces that it will sell its PC hardware business to Lenovo, a Chinese computer company. (BBC)
• Sri Jayendra Saraswathi, a senior Hindu cleric, has been denied bail over his murder charge in India's southern Tamil Nadu state. (BBC)
• The Times reports that Dr. Nikolai Korpan, who treated Ukrainian presidential candidate Viktor Yushchenko in Vienna, announced Yushchenko had been poisoned, and that the specific poison would be identified within days, but later denied the report, saying he had been cited wrongly and that it would be hard to gain hard evidence for a poisoning. (Times Online) (Yahoo News) (Link dead as of 00:47, 15 January 2007 (UTC))
• While performing with post-Pantera band Damageplan at the Alrosa Villa in Columbus, Ohio, guitarist Dimebag Darrell Abbott was shot and killed onstage by Nathan Gale. Abbott was shot a total of five times. He was 38 years old. Three others were killed in the shooting: concert attendee Nathan Bray, 23, of Columbus; club employee Erin Halk, 29, of northwest Columbus; and Damageplan security guard Jeff "Mayhem" Thompson, 40, of Texas. The band's drum technician, John Brooks, and tour manager, Chris Paluska, were injured.

December 9, 2004

• President George W. Bush nominates Jim Nicholson, United States Ambassador to the Holy See, as his nominee for Secretary of Veterans Affairs, replacing outgoing Secretary Anthony Principi.
• Police discover four packages of suspected explosives at the main station of the Taipei Rapid Transit System two days before the legislative elections take place.
• Japan and Germany have jointly declared they want permanent seats on the United Nations Security Council with the veto power of the five current permanent members.(VOA)
• The British Law Lords hold treatment of Czech Roma by UK immigration officers at Prague Airport to be discriminatory. (opinions) Since the enlargement of the European Union earlier that year, free movement of EU citizens includes Czechs. (Guardian) (BBC)
• Lord Dubs presents the Succession to the Crown Bill (bill) in the Parliament of the United Kingdom. (The Guardian)
• Acting on a reference from Parliament, the Canadian Supreme Court states that a bill to legalize same-sex marriage in Canada would be constitutional. They decline to say if the Constitution requires that recognition, saying that by not appealing several provincial courts' decisions to that effect, the government has already adopted that position. (CBC) Prime Minister Paul Martin says his government will introduce same-sex marriage legislation in January. (CBC)
• In a move denounced as "unconstitutional" by the opposition, the National Congress of Ecuador dismisses all 31 of the country's Supreme Court justices. (BBC)
• Israeli•Palestinian conflict:
  • Israeli troops kill at least four Palestinians found crawling into Egypt on the Gaza Border. (China View) (Haaretz)
  • Palestinian presidential candidate Mustafa Barghouti claims to have been "detained and beaten" by Israeli soldiers at a West Bank checkpoint. (BBC)
• The government of Lesotho announces plans to give women legal equality and property rights within a year. (Reuters)
• The International Rescue Committee says that the Congo Civil War is killing 1000 people a day and calls the international response "abysmal". (BBC)

December 10, 2004

• Israeli troops kill Rania Siam, an 8-year-old Palestinian girl, as she eats lunch in the kitchen of her home in Khan Yunis, Gaza Strip. Earlier, three mortar shells are fired into the nearby Israeli settlement of Neve Dekalim injuring four people, one of them a child. Hamas claims responsibility. Israeli troops fire in the general direction the source of mortar fire. The Israeli army says it will investigate Rania Siam's death. (NYT)
• Ebay's last good day on the exchange.
• A riot forms in Puerto Rico between members of the PIP, the FUPI, the Socialist party and members of the police in front of the federal courthouse, where PIP and PNP backers had gathered two days before the outcome of the 2004 Puerto Rican elections was to be decided by a judge. Several people, including seven policemen, are severely injured. (El Vocero (Spanish)
• Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi is acquitted of bribery thanks to the statute of limitations. The court's ruling implied that Berlusconi probably was guilty of bribing a judge in 1991, but said that too much time had passed for him to be punished. Financial Times Reuters
• The 2004 Nobel Prizes are handed out at twin ceremonies in Oslo and Stockholm. (Canadian Press) (BBC)
• "Godfather of Soul" James Brown is diagnosed with prostate cancer and will undergo surgery next week. (BBC)
• A bomb explodes at a market in the Pakistani city of Quetta, leaving at least ten people dead. (BBC)
• The Inter-American Court of Human Rights orders Guatemala to pay USD $7.9 million in compensation to 317 survivors of the 1982 Plan de Sánchez massacre in which soldiers and paramilitaries killed 268 villagers.

December 11 2004

• Jean-Christophe Lafaille, a French climber, climbs Shishapangma, the first solo ascension of a eight-thousander in winter from a new route in the South face.
• Vanuatu Prime Minister Serge Vohor is ousted in a vote of no-confidence and replaced by Ham Lini. Vohor had fallen out of favor with his cabinet after he unilaterally travelled to Taipei and established diplomatic relations with the Taiwan. The Vanuatu Council of Ministers voted to void the decision and continue relations with the People's Republic of China.^[2][3]
• The opposition pan-blue alliance achieves a majority in the Taiwanese legislative election, garnering at least 114 of the 225 seats. The governing Democratic Progressive Party and its pan-green allies win 101 seats.^[4][5][6]
• Doctors in Austria confirm that Ukrainian presidential candidate Viktor Yushchenko's illness was caused by dioxin poisoning. It is alleged that he first became ill after dining with the chairman of the Ukrainian Security Service in early September.^[7][8] (Link dead as of 21:43, 14 January 2007 (UTC))
• Bernard Kerik withdraws his nomination for the post of Secretary of Homeland Security, fearing a scandal over the immigration status of his nanny.^[9][10]

