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June 1, 2005 (Wednesday)

• In Côte d'Ivoire, renewed violence in the west of the country costs at least 41 lives (Reuters AlertNet) (SABC) (BBC)
• In Italy, court in Bologna gives life sentences to five members of Red Brigades for the murder of government advisor Marco Biagi in 2002. They are suspected members of the Communist Combatant faction of the Brigades (AGI) (IHT) (BBC)
• Israeli-Palestinian Conflict:
  • Haim Yavin, one of Israel's most respected television news presenters has condemned the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories, calling it "brutal", the first time he has spoken publicly on the subject. (BBC), (Boston Globe), (CBS), (The Guardian)
  • The Shin Bet claim to have thwarted a double suicide bombing attack on Jerusalem, arresting 5 Islamic Jihad militants who had two explosive belts. (Haaretz)
  • Arab residents of the Silwan neighborhood of East Jerusalem protest Israeli plans to destroy 88 of their homes, many by Israeli court order, many of which pre-date the foundation of the State of Israel. (BBC)
  • Dan Halutz, the former Israeli Air Force commander, was appointed as the 18th Chief of Staff of the Israeli Defence Forces. (IDF official announcement)
• An Australian man of Vietnamese origin has been jailed for 20 years in Vietnam after being convicted of trying to smuggle 200g of heroin from Vietnam to Australia. (News Limited)
• Mexican Secretary of Interior Santiago Creel turns in resignation to president Vicente Fox in order to pursue his party's candidacy to the 2006 Presidential Election. (BBC)
• The American Family Association, a Christian activist group, a week after ending its boycott of the Walt Disney Company, announced a boycott of the Ford Motor Company. In adding Ford to its ongoing boycotts of Kmart and the book One of the Guys by Robert Clark Young, the AFA argues that Ford promotes "the homosexual lifestyle." (MSNBC)
• At least 20 people are killed and 40 are injured in a bomb blast in the city of Kandahar, Afghanistan. (BBC)
• Sweden shuts down the Barsebäck 2 nuclear reactor. (Planet Ark) (BBC)
• In Australia, embassy of Indonesia was closed after it received a package containing suspected "biological agent". The case is probably related to the sentence of Schapelle Corby (Bloomberg) (Reuters AlertNet)
• In the Netherlands, a national referendum on ratification of the European Constitution results in its rejection by a substantial margin. (Reuters)
• In Bolivia, continuing protests against privatisation of basic utilities force congress to abandon a key session in the capital La Paz (BBC)
• In the June 6 issue of TIME Magazine, Wikipedia and its founder Jimmy Wales have been featured in a story on the rise of wiki technology. (TIME)
• The chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, William Donaldson, announces that he will leave that post at the end of June. (thestreet.com)
• In Crosby, Texas, United States of America an oil well owned by Louisiana Oil & Gas Co. exploded. <<NEWSLINK MISSING>>

June 2, 2005 (Thursday)

• In Brazil, police have issued 124 arrest warrants from people suspected of illegal logging in the Amazon Rainforest over the last 15 years. 89 people are arrested, many of them from government agencies (Planet Ark) (Reuters AlertNet) (BBC)
• In Western Australia, large number of volunteers have helped 74 beached False Killer Whales return to sea. Only one dies on the ground (SMH) (ABC transcript) (News.com.au) (BBC)
• Cedar Revolution:
  • In Lebanon, bomb kills journalist Samir Qasir, who had been critical of Syria (Al-Jazeera) (Arabic News)
• In Niger, 200 protesters march in the capital Niamey to demand that government alleviate the food shortage (AllAfrica) (Reuters AlertNet)
• United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan announces a report that states that the AIDS epidemic is accelerating despite the major efforts to stop it. (UN News Centre) (Medical News Today) (Reuters)
• In the Maldives, parliament members support move to multi party democracy. Before the parliamentary debate, government arrested number of dissidents (Dhivehi Observer) (Reuters) (BBC)
• Schabir Shaik, a financial advisor to South African Deputy President Jacob Zuma, is found guilty of two counts of corruption and one of fraud in a 165-page judgment broadcast live as it was delivered over three days. The affair is considered to be a blow to Mr Zuma's ambitions to succeed the current president, Thabo Mbeki. (BBC)
• In Serbia several former soldiers are arrested after the transmission on Serbian TV of video showing them executing six Bosniak men from Srebrenica in July 1995. The video is evidence from the trial of former president Slobodan Milošević. Hitherto polls have shown that only half the population of Serbia believe that the Srebrenica massacre of 8000 men happened. (BBC)
• John Kerry criticizes the media for its coverage of the Downing Street memo, and joins calls for an inquiry. (WikiNews) (South Coast Today)
• The parliament in Latvia votes to ratify the European Constitution in an overwhelming majority of 71 to 5. (Spiegel online, German)
• In China, authorities have arrested Lu Jianhua and Chen Hui of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences for espionage (Reuters)
• In the Philippines, male students organize a naked protest in Manila to demonstrate against too little funding in education (ABS-CBN, Philippines)
• United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan dismisses senior official Joseph Stephanides for oil for food scandal (UN News Centre) (Bloomberg)
• Protests in European cities of Brussels and Helsinki against software patents occur. (NPE)
• Israeli-Palestinian Conflict:
  • Two alleged Islamic Jihad members, involved in a twin suicide bombing attempt on Jerusalem were arrested by IDF forces. (Haaretz)
  • Israel released 398 Palestinian prisoners, the final phase of an Israeli pledge to release 900 prisoners as a goodwill gesture towards Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas. (Haaretz)

