Portal:Current events/October 2004
Time: 16:29 UTC | Date: September 24 | See also: Current sports events
- A by-election for the Hartlepool constituency of the UK parliament caused by the resignation of Peter Mandelson who takes up a role in the European Union results in a win for Labour (12752), with the Liberal Democrats second (10719). The Conservative party (3044 )is pushed into fourth place by the UK Independence Party (3193). There turnout is 46%.
- Incumbent president George W. Bush and challenger Senator John F. Kerry meet at the University of Miami, Florida in the first of three presidential debates in the run-up to the 2004 U.S. presidential election. (Transcript) (CNN) (MSNBC) (BBC)
- Same-sex marriage in the United States: The proposed Federal Marriage Amendment fails to pass the United States House of Representatives, with a vote of 227–186 on House Joint Resolution 106. (Reuters)
- The office of British Prime Minister Tony Blair announces he will undergo "routine heart surgery" tomorrow to correct an irregular heartbeat. (Bloomberg)
- Conflict in Iraq
- At least three people are killed by U.S. air raids on the insurgent held city of Fallujah. Locals say civilians are among the dead, but the U.S. maintains they struck a safe house of the Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Just outside Baghdad, a rocket fired at a US military support base killed one coalition soldier. (BBC)
- At least 41 people are killed in a multiple bomb attack on a US military convoy traveling through Baghdad, close to a water treatment plant. At least 34 of them were children. (BBC)
- Three southern provinces (Basra, Missan and Dhiqar), which together control 80 percent of Iraq's proven oil reserves, are considering plans to set up an autonomous region. (Financial Times)
- The Russian cabinet recommends ratification of the Kyoto Treaty against global warming, which would bring the accord into force; the measure will be debated in Parliament, which has final say. (CBS) (Reuters) (Itar-Tass)
- Arab-Israeli Conflict
- Israel launches a major offensive into the Jabaliya refugee camp killing at least 23 gunmen and civilians. Earlier this morning, a column of Israeli tanks moved into the center of the camp, followed by bulldozers. At least three Palestinian civilians have been killed thus far. Homes are being demolished, forcing people to flee. 72 Palestinians are known to have been wounded, some losing limbs. (BBC) (Reuters)
- Two Palestinians are killed by Israeli troops returning fire after an Israeli soldier was killed at an observation post in the northern Gaza strip. The troops have been engaged in that part of the northern Gaza Strip since yesterday, September 29. (AP)
- Two Israelis, including a civilian, are killed in an ambush close to Gaza. The Palestinian gunman was also killed. (BBC)
- The People's Republic of China accuses Taiwanese Premier Yu Shyi-kun of "clamoring for war" after he said Taiwan would defend itself by firing missiles at Shanghai in the event of an attack of Taipei or Kaohsiung by the PRC. (BBC) (VOA)
- Forty-three North Koreans, reportedly seeking asylum, use ladders to scale the walls of the Canadian Embassy in Beijing, China. (Globe and Mail)
- U.S. presidential campaign: Former Republican President Dwight Eisenhower's son John Eisenhower endorses Democrat John Kerry's presidential bid. (The Union Leader)
- Scaled Composites SpaceShipOne, an experimental spaceplane, makes the first competitive flight for the Ansari X Prize. Although a roll problem caused the mission to be aborted early, SpaceShipOne nonetheless reached an estimated 109.1 km (358,000 feet), which qualifies as a spaceflight. (Space.com) (New Scientist)
- Conflict in Iraq
- Kenneth Bigley, a British hostage held in Iraq, appears alive in a video broadcast by Al Jazeera. Seen in a cage wearing an orange jumpsuit, Bigley says "Tony Blair is lying. He doesn't care about me". (BBC)
- Reports that ransom was paid to secure yesterday's release of two Italian aid workers raise fears that the burgeoning hostage crises will worsen. Gustavo Selva, an Italian lawmaker, states that "The sum ($1 million) is probably correct". To date about 130 foreigners have been taken hostage. About 30 of these have been killed. (Reuters)
- Arab-Israeli conflict
- Five masked men armed with bats and chains attack two members of Christian Peacemaker Teams outside the Israeli settlement of Ma'on in Hebron while the volunteers were escorting Palestinian children to school. CPT alleges the assaults are part of an ongoing pattern of intimidation by Israeli Settlers. (BBC) (Haaretz) (Al Jazeera)
- Five Palestinians, including Hamas member Tawfik Ali Charafi, are killed during Israeli raids in the Jabaliya refugee camp in the Gaza Strip and Nablus in the West Bank. The Israeli government claims the troops entered in retaliation for at least four rockets being fired at the Israeli town of Sderot on September 28. (BBC) (Reuters) (Al Jazeera) (Haaretz)
- Two Israeli children, aged 3 and 5, are killed after a Qassam rocket attack from Palestinian terrorists on the town of Sderot. Hamas claimed the attack was launched in retaliation for the Israeli raid of the Jabaliya refugee camp, which left four Palestinians dead. (BBC) (Haaretz)
- Two Palestinian teenagers are killed and power Supplies are knocked out after an Israeli raid on the Jabaliya refugee camp. The raid was launched in retaliation for the Rocket attacks on the town of Sderot which left two children dead. (BBC)
- Two men, Rahim al-Nashiri and Jamal Mohammed al-Bedawi, who were found guilty of organizing the October 12, 2000 bombing of the USS Cole, are sentenced to death by a court in Yemen. (BBC)
- The asteroid 4179 Toutatis passes within 1 million miles (1.6 million kilometers, or about four times the distance from Earth to the Moon) of Earth. Toutatis is the largest known asteroid to pass this close to Earth. (Space.com)
- The 2004 Summer Paralympics in Athens, Greece closes. China, Great Britain and Canada have won the most gold medals. (Athens2004.com)