December 12, 2004

• According to the Washington Post the Bush administration used wire taps to intercept a number of phone conversations of Mohamed ElBaradei, Director General of the United Nations International Atomic Energy Agency in hope of finding information that would help remove ElBaradei from his post. (CNN) (The Washington Post)
• Israeli-Palestinian conflict
  • At least five Israeli soldiers are killed and 10 are injured as a tunnel rigged with 1500 kg of explosives exploded near the Rafah crossing between Rafah and Egypt. Hamas and an al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades' offshoot called "Fatah Hawk" claimed joint responsibility. (Haaretz) (CNN)
  • Five Palestinian schoolchildren were wounded, receiving shrapnel wounds from Israeli Tank Fire. (Ha'Aretz)
• Jailed Palestinian leader Marwan Barghouti withdraws his nomination in the Palestinian presidential election just ten days after announcing his candidacy, and instead endorses Fatah candidate Mahmoud Abbas. (BBC)
• Romania presidential run-off: Exit polls show that the difference between the two candidates (Traian Băsescu and Adrian Năstase) is very small, estimated at less than 0.01%. (BBC)
• 2004 U.S. presidential election controversy:
  • The U.S. House Committee on the Judiciary will be holding a congressional forum in Columbus concerning new evidence of election irregularities and fraud in Ohio, the issue of Ohio electors meeting while recounts and litigation are pending, and to discuss legislative and other responses to the problems, on Dec. 13. (pdf)
  • The Civil Rights Coalition schedules a protest for Dec. 18, demanding a re-vote in "areas where substantive disenfranchisement took place" and the prosecution of officials involved in "election fraud." (Civil Rights Coalition)
• A bomb blast in a General Santos City, Philippines, supermarket leaves at least 58 people injured and 15 dead.(AOL news)

December 13, 2004

• Self-confessed cannibal Yoo Young-Chul, convicted of killing 20 people, mostly prostitutes, is sentenced to death in Seoul, South Korea. (Xinhua)
• France's highest administrative court, the Conseil d'État, bans Hizbullah's al-Manar TV station on the grounds that it incites racial hatred and antisemitism. (BBC)
• The jury in the Scott Peterson trial recommends that he be sentenced to death for the murder of his wife and unborn son. (CNN)
• Augusto Pinochet is charged by Chilean prosecutors for alleged involvement in murder and "disappearances" in Chile in the 1970s, and is placed under house arrest. (BBC)
• 2004 United States election voting controversies:
  • As required by the United States Constitution, members of the Electoral College meet in all 50 state capitols and the District of Columbia to cast their electoral votes, including an unexpected single vote for John Edwards by an elector in Minnesota. (Minneapolis Star Tribune)
  • All members of the Ohio delegation of the Electoral College cast their ballots for George W. Bush while a legal recount is still ongoing, after a written request by 11 Democratic congressmen (pdf) to suspend voting. (ABC) (ABC)
  • The House Judiciary Committee hears testimony at a forum in Columbus, Ohio, regarding problems with the 2004 presidential election. (freepress.org) (statements) (audio, mp3) (video, wmv)
• United States Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Michael O. Leavitt is nominated by President George W. Bush to succeed outgoing Secretary of Health and Human Services Tommy Thompson in the Cabinet-level post. (Bloomberg)
• Conflict in Iraq:
  • At least 13 people die following a car bomb attack on a U.S. checkpoint near the Green Zone in Baghdad, Iraq. (The Guardian)
  • The U.S. launches another air raid on the Iraqi city of Fallujah after eight US Marines were killed by insurgents over the weekend. (ABC {aus})
• Foreign policy of the George W. Bush administration: Human Rights Watch, a New York based NGO claims that another three prisoners have died while in U.S. detention in Afghanistan. (BBC)
• Hundreds of protesters have gathered in Cairo outside Egypt's Supreme Judiciary buildings, defying a ban on public protests, to call for an end to Hosni Mubarak's 23-year presidency of Egypt. (BBC)
• Romanian presidential election, 2004: Prime Minister Adrian Năstase concedes defeat to opposition candidate Traian Băsescu after a close contest. With 99% of the vote counted, Băsescu took 51.23% of the vote to Năstase's 48.77%. (BBC)
• Oracle Corporation announces a merger deal to acquire PeopleSoft for approximately US$10.3 billion. (Oracle Press Release)

December 14, 2004

• Same-sex marriage in Canada: Federal justice minister Irwin Cotler announces that the bill to legalize same-sex marriage will contain a provision allowing civic officials to refuse to perform such ceremonies. (365Gay)
• Nick Griffin and John Tyndall, the current and previous leaders of the far-right British National Party, are arrested and bailed in relation to investigations by British police into suspicion of incitement to racial hatred. (BBC)
• Bahrain, the smallest Persian Gulf nation, unfurls the world's largest national flag at a sports stadium car park. (BBC)
• Arab-Israeli Conflict:
  • A Thai worker is killed and two more are injured in Gush Katif by Palestinian mortar shells. (Haaretz)
  • The Syrian government blames Israel for a failed attempt to kill an alleged senior Hamas member in Damascus yesterday. (BBC)
  • The leader of Hamas, Khaled Meshal, tells the BBC's Newsnight programme that his group has had secret contacts with the United States and the European Union. (BBC)
  • Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas calls for an end to violence in the four-year old Intifada and a return to non-violent resistance. The announcement comes two days after a faction of Abbas's Fatah party, Fatah Hawks, claims responsibility for an attack killing at least five Israeli soldiers. (Reuters)
• Taiwanese President Chen Shui-bian resigns as Chairman of the Democratic Progressive Party to take responsibility for the pan-green alliance's failure to win a majority in the legislative election. (BBC)
• Two trains collide in the northern Indian state of Punjab, killing at least 37 people. One of the trains was carrying Hindu pilgrims returning from Vaishno Devi. (BBC) (The Times-UK)
• The US admits that more prisoners have died in American custody in Afghanistan than it has previously acknowledged. (BBC)
• Another car bomb detonates inside the Green Zone of Baghdad. Iraqi doctors claim at least 7 deaths and 12 injuries. (BBC) (News24)
• President Chirac inaugurates the world's highest road bridge in southern France. The Millau Viaduct over the River Tarn is higher than the Eiffel Tower. It is expected to open to traffic on Thursday. (BBC)
• A new species of monkey, the Arunachal Macaque, is discovered in India. It is the first new macaque discovered since 1903 and the first new primate in 49 years. (NCF India)

