Portal:Current events/September 2005: Difference between revisions

• A Catholic priest from Belgium has been arrested for his alleged role in the genocide in Rwanda. (BBC)
• Reporters Without Borders accuses Yahoo! of assisting the People's Republic of China government to identify Shi Tao, the journalist sentenced to 10 years jail in April 2004. Shi released on the Internet a government letter which advised the Chinese media not to report on the the 15th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square protests. (Reporters sans frontières) (Daily Telegraph)
• Forty people were arrested in Malta following an appraisal of Croations during a World Cup Qualifying football match (di-ve)

• Conflict in Iraq: 16 people die following a Car Bomb attack in the Southern Iraqi city of Baghdad.(BBC)
• Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: An investigation by B'Tselem and Haaretz casts doubt on the IDF version of events which left 5 Palestinians, including three children, dead in Tulkarm on August 24. IDF Chief of Staff Dan Halutz announces that he will open an investigation, and Colonel Kobi Barak declares that the opeeration was a "Failure". (Haaretz), (Haaretz)
• Hurricane Katrina
  • New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin again urges the city's remaining holdouts to leave the area. New Orleans is now only 60% underwater. The number dead in the city could be as few as 2,000 and as many as 20,000, according to estimates. (IHT)
  • J. T. Alpaugh, pool helicopter reporter for the major media, says today on NBC's Countdown with Keith Olbermann that: "There is the strong smell of rotting water, an awful smell, something you don't ever want to have to smell" rising high into the air space around New Orleans. (Los Angeles Times)
  • The United States government offers $2000 debit cards to each dispossessed family, to replenish immediate needs (Yahoo)
• Moussa Arafat, cousin of Yassir Arafat and former Palestinian Authority security chief, is shot and killed by members of the Popular Resistance Committees. (BBC)
• Egyptian presidential election, 2005: The first ever multi-party elections in Egypt are conducted, with incumbent President Hosni Mubarak expected to win a fifth six-year term. (BBC), (BBC), (Reuters)
• The California State Assembly passes a bill recognizing same-sex marriage. Earlier this week the state Senate approved the measure; it now heads to the desk of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger where there is uncertainty whether he will sign or veto the measure. The legislation is the first passed by a U.S. state legislature recognizing same-sex marriage. (San Francisco Chronicle)
• A report by an independent inquiry commitee criticizes Secretary General Kofi Annan, the U.N. Security Council in the Oil for Food Scandal. Washington Post) (FOX)

• Israeli-Palestinian Conflict:
  • Israeli troops, who are still in the process of withdrawing from Gaza, shoot dead a Palestinian teenager as he and about 50 others breached a fence around the evacuated Gush Katif Israeli settlement. (BBC) (Haaretz)
  • The Israeli Minister for Education, Limor Livnat, has called on her government to expand Jewish Settlements in the West Bank as "dividend" of the pullout of the Gaza Strip. (BBC), (IMEMC)
• Hurricane Katrina:
  • Jefferson Parish, Louisiana President Aaron Broussard told CBS's Early Show anchor Harry Smith today: "Bureaucracy has murdered people in the Greater New Orleans area and bureaucracy needs to stand trial in Congress today. Take whatever idiot they have at the top and give me a better idiot." (News Busters)
  • President George W. Bush announced today he would head an investigation into the New Orleans disaster response. He told reporters in the Cabinet Room: "People want us here to play a blame game. We got to solve problems. We're here to solve problems. There'll be ample time for people to figure out what went right and what went wrong." (Al Jazeera)
  • Barbara Bush comes under criticism when she was visiting Hurricane Katrina relief centers in Houston, TX. Mrs. Bush stated on the NPR program "Marketplace," "So many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this (chuckles)--this is working very well for them." The former First Lady also said that the fact that the 15,000 evacuees in the Astrodome might want to stay in Texas was "kind of scary". (EditorAndPublisher.com)
• Cairo: At least 34 people were killed and 60 injured by flames and an ensuing stampede when a fire broke out in the theater run by Egypt's Culture Ministry; about 1,000 people were watching the play. (Y! & AP) (BBC)
• Four people died and 27 were wounded following an explosion in Gaza City at the home of Nidal Farhat, a senior Hamas member.(Haaretz & AP)
• Typhoon Nabi kills at least 21 in Japan with over 50 still missing. (AFP) Over 100,000 people were told to evacuate. (CBC)
• Almost 600 people have now been officially declared dead in an outbreak of Japanese Encephalitis in India. Officials fear the actual death toll might be much higher because many deaths in rural areas are not reported. (BBC)
• Australian telecommunication company Telstra's share price tumbles to a two year low of $4.32AU as Prime Minister John Howard condemns their new management team as disgraceful and the Australian Securities and Investment Commission launches a criminal probe of Telstra's leaked and negative statements. (The Australian)
• Philippine President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo survives the 2005 political crisis as the plenary session of the House of Representatives of the Philippines dropped the impeachment complaint filed against her. (SFGate.com) (ABS-CBN News) (ABC Austrlia)