June 3, 2005 (Friday)

• The German political party Alliance '90/The Greens opens a Wiki that allows all users to contribute to the party's manifesto for the German federal election, 2005 [1](Spiegel online, German)
• Israeli-Palestinian Conflict:
  • Two Israeli soldiers have claimed that they were ordered to kill Palestinian police officers following the deaths of six Israeli soldiers. (BBC), (the Guardian)
  • Israel has announced plans to construct a further 22 homes in an Israeli settlement on the West Bank. (BBC)
• In Australia, a suspicious package containing white powder sent to Foreign Minister Alexander Downer led security guards to close the mail-room of Parliament House in Canberra and enact decontamination procedures. Federal Police later deemed the package harmless, but analysis continues.(News.com.au) (BBC)
• Cedar Revolution:
  • In Lebanon, opposition leaders blame Syria for the death of Samir Qasir and demand resignation of president Émile Lahoud (Daily Star), Lebanon) (Al-Jazeera) (BBC)
• In Bolivia, president Carlos Mesa calls for a referendum for regional autonomy on October 16 to quell the demonstrations against him. The elections for the constitutional assembly on the same day would reform the constitution in favor of the native majority (Forbes) (BBC) (Reuters AlertNet)
• Guantánamo Bay Qur'an desecration allegations:
  • The commander of U.S. Forces at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba reported five known incidents of mishandling the Qur'an by guards at the detention facility, including one incident in which a Qur'an was accidentally splashed with urine. (BBC)
• Judge Karon O. Bowdre, presiding over the federal trial of Richard M. Scrushy in Birmingham, Alabama, delivers what is called the Allen charge to the jury in that case, in the hope of breaking its deadlock and producing a verdict. (NY Times)

June 4, 2005 (Saturday)

• In the context of the Parti Québécois National Congress, Bernard Landry announces his surprise resignation as leader of the Parti Québécois, the major party in Quebec that advocates national independence for Quebec. (CTV)
• Guantánamo Bay Qur'an desecration allegations:
  • Following allegations that the Muslim holy book, the Quran, was urinated on in front of inmates at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, the Bush administration drastically changes its position on the credibility of these reports, and now admits that desecration did in fact occur. (Wikinews)
• A French court finds the newspaper Le Monde guilty of defamation against the Jews and Israel, in an article published in 2002 which used "Jews" and "Israel" interchangeably. (Haaretz)
• Hundreds of people attend the funeral in Beirut of anti-Syrian columnist Samir Kassir, killed by a bomb on Thursday. Opposition leaders Gibran Tueni and Saad al-Hariri, son of slain former Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri, are in attendance. Reuters
• Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas announces the postponement of legislative elections originally scheduled for July 17. He cited a report from the Palestinian election authority that it needs more time to implement changes in laws concerning seating of legislators. Hamas leaders object to the postponement. (New York Times), (Haaretz)
• Roberto Maroni, Italian Minister of Welfare, calls for Italy to stop using the Euro and revert to the Lira. Sunday Mail

June 5, 2005 (Sunday)