December 15, 2004

• CNN's business news network CNNfn ends transmissions. (CNN)
• U.K. Home Secretary David Blunkett resigns from his post in the wake of numerous controversies. He is replaced by Charles Clarke, the Secretary of State for Education and Skills. Ruth Kelly takes over from Clarke as Education Secretary and becomes the sixth woman in prime minister Tony Blair's Cabinet. Kelly is replaced as Cabinet Office minister by David Miliband. (Sky) (BBC)
• In Athens, Greece, two gunmen, possibly Albanian, seize a bus at 7:00 local time and take 25 hostages on board. The hijackers threaten to blow up the bus at 08:00 Greek time (06:00 GMT, Thursday) if their demands for €1 million and a flight to Russia are not met. The hostage crisis ends peacefully after 18 hours when the two gunmen surrender. All the hostages are released unharmed. (Sky) (News24) (OfficialWire) (Reuters)
• An armed group of young ethnic Albanians, allegedly former NLA guerrilla members, seal off the village of Kondovo, Macedonia, a suburb of the capital Skopje, citing poor conditions and repression by state authorities. The fledgling multi-ethnic governing coalition plays down the incident stating it is a local problem stemming from the slow implementation of the peace agreement after the 2001 civil war, while some opposition parties call for "strong action". (RealityMK) (TOL)
• Democratic Party members of the U.S. House Committee on the Judiciary request an FBI investigation into alleged Ohio voting problems, (NYT) (pdf) prompted by affidavits and sworn testimony taken at a congressional forum held on December 13. [1]
• A US$85 million test of the U.S. National Missile Defense system by the Missile Defense Agency is aborted when an unknown anomaly is detected before the launch of an interceptor missile in the Marshall Islands, 16 minutes after the launch of the target from Kodiak Island, Alaska. It is the first test since a previous failed test in 2002. As in 2002, the Bush administration abandons plans to activate the system by the end of the year, and projects its activation in early 2005. (Reuters) (Associated Press)
• Sprint Corporation announces a US$35 billion deal to acquire Nextel Communications. With about $40 billion in combined yearly revenue the resulting company (called Sprint Nextel) will be the third largest wireless telephone service provider in the U.S.. (MSNBC)
• Human rights in Iraq: The U.S. is forced to release evidence which shows prisoners in Iraq were subject to mock executions, electric shocks, and burns by US Marines. (BBC)
• Iraqi transitional parliamentary election: Iraq's defense minister accuses Iran and Syria of supporting terrorists and charges that a senior Iraqi Shiite was leading a "pro-Iranian" coalition into next month's national elections. (AP via Yahoo)
• North Korea announces that if Japan is to impose any sanctions over the ashes of kidnap victim Yokota Megumi, it will be regarded as a declaration of war. (Japan Today) The Japanese government downplays the criticism. (News24) (Bloomberg) (Japan Today)
• At least four people die in a second Indian train accident, blamed by railway officials on the driver of a van stopped on train tracks near Villupuram district of Tamil Nadu. The new accident comes after the previous day's train crash with a death toll of at least 37. (The Tribune, Chandigarh, India)
• United Nations envoy Jan Pronk says that 10,000 peacekeepers are needed in Sudan to monitor the forthcoming peace deal. (Reuters Alertnet)
• Pitcairn Islands election, 2004: Jay Warren becomes Mayor of Pitcairn Island.

December 16, 2004

• Belgian child killer Marc Dutroux loses an appeal against his life sentence. (Expatica) (News.Com)
• Leaders of the European Union, meeting in Brussels, agree to invite Turkey to begin negotiations to join the EU from 3 October 2005, about 36 years after they first applied to join. (BBC)
• In the Western Districts of Nepal, nearly 50 people are killed in clashes between Nepalese troops and Maoist rebels. (BBC)
• A commuter in Zimbabwe who allegedly insulted President Robert Mugabe could face up to five years in prison for undermining the president's authority. (BBC)
• South Korean high-speed rail system, Korea Train Express open between Seoul and Busan.
• Inuit leaders want to sue the U.S. government at the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights for causing global warming. They view the melting of the polar icecap in the Arctic as a threat to their existence as a people, an assault on their basic human rights. The announcement is expected today in Buenos Aires at the 10th round of international talks on climate change. (NYT) (Democracy Now!)
• The British final court of appeal, the Law Lords, rule that the suspension of habeas corpus for foreign nationals detained under the Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001 is illegal, being incompatible with the European Convention on Human Rights. (BBC) (judgment)
• Cambodian soldiers discover a cache of Angkor Wat-era carvings that were to be smuggled out of the country. (Reuters)
• Thai security forces pursue 100 people connected to the unrest in the south of the country. Four Islamic teachers have been arrested on suspicion of inciting terrorism. (Channel News Asia) (Reuters)
• Former chess champion Bobby Fischer has been offered residency in Iceland. He is currently detained in Japan, and is wanted by the United States. (BBC) (Reuters)
• Researchers at the University of Tübingen report the discovery of a 30,000 to 37,000-year-old flute, the earliest musical instrument ever found. [2]
• blink-182 played their last ever show at Point Depot in Dublin, Ireland