• A Russian Navy fighter jet crashes and sinks to a depth of 1,100 meters near Shetland in the Norwegian Sea during a military exercise. The jet, a Sukhoi Su-33, slid off the flight deck of aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov after the plane's arresting cable broke during the landing attempt; the pilot ejected out of the plane and survived. Due to the plane's reportedly containing secret high-tech military equipment, Russian authorities have decided to destroy it using underwater bombs. (Pravda.Ru), (Aftenposten)
• Ethiopian general elections, 2005: The National Elections Board of Ethiopia, following repeat voting in 31 areas, announces that the ruling EPRDF coalition has retained control of the government, obtaining 59 percent of the seats in Parliament. (IRIN)
• Typhoon Nabi (Category 3) reaches the Japanese coasts. It will make landfall today, and is expected to take 3 days to cross the island of Kyushu. (Reuters)
• Hurricane Katrina: Senator and former First Lady Hillary Clinton calls for a "9/11 Style Inquiry" into the U.S. federal government's response to the Hurricane. (The Myrtle Beach online)
• A cable car crash at Sölden, Ötztal, in the Austrian Alps leaves nine people dead when a helicopter carrying construction materials dropped concrete onto the cable. (BBC) (Sky News)
• American jurist John G. Roberts, Jr. is nominated by US President George W. Bush as the next Chief Justice of the United States. (MSNBC) Bush withdrew Roberts' original nomination to succeed retiring Associate Justice Sandra Day O'Connor.
• Three teenage girls admit starting a fire in Paris on September 3 which left 16 people dead. (CFRA Canada)
• Google taps into the Chinese local markets by opening their fifth international Local Search Engine on Google China at bendi.google.com. (SINA)
• Ibrahim Rugova, the President of Kosovo, has announced that he has lung cancer but will not be stepping down. (BBC)
• Conflict in Iraq: Two British Soldiers have been killed following a roadside IED bomb in Basra, southern Iraq. (BBC)
• Mandala Airlines Flight 091: A Mandala Airlines flight crashes into a residential area of the Indonesian city of Medan, killing at least 100 passengers. Among the dead are the governor and former governor of Sumatra Utara, Rizal Nurdin and Raja Inal Siregar. (CNN)
• A painting discovered in the Kunsthalle Bremen museum in Bremen, Germany is believed by art historians to be a previously-unknown work by Norwegian artist Edvard Munch. (The Independent)

• Hurricane Katrina:
  • Estimates of the death toll in New Orleans are made by H&HS Secretary Michael Leavitt: "I think it's evident it's in the thousands. It's clear to me that this has been sickeningly difficult and profoundly tragic circumstance" (Express News)
  • The Coast Guard asks people in the New Orleans area to hang brightly colored or white sheets, towels or anything else that might help draw attention to those needing assistance. (The Times-Picayune)
  • Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice visits her native Alabama and defends President Bush's response to the hurricane saying "Nobody, especially the president, would have left people unattended on the basis of race." (Express News)
  • With 250,000 refugees already in Texas, Gov. Rick Perry ordered emergency officials to begin preparations to airlift some of them to other states that have offered to help. (Denton Record Chronicle)
  • 1,800 aerial photos of Gulf Coast destruction areas are posted by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration on the web which display each neighborhood in high resolution. (NOAA)
  • The United States receives offers of financial and humanitarian assistance from multiple nations and international groups, including NATO and Iran. Iran says all aid will be sent through the Red Crescent organization. (CNN) (Reuters)
• Typhoon Talim brings torrential rains and landslides in east People's Republic of China's Anhui Province, claiming 53 lives and leaving 12 missing. (Xinhua)(BBC)
• Wistar Institute scientists say they will present details of research on their creation of "miracle mice" next week at a Cambridge University conference on Regeneration. The experimental animals are able to regenerate amputated limbs or body organs.(The Australian))
• In Bregenz, Austria, a German woman attacks the Roy Lichtenstein painting Nudes in Mirror with a jackknife. Witnesses say that the woman claimed that the painting was not authentic. Although there were several slashes in the painting, valued at €4 million, it can be repaired. (Reuters)

• William Rehnquist, Chief Justice of the United States, dies of thyroid cancer at the age of 80. He was appointed Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court in 1971 by Richard Nixon and was named Chief Justice by Ronald Reagan in 1986. (San Francisco Chronicle)
• Hurricane Katrina:
  • The oil-rich nation of Qatar has offered the United States $100 million to assist in the humanitarian crisis triggered by Hurricane Katrina. (CNN)
  • Spain joins the global effort to stem US oil crisis caused by Hurricane Katrina by providing the United States with 70,000 barrels a day during September. (International Herald Tribune)
  • Over 40,000 military personnel will be deployed along the Gulf Coast in the coming week: President Bush is ordering 7,000 additional active duty forces to the Gulf Coast to add to the 4,000 active duty personnel and 21,000 National Guard troops already in the area. The Pentagon announced an additional 10,000 troop deployment from the National Guard. (The White House) (BBC)
  • The White House announced that President George W. Bush will return to undisclosed parts of the Gulf Coast on Monday. (BBC)
  • The racial and socio-economic fallout from response to Hurricane Katrina continues to grow. Poor black people, says Lani Guinier, a Harvard University law professor, are "the canary in the mine. Poor black people are the throwaway people. And we pathologize them in order to justify our disregard." (Washington Post)
  • "The people of our city are holding on by a thread," Mayor Ray Nagin says. (The Argus)
• People's Republic of China President Hu Jintao has postponed his scheduled visit to Washington in the coming week. He plans to meet with President Bush later in the month while attending the United Nations General Assembly in New York City. (Seattle Times)
• A unilateral three-month ceasefire is declared by Nepal's Maoist rebels as negotiations begin with an alliance of poltical parties. Their leader, Pushpa Kamal Dahal, said they would "not launch any offensive" during the truce. (BBC) (ABC)
• The Japan Meteorological Agency announces Category 5 Typhoon Nabi is set to hit Okinawa and the Ryukyu Islands and possibly Kyushu on Monday. (ABC)
• French President Jacques Chirac, 72, will be hospitalised for a week after suffering a "minor vascular incident" which is affecting his vision. (BBC)

