Time: 15:15 UTC |
Date: Friday, May 30, 2025
- As Falluja 's rage cools and the burned and beaten bodies of four American civilians were wrapped in white cloth, townspeople state they were torn between pride in the attack and shame over the mutilations. (International Herald Tribune)
- Sun Microsystems announces that it moves to a new phase of legal and technical cooperation with longtime foe, Microsoft, that will involve a payment of $1.95 billion to Sun. (CNet)
- US Economy: "Nonfarm payroll employment increased by 308,000 in March, and the unemployment rate was about unchanged at 5.7 percent, the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U.S. Department of Labor reported today. Payroll job growth was fairly widespread, as construction employment rose sharply and several major service-providing industries also added jobs." (BLS)
- The Conservative`s foreign secretary Michael Ancram accuses Britain`s Labor government of `spin, deceit, betrayal, and sell-out` in foreign policy. (Islamic Republic News Agency)
- Report on anti-Semitism by the European Union's European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia (EUMC) concluded attacks against Jews in Europe are rising. (Israel Insider)
- Ariel Sharon states that he orders a halt to all construction and development in Gaza Strip settlements. (Jerusalem Post)
- US strategists carefully paint the armed opposition in Iraq as a constellation of frustrated Ba'athists, former lieutenants of deposed dictator Saddam Hussein, and Islamic terrorists from outside Iraq. (New York Times via Boston Globe)
- The Spanish government discloses that a powerful bomb has been discovered on the high-speed AVE railway line between Madrid and Seville. It is not yet known whether this incident is connected with the 11 March 2004 Madrid attacks, which killed 191 people. (BBC)
- A United States federal judge in Providence, Rhode Island, finds Hamas guilty in a civil lawsuit resulting from the 1996 murder of Yaron and Efrat Ungar in Israel. Hamas is ordered to pay the family of Yaron and Efrat Ungar $116 million. The court has not yet ruled regarding the liability of the Palestinian Authority and the PLO. (BostonGlobe)
- The BBC reports of a surgery which cured a patient of Tourette Syndrome. (BBC)
- The BBC announces that Michael Grade is to become its new Chairman, following the resignation of its previous Chairman Gavyn Davies in the fall-out from the Hutton Inquiry report. (BBC)
- Voting begins in Sri Lanka's parliamentary election. (BBC) (VOA)
- Former US marine Toby Studabaker, who had sex with a 12-year-old British girl after "grooming" her on the Internet, has been jailed for four-and-a-half years. (Ananova)
- George W. Bush signs the Unborn Victims of Violence Act, commonly known as Laci and Conner's Law, that states that an act of violence that leads to the death of a pregnant mother and her child can be counted as two offenses. (White House) (UPI)
- The Turkish Interior Ministry states forty-one members of terrorist organization, Revolutionary People's Liberation Party (DHKP-C), are detained in synchronous operations in Turkey, Germany, Italy, Belgium, and the Netherlands. (Xinhua)
- Following a gun battle, in which Palestinians hiding in a Bethlehem psychiatric hospital opened fire on Israeli troops outside who came to arrest them, 12 of the Palestinians, mostly known militants from al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades that make up part of Yasser Arafat's Fatah faction, are arrested. (Reuters) (BBC)
- Astronomers estimate that Earth-like planets may orbit as many as one in twenty stars. (Webindia123) (BBC)
- Paul Bremer pledges justice for the contractors killed and mutilated in an attack in Falluja. (BBC)
- British Immigration Minister Beverley Hughes resigns over visa irregularities. (BBC)
- Palestinian General Haj Ismail Jabber is discovered to have been claiming the payroll for 37,000 members of the Palestinian Authority's National Security force when only 30,000 members exist. The difference of $2 million is kept by General Jabber each month. (HaAretz)
- Same-sex marriage in Canada: Michael Hendricks and René Leboeuf become the first same-sex couple to legally wed in Quebec. (CBC)
- Various April Fool's hoaxes are perpetrated throughout the world as is custom on the first of April.