December 17, 2004

• United States Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld faces criticism from both Democrats and Republicans following a dismissive reply to a soldier in Iraq when questioned about vehicle armor. (CNN)
• Cuban authorities put up photos of abused Iraqi prisoners in front of the US interests section in Havana after the U.S. displayed Christmas decorations in a protest against Cuba's human rights record. (BBC)
• The United States declares Hizbullah's al-Manar TV channel to be a terrorist organization. (White House Official Statement) (Al-Jazeera)
• A public inquiry into the deaths of 85 Muslim protesters in southern Thailand claims the killings were "not deliberate". 78 people suffocated to death after being piled into army trucks by Thai security forces; 7 were shot at the separatist protests on October 25. (BBC)
• U.S. President George W. Bush signs the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act, creating the office of the Director of National Intelligence to oversee the country's fifteen spy agencies. (ABC News)
• Israeli-Palestinian Conflict:
  • The Labour Party and Ariel Sharon's Likud Party reach an agreement, forming a unity government in order to implement Israel's unilateral disengagement plan of 2004. In return, the Labor will receive eight cabinet portfolios, including "peace/disengagement minister" specially suited for Shimon Peres and Internal Affairs. (Yahoo/Reuters) (BBC)
  • Israeli forces, accompanied by armored bulldozers and helicopter gunships, raid the Gaza Strip town of Khan Yunis, killing eight Palestinians, including two civilians, and wounding twenty-four, after 50 mortar shells were fired on the Gush Katif settlements and caused injuries to some Israeli soldiers and killed a Thai worker. (BBC) (Maariv) (Haaretz)
  • In retaliation for the Israeli raid, Palestinians from Hamas and the Abu-Reish faction shoot at least five anti-tank missiles, wounding two Israeli soldiers. (BBC) (Haaretz) (Maariv) (CTV Canada)
  • Hundreds of Palestinians flee homes in the area, fearful that Israeli troops will destroy their homes. They take refuge in nearby hospital and a stadium, while others have moved to relatives who live further to the centre of the Gaza Strip. (BBC) (Haaretz)
  • In Rafah, five Palestinians are trapped when the tunnel they were digging collapsed. Rescue efforts, with the assist of Israeli bulldozers, are in progress though estimations are that the five are dead. (Haaretz) (Yahoo\Reuters)
• U.S. President George W. Bush, speaking to business executives and economists at the White House, vows to push through big reforms to the Social Security program, including partial privatization of the state pension fund, during his second term. (BBC)
• The E.U. states that Turkey must recognize the ethnic-Greek government of E.U. member state Cyprus before it can begin negotiations for E.U. membership. Currently Turkey is the only country that recognizes the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus. (ITV) (Turkish Press)
• Police in West Java, Indonesia, say that they have found nine home-made bombs on a bus during a security operation. (Channel News Asia) (Jakarta Post)
• Three suspected IRA members who were accused of training rebels in Colombia flee while on bail. An appellate court overturned their earlier acquittals yesterday. They had been sentenced to prison for 17 years. (BBC) (Ireland Online)
• Bhutan's ban on the sale of all tobacco products comes into effect. (Hindustan Times) (BBC)
• Russia intends to allow Polish officials to see files related to the Katyn massacre. (BBC)
• The United Nations finds a surveillance bug in its European headquarters in Geneva in a room used by ministers from major powers last year during private talks on Iraq. (BBC) (NZZ)

December 18, 2004

• Hundreds of Sikh demonstrators protest outside a Birmingham, England, theatre against a play (Behzti) depicting sex abuse and murder in a Sikh temple. Theatre stormed by a few demonstrators. (BBC)
• 2004 U.S. presidential election controversy:
  • Voting machine manufacturer Diebold Election Systems will pay a $2.6 million settlement to the State of California over the lawsuit filed by the state in September alleging that Diebold was not truthful about the security and reliability of its electronic voting machines. (internetnews.com)
  • In a sharp change from their traditional role, several members of the Electoral College have filed a protest of the official election results, one even casting his electoral vote provisionally upon a revote. These electors have called for a member of the U.S. Senate to protest the election results on January 6. (AP) (Sacramento Bee) (Burlington Union)
• In Topeka, Kansas, US, infant Victoria Jo Stinnett is returned to her father three days after her mother was allegedly strangled to death and she was cut from her mother's uterus and abducted. The AMBER Alert system is credited with helping to safely recover the child. (CNN)
• Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
  • Palestinians fire several Qassam rockets at the civilian town Sderot and the northern Negev, causing damage but no casualties. (Haaretz)
  • Another three Palestinians were killed by Israeli soldiers on Saturday during an Israeli incursion into the Khan Younis refugee camp in the Gaza Strip, raising the death toll to 11. According to Palestinian sources, three of those killed were civilians, the rest were militants from Hamas and Fatah's Abu Reish Brigades. The IDF has officially ended Khan Yunis raid, dubbed "Operation Orange Iron", and threatened to return if mortar shelling will be renewed by militants. (BBC), (Haaretz)
  • Palestinians have been unable to bury the dead because Israeli forces were in control at the local cemetery, medics told the Reuters news agency. (BBC)
  • Six Palestinians were rescued from a collapsed tunnel under an Israel-controlled corridor in the Egypt•Gaza border area. (BBC)
• Former Chilean President Augusto Pinochet has been taken to hospital after suffering a stroke. (BBC)
• Darfur conflict: The African Union has given both sides involved in the Darfur conflict a deadline of 1700 GMT to halt the fighting in the region which currently violates the ceasefire agreement. If this condition is not met, talks in Nigeria to find a solution to the conflict would end. (BBC)
• Conflict in Iraq:
  • Former senior Iraqi official Ali Hassan al-Majid (aka "Chemical Ali") is questioned by Iraqi judges in a pre-trial hearing. He is accused of crimes committed by the regime, such as the gassing of Iraqi Kurds in 1988. (BBC) (Reuters)
  • Iraqi insurgents attack election offices in northern Iraq, killing two people and wounding nine, six weeks before the country is due to go to the polls. (Reuters)

