Portal:Current events/October 2004
Time: 19:14 UTC | Date: June 1 | See also: Current sports events
- The Prime Minister of Slovenia, Anton Rop, has already conceded defeat in the nation's parliamentary elections, held today. Early results suggested the centre-right opposition was making large gains against the current government. (BBC)
- The French police announce that they have arrested two of the most important members of the Basque separatist group called Eta. Mikel Albizu, known as Antza, and his partner, Maria Soledad Iparraguirre were amoung the 18 people detained. (BBC)
- Arab-Israeli conflict
- Further civilian casualties mount in the Gaza Strip as Israeli attacks leave a deaf man and a 13 year old boy dead. More than 60 Palestinians have now been killed in the raid. Ariel Sharon says the Gaza operation will continue until Qassam rocket attacks end. (BBC)
- Two Palestinians are killed by an Israeli helicopter-launched missile moments after they launch a Qassam rocket into Israel. (Reuters)
- Pope John Paul II beatifies five persons, including Anne Catherine Emmerich, a German nun, and Karl I, last emperor of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, in a ceremony in Rome. Including today's beatifications, John Paul II has beatified 1,340 persons, more than all previous popes combined. (Reuters)
- A series of bombings in the states of Nagaland and Assam in north-east India kill at least 48 people. Local police suspect a rebel group, the National Democratic Front of Bodoland (NDFB). (BBC) (Hindustan Times)
- Arab-Israeli conflict:
- Yassir Arafat declares a state of emergency in the Gaza Strip and calls for international aid following Israel's raid into Jabaliya. (News 24, S. Africa)
- Israeli forces shoot dead four Palestinian militants, members of Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades and Hamas, who had tried to infiltrate the Israeli Kibbutz of Nahal Oz, about 200 meters outside of that Kibbutz. (Haaretz) (Al Jazeera) (The Statesman [India]) (INN [Israel])
- The U.S. government issues a statement urging Israel not to use excessive force during its current offensive into the Gaza Strip. (BBC)
- The Palestinian militant group Hamas says that it will continue using rockets to attack Israeli communities that border on the Gaza Strip, or Israeli settlements within it, regardless of Israeli military operations. (BBC)
- The Israeli military begins an operation to create a 9 km (5.5 mile) "buffer zone" within the northern Gaza Strip. Israel says that the purpose of the zone is protect Israel from attacks using Qassam rockets (which have a 9 km (5.5 mile) range). (The Telegraph) (CNN)
- US Presidential election: Fox News' Carl Cameron, reporter covering the Kerry campaign, posted bogus quotations which were inadvertently posted to the Fox News website October 1, which later stated "The item was based on a reporter's partial script that had been written in jest and should not have been posted or broadcast. We regret the error, which occurred because of fatigue and bad judgement, not malice." New York Times,October 3,2004 p.A28.
- The University of Manchester, the largest university in the United Kingdom outside London, created by the merger of the Victoria University of Manchester and UMIST. BBC
- Ichiro Suzuki, a Japanese baseball star now playing for Major League Baseball's Seattle Mariners, breaks George Sisler's 84-year-old record for hits in a season, prompting praise from Japanese prime minister Junichiro Koizumi and celebrations in both Seattle and Tokyo. (CNN/SI)
- Mount St. Helens in the U.S. state of Washington awakens, with a minor eruption of steam, smoke, and ash. (Fox News) (CNN)
- The government of Denmark is investigating whether it can claim ownership of the North Pole, by studying how far the underwater portion of Greenland, a Danish territory, extends. Canada and Russia are already undertaking similar investigations regarding their own claims. (Toronto Star)
- U.S. presidential debates: "Instant-response" polls of viewers of last night's U.S. presidential debate show that a majority of viewers thought the challenger, John Kerry, won the contest. (The Guardian) (BBC)(Indianapolis Star) (CBS)
- At least 19 people are killed in an explosion — suspected to be a suicide bombing — at a Shia mosque in the Pakistani city of Sialkot (located near the border of Indian-controlled Kashmir). The attack follows the killing of a leading Sunni cleric. (BBC)
- Irish presidential election, 2004: Mary McAleese is appointed to a second seven-year term as President of Ireland, without an election, when no other candidate secures the necessary nominations. This is the third time a sitting president has been reappointed unopposed, following President Seán T. O'Kelly in 1952 and President Patrick Hillery in 1983. (Irish Examiner) (RTÉ)
- Arab-Israeli conflict
- Israeli troops, backed by tanks and other military vehicles, enter the northern Gaza Strip city of Jabaliya, and the nearby towns of Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahiya. At least five Palestinians are killed by Israeli rocket strikes on Jabaliya. (BBC) (The Guardian)
- The Israeli military releases unmanned drone footage of the Gaza Strip showing what Israel says are Palestinian militants loading rockets into a van marked "UN." The UN dismisses the claim, saying that the footage actually shows a stretcher being loaded into a van. (Islam Online, S. Arabia) (Haaretz: 1, 2)
- Conflict in Iraq:
- U.S. and Iraqi government forces attack the insurgent-held city of Samarra in northern Iraq. U.S. officials say over 100 militants were killed and 37 were captured, while local doctors say at least 80 people died, and 100 were wounded, including civilians. (BBC) (Canada.com News) (The Independent)
- U.S. officials say that U.S. forces rescued Yahlin Kaya, a Turkish construction worker who had been held hostage by militants, during today's assault on the city of Samarra. (Reuters) (The Australian)
- Same-sex marriage debates: The cabinet of Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero approves a bill to legalize same-sex marriage; the government believes that the bill will pass the full parliament. (CNN) (BBC)
- A by-election for the Hartlepool constituency of the UK parliament, to fill the seat of Peter Mandelson, who resigned to take up a role in the European Union, results in a win for Labour (12,752), with the Liberal Democrats second (10,719). The Conservative Party (3,044) is pushed into fourth place by the UK Independence Party (3,193). (BBC)
- 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. Nielsen Media Research later reports 62.5 million people watched the debate. (Transcript) (CNN) (MSNBC) (BBC)
- Same-sex marriage in the United States: The proposed Federal Marriage Amendment (HJR 106) is rejected by the United States House of Representatives by a vote of 227–186. (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 Chris Brown and Kim Lamberty, 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)
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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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