Current Events

April 6 2005

• Jalal Talabani, a Kurdish leader, is named as Iraq's President. (FOX News)
• The United Nations is looking at the allegations that some UN staff added false details to a UN document about the conflict of Rwanda and Democratic Republic of Congo. William Church, former UN employee and US intelligence analyst, says that some UN staff added false information about Rwandan military incursions to Congo last year. (BBC)
• Murdered British banker Alistair Wilson is buried in Nairn. The murderer is still at large. (Scotsman) (BBC)
• Monaco's Prince Rainier III dies at age 81. (NYT)

April 5 2005

• The government of South Korea complains to the Japanese government about a revised set of official Japanese history schoolbooks. The complaint alleges the textbooks whitewash Japan's "imperialist" past, and question Korean sovereignty of the disputed Liancourt Rocks. (Korea Herald) (Japan Times)
• Tony Blair calls the General Election in the United Kingdom for 5 May 2005 on the same day as the local elections. (BBC)
• In Guatemala, five politicians are convicted of racial discrimination for taunts hurled at Rigoberta Mench. (Reuters AlertNet) (BBC)
• In Italy, preliminary results of regional elections show heavy losses for the parties in Silvio Berlusconi's centre-right coalition. (Bloomberg) (Reuters) (BBC)
• US newscaster Peter Jennings states that he has lung cancer and will begin chemotherapy. (New York Times)
• Rwandan official Aloys Mutabingwa, a representative at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, says that 100 Rwandans connected to the Rwandan genocide are "comfortably living in France". (BBC)
• In India, Mumbai police investigate a fire in which 21 circus animals died. They suspect that the Russian Circus on Ice intentionally abandoned the animals. (The Hindu) (Calcutta Telegraph) (Mumbai Newsline) (BBC)
• In Egypt, thousands of university student demonstrate for reform. (Middle East Online) (BBC)
• In Nigeria, senate speaker Adolphus Wabara resigns because of accusations that he took a large bribe from the education minister. (AllAfrica) (Reuters AlertNet) (BBC)

April 4 2005

• Israel is to begin dumping 10,000 tonnes of rubbish in the West Bank every month. This move is believed to be a breach of international treaties, and may also pollute the main Palestinian water supply. (relief Web) (Haaretz) (Independent UK) (BBC)
• An UNDP report, the third Arab Human Development Report criticizes the United States for their actions in the Middle East, particulary in Iraq. (TV4 Nyheterna - in Swedish) (Executive Summary of the Report)
• The United States awards its highest military award, the Medal of Honor, to Paul Ray Smith, who was killed in fighting at the Baghdad airport in 2003. This is the first presentation of the award since 1993 and only the third since the Vietnam War. (AP)
• The Vatican announces that Pope John Paul II's funeral is to take place on Friday morning (local time) and that he is to be buried in the crypt of Saint Peter in the Vatican. (Guardian)
• The wedding of Prince Charles and Camilla Parker-Bowles, also scheduled for Friday, will be postponed one day to avoid a time conflict and allow Prince Charles to attend the Papal funeral. (BBC)
• Cuba announces three days of national mourning for Pope John Paul II. (BBC)
• Sudanese officials reject the United Nations' resolution to use the International Criminal Court to prosecute the 51 people accused of responsibility for the Darfur atrocities. (ABC)
• Afghanistan:
• Aid groups are accused of "squandering" large amounts of Afghan aid money. (Reuters)
• Six to ten people are killed in a Taliban strike in southern Afghanistan. (BBC)
• Britain makes plans to withdraw 5,500 troops from Iraq and place them in Afghanistan to hunt for Osama bin Laden and other Al-Qaeda members. (The Scotsman) (Telegraph.co.uk)
• The Iraqi National Assembly elects Sunni Arab Hajim al-Hassani as its speaker. Shiite Hussain Shahristani and Kurd Aref Taifour are elected as his top deputies. The selections are the result of protracted debates between Iraq's top political parties. (BBC)
• In Israel, vandals deface the grave of Yitzhak Rabin and his wife Leah in the national cemetery on Mount Herzl in Jerusalem, spray painting them with slogans. (Ha'aretz) (Arutz Sheva) (BBC)
• Amnesty International reports that at least 3,797 people were executed and 7,395 sentenced to death in 2004. (Amnesty International) (Independent) (BBC)
• In Nigeria, President Olusegun Obasanjo fires his housing minister Alice Mobolaji Osomo for corruption in a housing scandal. (Reuters SA) (IOL) (BBC)
• The United Nations Security Council extends the mandate of UN and French peacekeepers in Ivory Coast. (Reuters SA) (BBC) South African president Thabo Mbeki hosts a meeting between the rebels and the Ivory Coast government in the presidential palace. (News24) (IOL)
• The Moldovan parliament re-elects president Vladimir Voronin. (Reuters) (RIA Novosti)
• Serbian ex-police general Sreten Lukić surrenders to the UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague. He is charged for connection with killings of Kosovo Albanians in 1999 when he was a head of paramilitary group MUP. (Reuters) (BBC) (Kosovareport commentary)
• In Austria, Jrg Haider, the former leader of Freedom Party of Austria (FP), together with almost all of FP's parliamentary representatives, leaves the party to found a new party Alliance for Austria's Future. (Bloomberg) (BBC)
• In Brazil, police arrest 11 men over the Rio Massacre last Thursday when 30 people were killed. (Reuters)