December 19, 2004

• Conflict in Iraq: Bomb blasts in the Iraqi Shia cities of Karbala and Najaf kill up to 60 people and injure a further 120. (BBC)
• Russia auctions off the main production unit of oil giant YUKOS to the small Baikalfinansgroup for 260.75bn rubles (US$9.37bn). Before the sale, YUKOS was said to owe US$27bn in unpaid taxes, specifically an average of 90% of its revenue. Former CEO jailed Mikhail Khodorkovsky and other YUKOS officials maintain it is politically motivated. (BBC)
• The people of Turkmenistan go to the polls to elect a new parliament. Voters will choose between candidates, all of whom have pledged support to President Niyazov, the "Turkmenbashi" or "leader of Turkmens". (BBC)
• US president George W. Bush is named "Person of the Year" by Time magazine. (CNN)
• Rice University computer scientists find a security hole in Google's desktop search program. (New York Times)

December 20, 2004

• Analysts attribute a sharp drop in the price of crude oil to the unexpected outcome of the auction of Yukos' Siberian production unit yesterday. The value of the January futures contract fell 64 cents to $45.64 on the Nymex.
• China announces reforms to its legal system effective in 2005, including the introduction of jury trials and a 10% increase in the number of judges. Jurors will be elected to a five-year term, and must have at least two years' university education. (BBC) (Xinhua)
• The Head of the Egyptian Coptic Christian Church, Pope Shenouda III, has gone into seclusion in a desert monastery to draw attention to grievances among Egyptian Christians. (BBC)
• U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has admitted that he had used a machine to sign letters of condolence to relatives of more than 1,000 troops killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, but pledged to sign the letters personally in future. (BBC)
• In Sudan, fighting has not stopped after a ceasefire between government troops and rebels. Although the government of Sudan has said that they have stopped the Darfur offensive, there are still reports of battles. Foreign Minister Mustafa Osman Ismail rules out any withdrawal from the positions government troops have taken. An observing African Union helicopter was shot at. (BBC) (Iafrica)
• Prachanda, leader of the Maoist guerillas in Nepal, announces his intention to disrupt elections if the government refuses to abolish the monarchy. Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba has given them until January 13, 2005, to begin peace talks. (Reuters)
• An explosion in a Chinese coal mine kills 14. (Reuters) (BBC)
• African National Congress of South Africa accuses U.S. officials covering up adverse side effects of AIDS medications. (Iafrica) (Reuters)
• Police arrest former Miss World Yukta Mookhey's uncle, aunt and two cousins in a case of harassment for dowry. (Hindustan Times) (Indian Express) (Times of India)

December 21, 2004

• European Union ministers postpone a controversial vote on the proposed Directive on the patentability of computer-implemented inventions in the EU after Poland asks for more time to think about it. (Reuters) (BBC)
• The Boeing Delta 4 Heavy rocket launches successfully for the first time. (MSNBC)
• Conflict in Iraq:
  • US forces say twenty-two people have been killed and at least 67 injured in an attack at a US military base in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul. The dead include 13 US Soldiers, making the attack one of the deadliest attacks on US forces since the start of the war. (BBC) (CNN)
  • Christian Chesnot and Georges Malbrunot, the two French hostages held in Iraq since August, are freed. Their captors claim they were freed because of France's anti-war stance. (BBC)
• Former British Home Secretary David Blunkett's office is found to have assisted in the fast-tracking of his lover's nanny's visa-application, thereby confirming the allegation that led to his dismissal. (BBC)
• The White House announces that allegations of abuse of prisoners in Iraq and Guantanamo Bay by US military personnel will be "fully investigated". The allegations were prompted by a memo, obtained by ACLU FOIA requests, dated two months after the Abu Ghraib scandal broke which reference an executive order that authorized questionable interrogation techniques. The White House spokesman flat out denied this in saying "there is no executive order on interrogation techniques". (BBC) (White House) (ACLU)
• Japan issues a tourist visa to former Taiwanese leader Lee Teng-hui despite protests from the People's Republic of China that such a move would harm bilateral relations. The PRC considers Lee a Taiwan independence agitator. (BBC)
• Same-sex marriage in Canada: The Supreme Court of Newfoundland and Labrador finds the banning of same-sex marriage unconstitutional, making that province the eighth of Canada's provinces and territories to legalize same-sex marriage. (CBC)
• Arab-Israeli Conflict: The leaders of the Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) urge US President George W. Bush to make the creation of an independent Palestinian state an absolute priority at their annual meeting, which is being held in Bahrain. (BBC)
• UK Prime Minister Tony Blair makes a surprise visit to Baghdad. (BBC) (Guardian) (Number 10)
• Author J.K. Rowling announces that the sixth book in her Harry Potter series, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, will be published on 16 July 2005. The share price of her British publisher, Bloomsbury, rises 7.5% on the news. (Reuters)
• Up to £30 million are reported stolen from the headquarters of the Northern Bank in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Two members of the bank's senior staff and their families are reported to have been held hostage before the robbery. This is likely to be the second biggest bank robbery in British history, and the fourth largest in the world. (BBC) (Reuters) (Glasgow Evening Times)
• Pakistan's Anti Terrorism Court cancels the bail of Asif Ali Zardari, leader of the Pakistan Peoples Party and husband of Benazir Bhutto. Zardari was released last month after eight years in prison. He was charged with corruption and conspiracy to murder. (GEO) (BBC)
• A court in Chile upholds the indictment and house arrest of Augusto Pinochet. Prosecution lawyers claim that his hospitalization for a heart condition was a political ploy. Pinochet's lawyers intend to appeal. (BBC) (Bloomberg)
• A court in Nigeria upholds the election of Nigerian president Olusegun Obasanjo. Opposition parties, led by Muhammadu Buhari, have challenged the result, and the EU and U.S. question the election's validity. (AllAfrica) (BBC) (Vanguard, Nigeria)
• A bus accident in Peru claims 49 lives and injures 15. (Reuters)
• Archaeologists in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, find the remains of a 7,500-year-old man on the island of Marawah. (Khaleej Times) (Reuters)
• French President Jacques Chirac demands improved hospital security after two nurses are killed. A suspected mental patient was released. (Reuters Alertnet)
• The US government decides to settle a suit in which Hungarian Jews have demanded compensation for a train full of valuables the US Army took at the end of World War II. (Wired News) (New York Post)
• The US pressures Iceland not to grant Bobby Fischer sanctuary. (Reuters)
• Zaheera Sheikh, a key witness in the Best Bakery case, is declared hostile by the prosecution after she goes back on her police statement during retrial of the case. (Times of India) (Indian Express)