- Neil H. Shubin of the University of Chicago reports in the Journal Nature the discovery of a 365-million-year-old forelimb in Pennsylvania, representing the evolution of fish to land-dwelling animals. (Scientific American)
- Four U.S. civilian contractors are killed in a grenade attack by Iraqi guerrillas in Fallujah, Iraq. A violent mob then pull the bodies from the burning vehicles, desecrate them, and hang the remains from a bridge over the Euphrates. In a separate incident, five U.S soldiers are killed in a large roadside bomb attack 12 miles (20 km) northwest of Fallujah. (CNN) (BBC)
- The Korea Train Express high-speed rail line opens, connecting Seoul to Busan and Mokpo. (CNN)
- The Guardian newspaper quotes British security service sources as believing that yesterday's raids may have stopped a major terrorist bombing. The sources state that MI5 and MI6 worked with police during the investigation leading to the raids. (Guardian)
- The International Court of Justice rules that the USA violated the rights of 51 Mexican citizens on death row for murder and orders a review of their cases. (AP) (BBC)
- The controversial Higher Education Bill, which will introduce variable tuition fees in England and Wales, passes its third reading in the House of Commons by 316 votes to 288, despite many MPs still vocally opposed. The Bill's second reading in January was passed with a majority of only 5 votes. (BBC) (Guardian) (Reuters)
- Politics of Austria: Jörg Haider, a leading figure in the Freedom Party whose policies have been labeled neo-fascist by some, is re-elected governor of the state of Carinthia. (Scotsman) (Die Presse)
- A Canadian court rules that the Canadian Recording Industry Association did not prove that the downloading of music from the Internet is a copyright violation. The ruling is in line with a decision from the Copyright Board of Canada that downloading music is legal. (Toronto Star) (Bell Globemedia)
- Air America Radio, a self-styled liberal alternative to conservative talk shows on the radio, is launched on six stations from New York City to Los Angeles. KansasCity.com
- East African artifacts support emergence of symbolic thinking and behavioral modernity in Middle Stone Age. (National Geographic Society via EurekAlert)
- lewis Doughty, a suicide bomber sets off a small explosion inside the Bolivian Congress. The bomber – a miner, protesting unpaid pensions – and the chief congressional security guard are killed; several bystanders are wounded. (BBC) (USA Today)
- French President Jacques Chirac retains his prime minister, Jean-Pierre Raffarin, but asks Raffarin to reform the country's government. (Washington Post)
- New Jersey physicist Greg Olsen pays $20 million to conduct environmental research for eight days aboard the International Space Station. (Miami Herald)
- Internet search engine Google introduces a new set of tools for more in-depth searching. (CRN)
- Police in Uzbekistan raid a militant's hideout south of the capital, Tashkent. Fighting has caused 23 deaths in the area. (Reuters)
- The Philippines prevents a "Madrid-level attack" after arresting four members of the Muslim extremist Abu Sayyaf group. (SFGate)
- The White House allows Condoleezza Rice, the president's national security advisor, to publicly testify under oath on the investigation into the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. (XINHUA) (CNN)
- Eight men are arrested after a series of raids in the UK under the Terrorism Act 2000. Half a ton of ammonium nitrate fertiliser was found during the raids. (Guardian)
- SCO v. IBM: IBM has applied for a declaratory judgment that it does not infringe the SCO Group's copyrights. (Groklaw) (ZDNET)
- Foreign relations of Taiwan: Dominica switches diplomatic recognition from the Republic of China to the People's Republic of China. (Channel News Asia).
- ROC presidential election, 2004: The Pan-Blue Coalition drops its demand for another round of voting by members of the military and the police who were put on a hightened state of alert on election day. Chen Shui-bian and Annette Lu sign letters promising not to contest the Pan-Blue petition for a recount.(Miami Herald)(Bloomberg)
- Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin has a close encounter with a UFO. Most likely the UFO was actually a fireball. (Canadian Press) (Calgary Herald)
- An explosion occurs close to the main bazaar in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, killing two and injuring around twenty; preliminary reports point to two female suicide bombers. Also in the capital, three police officers are shot dead; and, in the city of Bukhara, another explosion at a suspected terrorist bomb factory claims ten fatalities. (Reuters) (BBC)
- The Republic of Ireland becomes the first country to ban tobacco smoking in all enclosed workplaces (including bars and restaurants); infringers risk a €3,000 (US$3,600) fine. (BBC)
- NATO welcomes seven new members, as Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia formally became members by depositing their instruments of accession with the United States' government, though the countries will join officially next month at a NATO meeting. All but Slovenia were formerly members of the Warsaw Pact. (BBC) (NATO)
- Nanoparticles allegedly cause brain damage in fish, according to a study of the toxicity of synthetic carbon molecules called "buckyballs". (NewScientist)
- Beauty firm Dove is to use "real women" in advertising after a survey finds two-thirds of UK women feel depressed about their figures and have low body confidence as a result of beauty advertising. (Ananova)