• In separate referendums, the voters of Switzerland decide to ratify the Schengen treaty, abolishing all its normal land border controls by 2007, and also approve the legalizing of civil unions for gay couples, for tax and inheritance purposes, but not for child adoption. The Swiss Government had urged approval of both measures and the Swiss Parliament had previously passed legislation approving them. (BBC News)
• Wal-Mart holds its annual shareholders' meeting on the campus of the University of Arkansas. Pending proposals include initiatives that would affect how Wal-Mart's board is selected and that would require a break-down of stock options by sex and race, and those addressing other issues. (WLNS News)
• In Lebanon, Hezbollah and Amal parties claim victory in the parliamentary election in the south of the country. Both groups are supporters of Syria (Daily Star) (Reuters)
• In Kuwait, two women become the first females to be appointed to municipal council. They are Sheikha Fatima al-Sabah of the ruling Sabah family and engineer Fawziya al-Bahar (Al-Jazeera) (Gulf Daily News) (BBC)
• Scientists in Canada, France and USA report that they have developed a vaccine that works in monkeys against Marburg virus and Ebola (Medical News Today) (Science Daily) (BBC)
• In Spain, 250,000 people demonstrate in Madrid against a government plan to negotiate with the Basque ETA (EITB) (BBC) (Reuters AlertNet)

June 6, 2005 (Monday)

• Syrian vice-president Abdel-Halim Khaddam resigns during a Ba'ath party congress (BBC) (Jerusalem Post)
• In Ethiopia, police arrest more than 500 students who protest against the parliamentary elections. The ruling EPRDF party claims victory but official results have been delayed until July 8 due to complaints of electoral fraud and opposition protests (News24) (Reuters AlertNet) (BBC)
• In Burundi, former rebel group Hutu Forces for the Defence of Democracy wins 75 out of 129 seats in municipal elections (AllAfrica) (Reuters AlertNet) (BBC)
• In Kyrgyzstan, the top prosecutor issues an arrest warrant for the former prime minister Nikolai Tanayev for mishandling government funds (Guardian Unlimited) (BBC)
• Bolivian president Carlos Mesa offers his resignation when unrest continues.(El Clarin)
• Debian GNU/Linux: Version 3.1, codenamed sarge, is released. (Press release)
• Apple Computer announces they would change the processors for their Macintosh computer lineup from IBM to Intel. - Ziff Davis; BBC News
• The Supreme Court of the United States found for the federal government in a 6-3 decision in the medical marijuana case Ashcroft v. Raich. The court also decided in Spector v. Norwegian Cruise Line Ltd. by ruling that the ADA applies to foreign cruise ships.
• U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice opened the 35th General Assembly meeting of the Organization of American States Sunday in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Secretary Rice called on member states to do more to protect democracy in the region, and strengthen civil society. (VOA News)
• The International Criminal Court announces an investigation into crimes against humanity in Darfur (Sudan Tribune) (Reuters AlertNet)
• Protests against privatisation of essential utilities continue in Bolivia (Reuters AlertNet)
• In Bougainville, Joseph Kabui is elected president of the autonomous government (Radio Australia) (BBC)
• In Australia, Chinese defector Chen Yonglin claims that the Australian government rejected his request for political asylum without interviewing him. China states that his claims about a large espionage ring in Australia are false (ABC) (Taipei Times) (BBC)
• In Washington state, United States, the battle over the results of the 2004 gubernatorial election is settled by a county judge, approving the final count in favor of Christine Gregoire.

June 7, 2005 (Tuesday)