December 22, 2004

• Gambian journalists march in protest of the murder of Deyda Hydara, newspaper editor who had criticised new strict press legislation. UNESCO also condemns the killing. (BBC) (UNESCO portal)
• Switzerland increases its financial support for the forthcoming re-run of election in Ukraine. (NZZ)
• The Police Service of Northern Ireland confirm that the haul in last Monday's Northern Bank Belfast bank heist was £22 million, comprising £1.15 million in new Northern Bank £100 and £50 notes, £12 million in new Northern Bank £20 and £10 notes, £5 million in used Northern Ireland notes issued by various banks, and the remainder in other sterling banknotes. Since Northern Irish notes are rarely seen outside Northern Ireland, the gang may have difficulty in laundering most of their haul. (Scotsman)
• Israeli-Palestinian conflict:
  • The Israeli Army denies a claim by Physicians for Human Rights that they were firing at a Khan Yunis hospital. (Ha'Aretz)
  • British prime minister Tony Blair visits Israel for discussions with Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon about reviving the peace process. The two discuss the Road Map for Peace and Israel's disengagement plan. Blair said that Palestinians must stop terror as a condition to return for the Road Map. (Yahoo/Reuters), (BBC)
  • An Israeli civil security guard who guarded bulldozers used for building the Israeli West Bank barrier is killed in a shooting attack by two Palestinians. (Haaretz)
  • IDF forces re-enter Khan Yunis after at least 15 rockets and mortar shells hit Israeli settlements. Israeli forces kill either one or three armed Palestinians in Khan Yunis, and according to Palestinians, demolish seven houses. (Haaretz) (Reuters)
  • Israeli politician Shimon Peres warns against trusting Hamas to honor a future ceasefire. (Yahoo\AFP)
  • Gush Katif residents hold protests against the disengagement plan and the lack of action against mortar shellings on the settlement in the last week. Some of them wear an orange Star of David, similar to the yellow badge which Jews were forced to wear during the Holocaust. Many politicians and heads of Jewish organizations, including the Simon Wiesenthal Centre, ask them to stop wearing the star as they believe it trivializes the Nazi genocide. (BBC)
• The British charity organization Save the Children withdraws from Darfur after rebels kill their aid workers. (BBC) (IAfrica) (AllAfrica)
• The Indian election commission investigates railways minister Laloo Prasad for allegations of electoral bribery. He has given money to dalit women in public. (ExpressIndia) (BBC)
• A Pakistani court restores bail for Asif Ali Zardari. (BBC) (GEO)
• In Mozambique, the national election commission declares Armando Guebuza, presidential candidate of ruling party Frelimo, the winner of the election. He received 64% of the vote despite alleged irregularities. (AllAfrica) (Afrol) (BBC)
• In the Philippines, the funeral of Fernando Poe, Jr, movie star and presidential candidate, attracts large numbers of supporters. Security is high due to rumors of potential anti-government revolt. The detained ex-president Joseph Estrada condemns incumbent president Gloria Arroyo in his eulogy. (Reuters) (Philippine Daily Inquirer)

December 23, 2004

• An earthquake of moment magnitude 8.1 occurs at 14:59 UTC, 305 miles (491 km) north of Macquarie Island. (USGS)
• An intercity bus is intercepted and sprayed with automatic gunfire in Chamelecón, Cortés department, Honduras, killing some 28 passengers. A note left at the crime scene claims the attack for a defunct guerrilla group, but suspicion immediately falls on the Mara Salvatrucha gang, and have since been convicted for the crime. (BBC)
• A French United Nations worker in the Democratic Republic of the Congo is arrested for creating pornographic videos of young girls. (Washington Times) (The Times)
• United Nations troops from South Africa deploy in Democratic Republic of Congo to create a buffer zone between fighting factions. (Reuters)
• A powerful and unexpected series of snowstorms plow into the Ohio Valley dumping total snowfalls as high as 40•45 inches. Many Interstates in the region become frozen parking lots as motorist are unable to move and get buried in snowfall. The snowstorms were so powerful that it snowed in Galveston, Texas.

December 24, 2004

• 400 m asteroid 2004 MN₄(later named 99942 Apophis in July 2005) is estimated to have a roughly one-in-forty chance of colliding with Earth in 2029. Its Torino Scale rating is 4. (Space.com) (SpaceRef.com)
• The government of Indonesia announces a criminal investigation of five executives from Newmont Mining Corp., the world's largest gold mining company, based in Denver, Colorado, USA, on charges related to heavy-metal pollution. (Seattle Post-Intelligencer)

December 25, 2004

• Colombia's FARC guerrillas kidnap a group of between seven and ten holidaymakers from a spa resort near San Rafael, Antioquia. (BBC)
• The ESA's [[Cassini-Huygens|Huygens probe]] separates from NASA's Cassini spacecraft at approximately 02:00 UTC, with deployment confirmed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The probe will reach Saturn's moon Titan in 22 days, where it will make an atmospheric descent to the surface and relay scientific information. (Spaceflightnow)
• Queen Elizabeth II sends her annual Christmas Message to the UK and the Commonwealth. Her theme is religious and cultural diversity and the benefits of a tolerant society. In a break from tradition, the Queen also sends a special radio Christmas Message to the UK armed forces • the first time she has made a separate radio broadcast. (BBC) (BBC)
• Portions of South and Southeast Texas south of I-10 had their first White Christmas ever as snow was recorded falling from Brownsville to Beaumont with as much as 13 inches in Brazoria. The snowfall began on Christmas Eve as a deep layer of below freezing (below 32 °F/0 °C) temperatures settled across the region after the passing of an artic cold front and an upper level low pressure system crossed the region and dumped snow in its wake. Very little snow fell north of I-10 because of the lack of moisture further from the coast. (National Weather Service)