• President Bush tours the area devastated by Hurricane Katrina amidst growing criticism of his lack of leadership. Media reports say he will not visit New Orleans. Bush said order would be restored and New Orleans would emerge from its "darkest days". (BBC)
• Vladimir Putin tells mothers of Beslan children killed a year ago that the government could not guarantee complete security in the face of terrorism. (CNN)
• The NASA Mars Exploration Rover Mission robotic Spirit rover sends back a partial panoramic view from the top of "Husband Hill" at Gusev Crater on Mars. (BBC)

• A judge in Aruba orders the conditional release of Joran van der Sloot, the 18-year-old Dutch citizen being held in connection with the disappearance of Natalee Holloway.
• Al Jazeera broadcasts a video tape claimed to be supplied by Al-Qaeda which apparently shows suicide bomber Mohammad Sidique Khan prior to the 7 July 2005 London bombings stating that he would take part in the attacks. He warned Westerners that they would not be safe because of their "crimes against humanity." (Guardian/AP)
• Hurricane Katrina:
  • President Bush in an early morning interview with ABC's Diane Sawyer at the White House said: "I fully understand people wanting things to have happened yesterday" (ABC)
  • Unknown assailants open fire on a UH-60 Black Hawk military helicopter at New Orleans Superdome, halting evacuations. (BBC) (Wikinews)
  • US financial markets opened with mixed volatility in reaction to disruptions to the nation's oil distribution system along the Gulf coast and concerns for consumer spending. By the closing bell the NASDAQ and Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped two percent. President Bush and Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan and top economic advisers gave the markets a favorable bump after a noon meeting to consider financial impacts of Hurricane Katrina's devastation. (MarketWatch)
  • Both houses of the United States Congress are set to reconvene later in the day, prior to their scheduled return September 6, to pass $10.5 billion in emergency spending legislation relating to storm relief. (Bloomberg)
• Typhoon Talim passes over Taiwan, killing at least 1 person and injuring 24. (BBC)
• On the eve of People's Republic of China President Hu Jintao's first visit to North America next week, a PRC foreign ministry spokesman warned against any government providing Taiwan (ROC) with missile defense systems. Hu Jintao arrives in Washington, D.C. on Monday, then visits Canada and Mexico before visiting the United Nations General Assembly. (BBC)
• Russia marks the first anniversary of the Beslan tragedy in which militants seized nearly 1,200 hostages, killing 331, more than half of them children. (The Guardian)
• Iraq hanged three men in the first executions in the country since the 2003 invasion. They were part of the Jaish Ansar al-Sunna group and had been convicted of kidnapping and murdering three policemen and abducting, raping and killing Iraqi women. Iraqi President Jalal Talabani refused to sign the death warrants, but his Deputy President Adel Abdul Mehdi signed instead. Talabani has also said he will refuse to sign the death warrant of Saddam Hussein should he be convicted and sentenced to death. (Times Online)
• The Common Chimpanzee genome sequence has been released, revealing genetic differences between chimps and humans including differences in a region of the genome thought to be involved in speech acquisition. (VoA))
• As part of celebrations for the 40th Anniversary for the founding of the Tibet Autonomous Region in the People's Republic of China, 20,000 people gather at the Potala Palace Square for a cultural performance. CPC Politburo's Jia Qinglin attended. (Dazhong Daily)
• The California Senate passes the first bill to allow same-sex marriage in the United States. The vote of 21 in favor and 15 against sets the stage for a showdown in the state Assembly, which narrowly rejected a similar bill in June by a margin of 2 votes. Since the June vote some major California organizations have changed stance to support same-sex marriage, including the influential latino group: the United Farm Workers. Latinos account for 34 percent of the population in the state.. (The Advocate) (San Fransico Gate)

2005: January February March April May June July August
2004: January February March April May June July August September October November December
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
2001: January February March April May June July August September October November December
2000: January February March April May June July August September October November December

• Wikipedia:News collections and sources.
• Wikipedia:News sources - This has much of the same material organized in a hierarchical manner to help encourage NPOV in our news reporting.