- North Korea nuclear weapons program: North Korean Vice Foreign Minister Choe Su-hon announces at the UN General Assembly that it has turned plutonium from 8,000 spent fuel rods into nuclear weapons as a deterrent against the U.S. nuclear threat. Six-nation talks on the nuclear issue, which were due to have resumed before October, have been suspended. Analysts believe North Korea has ruled out further talks until after the U.S. presidential election in November. (BBC)
- Republic of China foreign minister Mark Chen calls Singapore "the size of a piece of snot" after Singaporean foreign minister George Yeo declared opposition to Taiwan independence. He later apologized for his "improper wording". (BBC) (China Post)
- U.S. President George W. Bush's hometown newspaper, the Crawford, Texas Lone Star Iconoclast, endorses Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry. The editorial column asked Texan voters "not to rate the candidate by his hometown . . . but instead by where he intends to take the country." In the last election, the paper endorsed Bush. (Reuters) (Lone Star Iconoclast)
- Giovanni di Stefano, the lawyer of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, tells the Danish newspaper B.T. that Hussein plans to run as a candidate in the Iraqi elections scheduled for January 2005. A recent Gallup poll indicated that 42 percent of the Iraqi people want their former leader back. (Zaman, Turkey)
- Health officials in Thailand report that they have identified a likely case of human to human transmission of the H5N1 strain of avian flu, although the World Health Organization says the transmission occurred only after prolonged contact between individuals. A more easily transmitted virus could potentially cause a worldwide flu pandemic on the level of the 1918 Spanish flu. (Reuters)
- Conflict in Iraq:
- In Baghdad, two Italian aid workers, Simona Pari and Simona Torretta are released, three weeks after they were taken hostage, along with two Iraqis who had been captured with them. In a separate incident, four Egyptian workers are also released. (The Scotsman).
- Two British soldiers are killed in an ambush near the southern Iraqi city of Basra. (BBC)
- The administration of U.S. President George W. Bush says that it had considered secretly supporting pro-U.S. candidates in the upcoming elections in Iraq, but has now decided against the plan. (TIME) (Houston Chronicle)
- U.S. military planes bomb a building in the insurgent-held city of Fallujah, in what the U.S. describes as a raid against terrorists linked to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Local doctors say at least three civilians were killed, but the U.S. says only "Zarqawi operatives" died. (BBC)
- Arab-Israeli conflict:
- In the Gaza Strip, CNN producer Riad Abu Ali, an Israeli citizen, is released by his captors one day after he was abducted from his car by Palestinian militants. (Reuters)
- Israeli soldiers kill a mentally ill Palestinian man in the West Bank city of Jenin, under disputed circumstances. (BBC)
- The price of U.S. light crude briefly exceeds the price of USD 50/barrel, the highest since 1983. Analysts attribute the increase largely to concerns over the disruption of oil production in Nigeria; conflicts in Iraq and Saudi Arabia and the effects of Hurricane Ivan are also cited. (BBC)
- A Nigerian militant group threatens "all-out war" against foreign companies in the Niger River delta region if they do not leave by October. The European oil company Royal Dutch/Shell has already evacuated 254 non-essential workers from the area. (BBC: 1, 2)
- A strong earthquake, with an estimated magnitude of 6.0 on the Richter scale, strikes central California, near Parkfield. The effects are felt as far away as Sacramento and Santa Ana. (CNN)
- Arab-Israeli conflict:
- Jewish settlers in Gaza line a bridge and pelt passing Palestinian cars with rocks, forcing the Israeli army to close the only road from the north into the Gaza Strip. (The Guardian)
- In the Gaza Strip, four Palestinians kidnap Riad Abu Ali, an Israeli citizen working for CNN. Two other CNN employees were beaten and their equipment stolen. (Reuters) (Haaretz)
- The Israeli army raids the West Bank city of Jenin, taking over a hospital and several other buildings, making a number of arrests, and reportedly wounding three Palestinians. Several other violent incidents occurred in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. (The Australian) (BBC)
- A 'senior' Israeli security source has told several news organizations (Including the BBC, Haaretz and the AP) that it was Israel who killed a senior figure of Hamas, Izz El-Deen Sheikh Khalil, who died in a car bomb yesterday, September 26 in Damascus. (BBC) (Dispatch) (Haaretz) (Gulf Daily News)
- Conflict in Iraq:
- Fereidoun Jahani, an Iranian diplomat who was kidnapped in Iraq in early August, is freed; he was held by a militant group that also claims to be holding two French journalists, Christian Chesnot and Georges Malbrunot. (BBC) (Reuters)
- The U.S. military carries out air strikes on several suspected militant positions in the Baghdad suburb of Sadr City, killing at least five people and wounding 46, according to a local hospital official. The U.S. military disputes that total. (AP) (BBC)
- Two separate car bombs kill at least seven Iraqi national guardsmen in Mosul and Fallujah, while mortars are fired at a police academy in Baghdad, with no reported casualties. (AP: 1, 2)
- The Virgin Group announces that it will create the world's first commercial space-flight company, to be called Virgin Galactic, using SpaceShipOne technology licensed from Mojave Aerospace Ventures. Virgin hopes to begin commercial space flight within five years. (BBC)
- The University of Montreal announces that a Quebec researcher has discovered a lost play by Alexandre Dumas, titled Les voleurs d'or ("The Gold Thieves"), in the archives of the Bibliothèque nationale de France (National Library of France). (Herald Sun)
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2003: January February March April May June July August September October November December
2002: January February March April May June July August September October November December
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