December 26, 2004

• The first survey of language use in the People's Republic of China reveals that 53% of its population can communicate in Standard Mandarin, the official spoken language of the country. (China Daily)

• An earthquake of magnitude 9.3, the strongest earthquake in 40 years, strikes in the Indian Ocean off the western coast of Sumatra. While initial reports state that the resulting tsunamis killed approximately 100 people, by the end of the day 250,000 people in coastal areas of Thailand, Sri Lanka, the Maldives, India, Bangladesh, Burma, Indonesia and Malaysia. Tremors are also felt as far as Singapore, eastern countries of Africa, and north-western Australia. A state of emergency is declared in Sri Lanka, where over 31,000 people are feared dead. (USGS) (CNN) (BBC) (The Star) (Wikinews) (Channel News Asia) (The Times of India)
• Ukrainians go to the polls in a rerun of the presidential runoff vote, supervised by about 12,000 international observers. Turnout is reported to be comparable to the two previous votes, just short of 55 percent at 1300 GMT. Early exit polls suggest opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko has won by a wide margin (Reuters) (Guardian) (BBC)

December 27, 2004

• Astrophysicists from the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics in Garching near Munich measure the strongest burst from a magnetar. At 21:30:26 UT the earth is hit by a huge wave front of gamma and X-rays. It is the strongest flux of high-energetic gamma radiation measured so far.
• In Mulhouse, France, a suspected gas explosion kills 17 people (BBC) (Scotsman)
• Newly discovered observations from March 2004 rule out the possibility that asteroid 2004 MN₄ (later named 99942 Apophis in July 2005) will hit Earth in 2029. (Space.com)
• The U.S. dollar hits a new low against the euro: USD 1.3640 to EUR 1.00. (AP)
• Ukrainian Transport Minister Heorhiy Kyrpa, a staunch supporter of Viktor Yanukovych, is found shot dead at his home just outside of Kiev. It is unclear whether he was murdered or committed suicide. (BBC) (Reuters)
• Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: Israeli police arrest Palestinian presidential candidate Mustafa Barghouti. A Jerusalem police spokesman says Mr Barghouti was "detained for questioning because he has the right to transit through Jerusalem but not be in Jerusalem itself".(BBC)
• The death toll from tsunamis resulting from the Indian Ocean earthquake is known to be at least 20,000 and possibly as high as 45,000. (BBC) London Free Press Independent Online
• Ukrainian opposition presidential candidate Viktor Yushchenko claims victory. Official results may not come out for days. (Reuters) (BBC)
• Conflict in Iraq:
  • Iraq's main Sunni political movement, the Iraqi Islamic Party, withdraws from next month's general elections, citing the refusal to delay elections until all parts of Iraq could participate. (BBC)
  • 15 people are killed and dozens injured as a suicide bomber detonates his car in front of the home of Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, head of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, the country's most powerful Shia political group. (BBC)

December 28, 2004

• The Shiveluch volcano on Russia's Kamchatka Peninsula erupts, causing a large earthquake and producing a 6,500-foot (2,000 m) plume of hot ash. (Russian Information Agency) (Washington Times) (KVERT) (webcam)
• Israeli-Palestinian conflict
  • An Israeli unmanned drone attempts to kill two suspected Hamas militants in Khan Yunis allegedly on their way to launch an attack on Israelis in Gush Katif with mortar weapons.
  • An Israeli tank fires a shell in Khan Yunis wounding at least nine Palestinians, including a 13-year-old boy. IDF officials say they were opening fire at the source of Qassam rockets fired by Palestinians that landed in Neve Dekalim. No injuries are reported from the Qassam rocket attacks. (BBC) (Haaretz)
• Conflict in Iraq: In an apparent coordinated attack, insurgents raid a police station in Dijla and execute 12 police officers. Three Iraqi policemen are shot at a checkpoint outside of Tikrit. Four policemen and one national guardsman are gunned down at a police station in Ishaki. A local police commander is assassinated in Baquba. A car bomb detonated near a US-Iraqi military convoy in Samarra kills three national guardsmen and three civilians. All these attacks occurred in the Sunni Triangle. (BBC)
• Jerry Orbach died of prostate cancer, at age 69.
• The death toll from tsunamis resulting from the Indian Ocean Earthquake is known to be at least 59,000 and still rising. (BBC)
• In Colombia, government soldiers search for at least seven people taken hostage by FARC rebels last Friday. Kidnappers have not made any demands as of yet. (BBC)
• Ukrainian presidential election: Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych challenges the result of the re-run of the presidential election and threatens to take the case to the Supreme Court. (Guardian) (BBC)
• An explosion at a scrap metal plant in Muskogee, Oklahoma, US, explodes killing two workers. The blast is felt about 50 miles (80 km) away. The company is later fined for workplace violations[3] [4].