• Hungarian opposition candidate László Sólyom wins the 2005 presidential election in a 185-182 victory over Katalin Szili. [2]
• United States Senator Jon Corzine wins the New Jersey Democratic Party gubernatorial primary. Doug Forrester, a former mayor, wins the New Jersey Republican Party gubernatorial primary after a heated contest with another former mayor, Bret Schundler. The November 2005 election will be the first since Governor James McGreevey resigned over a scandal in which he was revealed to be homosexual. (Boston Globe)
• Scientists at UCLA use a pyroelectric crystal heated from -34.4 to 7.2 degrees Celsius to produce an electric field of about 100,000 volts, accelerating hydrogen nuclei and producing helium nuclei in the subsequent collisions. This cold fusion experiment has been repeated successfully, and other scientists have confirmed the results. (CSMonitor) (Nature) (UCLA) (MSNBC)
• After a four hour long debate French centrist Party UDF refuse to vote confidence to the new government. - Yahoo France - AFP
• General Motors announces that it will lay 25,000 people off. BBC News
• Siemens announces the sale of its mobile phone assets to the Taiwanese electronics company BenQ. BBC News
• Israeli-Palestinian conflict: A day of violence erupts in the Gaza Strip and West Bank. Haaretz.
• A spokesman for Robert Mugabe, President of Zimbabwe, dismisses rumors that Mugabe has died of a heart attack, after privately owned media report that Mugabe went to a local hospital to have his heart tested. CNN
• The leader of the opposition in the Indian Lok Sabha, Lal Krishna Advani, resigns from his post amid controversial comments he made about the founder of Pakistan, Mohammed Ali Jinnah. Advani had referred to Jinnah as a "secular" leader and drew intense criticism back at home in India. (BBC News)
• A new type of sauropod has been discovered with a short, stubby neck. Unlike all other known sauropods, whose long necks could get up to four times the length of their backs, Brachytrachelopan's neck was shorter than its backbone. This species was also unable to lift its neck and head above horizontal. (National Geographic)
• New York State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver's veto of the plan to build the West Side Stadium, the key component to the New York bid, all but ends New York City's chances of receiving the 2012 Olympics, leaving the field to a face-off between Paris and London. (NYtimes) (Reuters)
• The National Assembly of the Republic of China approves a package of amendments to the Constitution of the Republic of China to halve the number of seats in the Legislative Yuan and abolish itself.(Taipei Times) (TaiwanNews) (Reuters)
• In the Philippines, the government orders the National Bureau of Investigation to investigate a case where opposition tapped the telephone conversation of president Gloria Arroyo. They allegedly used it to create a tape where she is supposedly talking about electoral fraud (ABS-CBN) (Manila Bulletin) (Bloomberg)
• In Chile, the Santiago Court of Appeals cancels Augusto Pinochet's immunity from prosecution. Among other things, he faces charges of tax fraud. However, the court also ruled that he is too ill to face charges of human rights violations (Bloomberg) (BBC)
• Human Rights Watch demands investigation about the unrest in Uzbekistan, accusing the leaders of the country trying to cover up a "massacre" (Human Rights Watch) (Reuters AlertNet) (RIA Novosti)
• In Australia, Hao Fengjun, second Chinese defector, backs claims of Chen Yonglin about a large Chinese espionage network in the country (Radio Australia) (Reuters)
• In Brazil, president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva promises investigation on allegations that his party offered bribes to parliamentarians for political support (Bloomberg) (BBC)

June 8, 2005 (Wednesday)

• Claire Miles from Exeter in Devon gives birth by Caesarean section to two babies, one in each of her two half sized wombs. BBC
• In Canada, rain begins to pound the province of Alberta starting an almost 3-week flooding crisis in the province.
• The infection source of Norway's recent outbreak of Legionnaire's Disease is surprisingly found to have been an industrial purification installation known as a scrubber, a device which cleans air using water. Reportedly, such facilities have never before caused a Legionnaire's outbreak anywhere in the world. Ten people have been killed, and 52 infected, in the outbreak, which is Norway's largest ever. (Aftenposten)
• A previously unknown aria written by Johann Sebastian Bach in October of 1713 is discovered in documents from a German library. It is the first new work to be discovered by Bach since 1975.(CNN)
• In Bolivia, widespread demonstrations continue. Ex-president Carlos Mesa, who has already offered his resignation, states that there is a threat of civil war without immediate elections. Congress will decide on Thursday whether to accept the resignation (Reuters AlertNet) (CNN) (BBC)
• The Philippine senate is evacuated after a bomb threat. (Reuters AlertNet)
• Ethiopian general elections: At least 22 Ethiopians are killed at demonstrations in Addis Ababa between police and students who accuse the ruling party of fraud in last month's general elections. (News 24, South Africa) (Guardian)
• The European Commission and its president José Manuel Barroso survive the no confidence vote (EUpolitix) (IHT) (Bloomberg)
• HealthSouth and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission reach a settlement. The company will pay $100 million to put the SEC investigation behind it.

June 9, 2005 (Thursday)

• Italian Clementina Cantoni a worker with CARE International who was held hostage in Afghanistan is released unharmed. (Pakistan Dawn) (Reuters AlertNet)
• In Syria, the ruling Baath party votes to end the state of emergency that has lasted for 40 years. (Al-Jazeera) (BBC)
• In Norway, Mullah Krekar, Kurdish founder of Ansar al-Islam, goes to court to resist deportation to Iraq. (Aftenposten) (Kurdishmedia) (Al-Jazeera)
• In Mexico, a court overturns the murder conviction of Raul Salinas de Gortari, brother of former president Carlos Salinas de Gortari. (Reuters AlertNet) (BBC)
• An Amnesty International report states that numbers of killed and sexually abused women have increased in Guatemala. (Amnesty International) (BBC) (BBC)
• In Oman, Sultan Qaboos pardons 31 people previously convicted of a coup attempt. (Gulf Daily News) (Al-Jazeera) (BBC)
• 2005 Atlantic hurricane season: Tropical Storm Arlene, the first storm of the season, forms south of Cuba, and is expected to strike Cuba and the U.S. Gulf coast later in the week. (NHC) (CNN)
• Protesters in Bolivia take over seven oil fields managed by BP and Repsol YPF. (IHT)
• In Australia, Parliament House and the embassies of the USA, the UK, Japan and South Korea receive suspicious packages containing white powder. Federal Police later state that analysis showed the powder to be "harmless", and was sent as a hoax, following similar events in the past week. (Radio Australia) (ABC) (Bloomberg) (Reuters)
• Zimbabwean opposition groups are preparing for a two-day general strike to protest over the huge number of arrests in recent days. Police are on standby to quell protests. (IOL) (BBC)
• Togolese president Faure Gnassingbé names Edem Kodjo, leader of the opposition Patriotic Pan-African Party, as prime minister. (Republique Togolaise) (BBC) (Reuters AlertNet)
• A former Bank of America broker, Theodore Sihpol is acquitted by a jury in a New York Court of charges that he assisted a New Jersey hedge fund in trading illegally in mutual funds, at the expense of investors in the latter. (Lipper/HedgeWorld)