April 3 2005

• Conflict in Iraq: A group of at least 40 Iraqi insurgents attacks Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison, using car bombs, grenades, and small arms. At least 20 American soldiers and 12 Iraqi prisoners are injured, but the US Army says it has put down the assault. (NYT) (BBC)
• Various world leaders express their condolences for the death of Pope John Paul II, including Queen Elizabeth II, John Howard, Tony Blair, George W. Bush, Carlo Azeglio Ciampi and Lawrence Gonzi. (AFR)
• Pope John Paul II lies in state in the Clementine Room of the Apostolic Palace for a private viewing, a ceremony to confirm and certify the death of the Pontifex Maximus. (Fox News)
• Deposed president of Kyrgyzstan Askar Akayev agrees to officially resign. (Moscow Times) (Reuters) (IHT)
• In Germany, a man wielding a sword attacks a Tamil church congregation in Stuttgart, kills a woman and seriously injures three other people. (Bloomberg) (BBC)
• In Brazil, police arrests 11 men over the Rio Massacre last Thursday when 30 people were killed (Reuters)
• The Marburg virus death toll in Angola rises to 146, one of them an Italian female physician in Uige. (Recombinomics) (News24) (BBC)
• In Thailand, two bombs explode in Hat Yai and one in Songkhla. Two are dead and dozens injured. (Channel News Asia) (BBC) (Bloomberg)

April 2 2005

• Pope John Paul II passes away at 9:37 PM Vatican time (CEST) at the age of 84, thus beginning the period of Sede vacante. (Wikinews)
• Sumatran earthquake: Nine Australian Defence Force personnel are missing, presumed dead, after a Sea King helicopter crash on the Indonesian island of Nias. Two personnel survive. (Wikinews)
• Scientists at the California Institute of Technology devise a method to weigh the smallest mass ever, a cluster of xenon atoms weighing a few zeptograms, or billionths of a trillionth of a gram. (BBC) (AIP Bulletin)
• Riccardo Muti resigns as music director of La Scala opera house, Milan after 18 years, following a vote of no-confidence by 700 orchestra members and staff last month. (BBC)
• In France, radical wine producers attack the offices of agriculture ministries in Montpellier and Carcassonne with dynamite. A group calling itself Comit Rgional d'Action Viticole (Crav) takes responsibility. (WineNews, SA (Independent)
• In Nepal, former prime minister Girija Prasad Koirala is released from house arrest and demands the return to democracy. (New Kerala) (Telegraph, India) (BBC)

April 1 2005

• Hamas and Islamic Jihad have declared, in principle, their intention to join the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO). (Al Ahram)
• A death squad guns down at least 30 people in the Brazilian state of Rio de Janeiro. Several teenagers and a child were among those killed in the districts of Queimados and Nova Iguacu on Thursday night. Authorities blame rogue police officers for the massacre. (BBC) (Wikinews)
• Google increases the storage space of its Gmail service to two gigabytes. (internetnews.com)
• Pope John Paul II is on the verge of death as a result of his recent health problems. The Vatican announces that the pope has suffered cardiovascular collapse and septic shock. (CNN) The Vatican denies "unsourced" media reports claiming he has already died. (Reuters)
• The United Nations Security Council votes to refer those suspected of war crimes in Darfur to the International Criminal Court. (Sudan Tribune) (Reuters AlertNet) (BBC)
• Zimbabwe parliamentary elections, 2005: In Zimbabwe, the ruling Zanu-PF gains a two-thirds majority over opposition party Movement for Democratic Change amidst claims of dis-enfranchisement and fraud. (News24) (Bloomberg) (BBC)
• Indian security forces launch an offensive against the United Liberation Front of Assam. (BBC)
• The World Bank agrees to fund a controversial hydroelectric dam project in Laos. (Planet Ark) (BBC)
• The Minuteman Project starts a month-long patrolling of the United States - Mexico border in Arizona for illegal immigrants, with about 100 volunteers, some of them armed. (ABC News)
• The government of Argentina delays the restructuring of its debt by the exchange of old bonds for new because of a decision by a federal court judge in the United States that froze the processing of the old bonds in the possession of the Bank of New York pending a hearing before the appeals court. (Financial Times)

Past events by month

see list of months by year for a more complete list.

News collections and sources

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• - This has much of the same material organized in a hierarchical manner to help encourage NPOV in our news reporting.

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