December 29, 2004

• The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) announces its support for Mustafa Al-Barghouti in the 2005 Palestinian presidential election. (Al Jazeera) (BBC)
• For the fifth straight business day, the U.S. dollar hits a new low against the euro: 1.3646 USD to 1 EUR. (AP)
• 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake
  • The death toll from the Indian Ocean Earthquake and subsequent tsunamis on December 26 reaches more than 80,000. (washingtonpost.com)
  • The Red Cross issues a statement saying that the number of dead is likely to rise above 100,000. (BBC)
  • The United States, Australia, Japan and India have formed an international coalition to lead aid efforts after the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake. (BBC)
• Arab-Israeli Conflict: The Knesset passes a law against terrorism and against support of terrorism. The controversial law prohibits funding terrorists. It also prohibits aiding the families of perceived terrorists and institutes inciting for terrorism. The law will give Israel the right to confiscate property and funds of any perceived terrorist organization, even though if they do not target Israel or Israelis. The law is part of the state's legal war against terrorism and was approved 62•6. (Haaretz)
• The Russian parliament passes a law abolishing several state holidays, including November 7, the anniversary of the 1917 October Revolution. (CNN)
• In Uganda, tribal leaders are trying to set up a meeting between the government and the Lord's Resistance Army. (BBC)
• Colombian police announce that they have apprehended Dagoberto Flores Rios, a member of the Norte del Valle drug cartel. The United States government had offered a $5 million reward for his capture of Niece B.(Jamaica Observer) (BBC)
• The Russian Aviation and Space Agency says that as of 2006, it will charge the U.S. for transporting astronauts to the International Space Station. (BBC)

December 30, 2004

• Israeli-Palestinian Conflict:
  • Nine Palestinians, including civilians, are killed in an Israeli army incursion into the Khan Younis refugee camp in the Gaza Strip. During the raid the local Hamas commander is killed and two Israeli soldiers are slightly wounded. (BBC) (Haaretz)
  • Israel declares that a deal has been struck between Ariel Sharon and Shimon Peres to form a coalition government. (BBC)
• In Sudan, the government and the rebel group SPLA have agreed to sign a ceasefire in Naiwasha on the road to a peace deal. The treaty would end the civil war that began in 1983. (IAfrica) (News24) (BBC)
• The Ukrainian Central Election Commission rejects complaints of prime minister Viktor Yanukovych, who lost the presidential election. (Reuters) (BBC)
• In Spain, parliament of the Basque regions favors increasing autonomy and eventual negotiated independence (Independent Online) (BBC)
• A Dutch court hands down the country's first fines to spammers. (PCWorld) (DV Hardware)
• In Senegal, President Abdoulaye Wade signs a peace deal with separatist rebels in the Casamance region. The war has lasted 22 years. (BBC) (News24)
• In Zimbabwe, four people are charged for selling secrets to unspecified foreign agents. They include former political allies to President Robert Mugabe. (Iafrica) (Reuters)
• The death toll from the Indian Ocean Earthquake and subsequent tsunamis on December 26 reaches more than 120,000 in 12 countries from Malaysia to Somalia; the Norwegian newspaper Verdens Gang reports a current total of 115,982 deaths. The Malaysian News Agency reports the death toll in Sumatra may exceed 400,000. According to the WHO, as many as five million people are at risk, with little water, food or shelter.
• The Canadian Food Inspection Agency reported what may be a second case of mad cow disease in a ten-year old dairy cow at the same time as the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced an end to their ban on imports of live Canadian cattle. (International Herald Tribune) (Bloomberg)
• A fire in República Cromagnon, a nightclub in Buenos Aires, Argentina, kills 194 and injures 714. (Reuters) (CNN) (BBC)

December 31, 2004

• Colombia extradites FARC leader Simón Trinidad to the United States to face conspiracy, kidnapping, and drug trafficking charges. (BBC)
• Ukraine's Viktor Yanukovych resigns from his post as Prime Minister. (Reuters)
• Taipei 101, the world's tallest skyscraper, is officially opened by Taiwanese President Chen Shui-bian. (CNN) (Washington Times)
• 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake
  • Indonesia's ambassador to Malaysia, Rusdihardjo, claims that the death toll from the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake may eventually exceed 400,000 in Indonesia alone. (Malaysia Star) (Washington Times)
  • The Canadian government pledges to match dollar-for-dollar the donations of private Canadian citizens, in addition to the $40,000,000 in federal funds already committed; so far, Canadians have donated CAD 20,000,000, mostly on-line. The government also announces plans to forgive the debt of the tsunami ravaged nations. (GM) (CTV) (Ottawa Citizen)
  • The U.S. government pledges $350,000,000 for relief. (BBC)
  • In 48 hours British charities have raised £45,000,000 from public donations; the UK government increases its donation from £15,000,000 to £50,000,000. (BBC)
• Israeli•Palestinian conflict:
  • At least two Palestinians are killed when an Israeli aircraft fires a missile at the Khan Younis refugee camp in the Gaza Strip. (BBC)
  • A 16-year-old Palestinian boy dies after being shot in Rafah, near the border with Egypt. (BBC)
• In Pakistan, president Pervez Musharraf announces that he will keep his additional role as an army chief. He had previously stated that he would give it up. (Reuters) (Pakistan Dawn) (Times of India)
• North Korea announces that it may break off talks about the fate of the eight Japanese citizens kidnapped by North Korea in the 1980s. (Channel News Asia) (Mainichi Shimbun) (Reuters)
• The cabinet of Spain approves the Zapatero administration's bill to legalize same-sex marriage. It will now go to the Cortes. [5]

News collections and sources

• Wikipedia:News collections and sources.
• Wikipedia:News sources • This has much of the same material organised in a hierarchical manner to help encourage NPOV in our news reporting.

References

1. ^ "Approval for the acceptance and wear of the United States Navy Presidential Citation by the NZ SAS in Afghanistan". New Zealand Defence Force. 2006-05-19. http://medals.nzdf.mil.nz/news/archive2006.html#sas. Retrieved 2007-07-03.
2. ^ Vanuatu ousts leader who backed Taiwan
3. ^ Vanuatu gov. reshuffled after Taiwan controversy
4. ^ Opposition wins Taiwan elections
5. ^ Victory for Taiwan opposition
6. ^ (China Post)
7. ^ (BBC)
8. ^ (Yahoo News)
9. ^ (Newsday)
10. ^ (Bloomberg)

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