June 10, 2005 (Friday)

• In the Philippines, whistleblower Samuel Ong accuses, with audio evidence, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo of rigging the 2004 elections, thus starting an electoral crisis. (IHT)
• The Colima volcano in Mexico increases its eruptive activity, with strong explosions. (CNN)
• The Bolivian Congress accepts the resignation of Carlos Mesa and names Supreme Court justice Eduardo Rodríguez as the new interim president (Bloomberg) Bolivian military says it is ready to intervene if protests continue (IHT)
• In Japan, a high school student throws a bomb into classroom in Hikari, Yamaguchi Prefecture. 69 students are injured. (Japan Today)
• In Australia, a Queensland government inquiry states that medical doctor Jayant Patel should be charged with murder, fraud, negligence and medical malpractice due to the death of 87 of his patients. Jayant Patel has left the country and his current location is unknown. (ABC) (SBS)
• In India, Subroto Roy, chairman of Sahara Group, goes public to state that he is healthy. Roy had been out of the public eye since April and his absence had aroused rumors of death, illness, intrafamily conflict and political pressure. (Hindu) (ExpressIndia) (BBC)
• Kuwait's Crown Prince Sheikh Saad al-Abdulla al-Sabah is taken to the hospital.
• The popular Battlefield 2 Demo was released to the public as a preview to the full version of the game Battlefield 2 launced on June 21, 2005.
• Agerton's second mayor, Yona Levine.

June 11, 2005 (Saturday)

• The G8 announces the cancellation of the multilateral debt of eighteen of the poorest countries in the world (BBC)
• 2005 Atlantic hurricane season: Tropical Storm Arlene makes landfall near Pensacola, Florida. One death has been reported thus far. (ABCNews)
• In Ethiopia, opposition says that the leaders of Coalition for Unity and Democracy, Hailu Shawel and senior official Lidetu Ayalew, are under house arrest and demand their release. (IOL) (BBC)
• In Portugal, former prime minister Vasco Gonçalves, one of the figures of the Carnation Revolution, dies (Guardian Unlimited) (BBC)
• In Poland, gay rights activists defy ban and march in the streets of Warsaw (Radio Polonia) (BBC)

June 12, 2005 (Sunday)

• Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computer and of Pixar Animation Studios, deliveres a Commencement addresses in Stanford University. (Stanford University)
• French journalist Florence Aubenas and her Iraqi interpreter Hussein Hanoun al-Saadi have been freed after five months of captivity in Iraq. (BBC)
• Conflict in Iraq:
  • 28 bodies, believed to mainly be Sunni Arabs, have been found in Baghdad sidestreets. (BBC), (A.P)
  • Four US Soldiers die from two roadside bombs in Baghdad, bringing the total death toll of US troops to over 1,700. (Associated Press)
• A series of Bombs strike the Iranian cities of Ahwaz and Tehran, leaving 8 people dead and dozens wounded. There has been no claim of responsibility. (BBC)
• Mike Tyson announces he will retire from boxing. Wikinews
• Lebanese general elections: Results of the third round of the Lebanese parliamentary elections in Mount Lebanon and the Beqaa show the triumph of Michel Aoun's list in the upper part of the region (Metn) and the success of Walid Jumblatt's coalition in the lower part (Chouf). (Daily Star) (ABC) (IHT)(Daily Star) (Reuters) (Al-Jazeera) Last stage of the elections will be next Sunday in North Lebanon.
• Kuwait appoints first female cabinet minister, Massuma al-Mubarak (Al-Jazeera) (Arab News)