- Scientists discover methane in the Martian atmosphere and state it could mean there is life on the Red Planet. (Space.com)
- Spain is reported to be considering doubling her number of troops stationed in Afghanistan. (BBC) (CNN)
- Abdel Aziz al-Rantissi, leader of Hamas, states that God has declared war on the United States. (NYTimes) (abs-cbnNEWS) (Reuters) (INDOlink)
- Cambridge University wins a controversial victory in the 150th Boat Race by 6 lengths, with a total time of 18:47 minutes. (BBC)
- The Arab League summit is postponed. The meeting was put off indefinitely because of differences of opinion regarding ways to encourage reform in the region, including democratization. (VOA) (BBC)
- UK Home Secretary David Blunkett prepares to publish a white paper on organized crime that will unveil new details of the Serious Organised Crime Agency, the proposed "British FBI". (Ananova)
- Israeli State Attorney Edna Arbel recommends that Prime Minister Ariel Sharon be indicted for taking bribes. (AP)
- The French regional elections result in massive losses for the governing conservative parties and victories for socialist-green alliances in at least 20 of 22 regions. (BBC) (Spiegel) (Yahoo France)
- A coup attempt in the Democratic Republic of the Congo fails. (BBC)
- The skeletal remains of Cecilia Zhang are found in a Toronto ravine after her high-publicity kidnapping. (Toronto Star)
- John F. Kerry joins other Democrats calling for National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice to testify before the September 11 commission and states the White House should learn from President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's openness during an inquiry after Pearl Harbor. (The Atlanta Journal-Constitution)
- ROC presidential election, 2004: 500,000 Pan-Blue protesters take to the streets in Taipei to demand a recount. (Reuters)
- NASA succeeds in a second attempt to fly its X-43A experimental airplane from the Hyper-X project, attaining speeds in excess of Mach 7, the fastest ever air-breathing hypersonic flight. (CNN)
- In Brussels, European Union Leaders express a sense of unity in the aftermath of the Madrid train bombings, and state that there is a new impetus to reaching a deal on the Union's draft constitution. (IHT)
- A powerful cyclone hits the coast of southern Brazil. Brazilian and U.S. meteorologists disagree over whether Cyclone Catarina is a hurricane, the first ever recorded in the South Atlantic. (AP)
- The United States Congress prepares legislation against peer-to-peer technology on multiple fronts. (Wired News)
- United Nations electoral experts and security support arrive in Baghdad. (UN News Center)
- The first South Atlantic hurricane ever recorded forms 275 miles off the coast of Brazil. (Miami Herald)
- Lord Carey, former Archbishop of Canterbury, says that Islam is authoritarian, inflexible and under-achieving; and that Muslim countries have contributed little of major significance to the world's culture for centuries, at the same time stating that most Muslims are peace loving people who should not be demonized. He, however, denounces moderates for not unequivocally denouncing the "evil" of suicide bombers. Critics said his critique of Islamic culture amounted to an "attack". (Daily Telegraph)
- ROC presidential election, 2004: The controversial victory of Chen Shui-bian is confirmed by the state electoral commission, with a margin of only 29,518 votes – 0.2% of the total – separating the candidates. Pan-Blue protestors storm and hurl eggs at the Central Electoral Commission building. (BBC)
- Israeli-Palestinian conflict: The United States vetoes a United Nations Security Council resolution (sponsored by Algeria and Libya) condemning the killing by Israel of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin along with six other Palestinians outside a mosque in Gaza City and calling for a complete cessation of executions. The veto is publicly motivated by the resolution making no mention of suicide bombings committed by Hamas and attributed to Yassin. 11 votes are recorded in favour, with three (United Kingdom, Germany, and Romania) abstaining and one (the United States) against. (BBC) (KC Star)
- The 2004 Abel Prize in mathematics is announced to be awarded to Michael F. Atiyah and Isadore M. Singer for their index theorem. (Aftenposten)
- The terrorist group AZF suspends its bombing campaign in France but continues to demand money from the government. News agencies report that the government placed notices in Libération newspaper to contact the terrorists. (BBC)
- The House of Representatives of US state of Georgia passes a ban on genital piercings for women, including consenting adults, as part of a bill to ban female genital mutilation as performed by some Muslim populations, among others. The ban does not apply to men. The provision is not included in the version passed by Georgia's Senate. (AP)
- Novelist and filmmaker Alain Robbe-Grillet is elected to the Académie française. (Académie française)
- Five planets (Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn) array across the evening sky in a night show that won't be back for another three decades. (AP)
- A prototype of a mechanized five-ton disaster-rescue robot, the T-52 Enryu, is unveiled in Japan. (AFP)
Past events by month
2004: January February March
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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