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)
Coat of Arms
.
The
Revolutionary People's Liberation Party-Front (DHKP-C) are detained in synchronous operations in Turkey, Germany, Italy, Belgium, and the Netherlands. (Xinhua)
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)
At least three persons suspected in involvement in the
March 11, 2004 Madrid bombings blow themselves up in an apartment building in the Madrid suburb Leganés as police officers try to arrest them. Besides the suspects, one police officer is killed and 11 injured. (CBC)
Moqtada Sadr, are killed early in the day after throwing themselves in front of United States tanks during a demonstration in Baghdad. (AFP)
Supporters of
Moqtada Sadr outside a coalition military base in Najaf, Iraq throw rocks and fire shots. Spanish troops and Iraqi police return fire. Nineteen people (including some soldiers) are killed from the fire. (BBC)(VOA)
Israeli-Palestinian conflict and security fears to justify delaying such reform. (HaAretz)
Mordechai Vanunu seeks to renounce his Israeli citizenship to avoid confinement to the nation after his release from jail. (Reuters)
For the first time in six years, a Norwegian policeman is killed in the line of duty. (Aftenposten)
Economists from Harvard and UNC - Chapel Hill determine that peer-to-peer file sharing and music downloads "have an effect on sales which is statistically indistinguishable from zero, despite rather precise estimates." (NYT)
A United States government study finds that an
AIDS than is a white woman. Recent studies suggest that 30 percent of all black bisexual men may be infected with HIV. (NYT)
Basic Law of Hong Kong belongs to the National People's Congress. The Standing Committee also issued an "interpretation" (effectively an amendment) of the Basic Law which set out an additional step required for any changes in Hong Kong's political structures. (CNN)
State security in the
People's Republic of China is on high alert as disgraced Premier Zhao Ziyang seems to be near death.(CNN)
The
Arturas Paulauskas will act as president for two months pending new elections. (BBC)
ABC reports that British government sources believe that suspects arrested last week in the UK may have been plotting to make an improvised chemical weapon using the toxic agent osmium tetroxide. (ABC/US)(BBC)
Shiites challenge Coalition occupation forces. At least 30 Iraqis are killed. Sixteen Iraqis died in battles with Marines in Fallujah. At least 18 American soldiers and more than 116 Iraqis have died in three days of clashes. A Salvadoran soldier and one from Ukraine also are killed. (AP)(Democracy Now!)
United States civilian administrator Paul Bremer states that there is "no question" that coalition forces are in control. "I know if you just report on those few places, it does look chaotic. But if you travel around the country ... what you find is a bustling economy, people opening businesses right and left, unemployment has dropped." (CNN)
Study reports estimates of how long it took for the last four reversals of the Earth's magnetic field. It also reports that the turnarounds occur more quickly nearer the equator than at higher latitudes closer to the poles. (MSN)
Abdul-Aziz al-Samarrai mosque shoot at US Marines, and Lt. Col. Brennan Byrne orders his men to return fire. "If they use the mosque as a military machine, then it's no longer a house of worship and we strike", he said. (AP)
New York Department of Health to strike down a state law defining marriage as between "a man and a woman." (365Gay.com)(Newsday)
Coalition forces retake Kut, meeting little opposition.
humanitarian
supplies to enter the city. An attempt to use the pause to negotiate terms of surrender fails when the representatives from the city fail to show.
United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan urges stepped-up efforts to protect civilians and end the violence in the deteriorating security situation in Iraq. (UN)
Food and sanitation are allegedly being denied to more than 2500 people who were arrested in Nepal over the last few days for protesting against the suspension of democracy. (Morning Star)
Three European researchers say that if Greenland's average temperature were to increase by 3 °C (5.4 °F) or more, its massive ice sheet would melt, gradually swamping coastal communities as seas rise 7 metres (23 feet) over the next 1,000 years. They hypothesize that the upward trend of worldwide carbon dioxideemissions could cause this. (Indianapolis Star)
Gunmen shoot down a helicopter during fighting in western Baghdad. Rebels threaten to kill and burn a civilian, Thomas Hamill, unless the Alliance troops end their assault on Fallujah by 6 am. The deadline passes with no word on Hamill's fate. (Tribune India)
Easter Sunday at a military base hit hard by hostilities in Iraq, acknowledges that it had been "a tough week" and it is unclear if the violence would ebb soon. (Reuters)[permanent dead link
]
A new Iraqi battalion refuses to support Coalition forces in the town of Falluja after a command failure which lead to miscommunication over their role in the area. (BBC)
West Indies captain Brian Lara sets the highest score in Test cricket - 400 not out on the third day of the fourth Test against England in Antigua. He makes his 400 in 773 minutes off 582 balls, hitting 43 fours and four sixes. (BBC)
2004 South African legislative election: The African National Congress (ANC) of President Thabo Mbeki, which has been in power since the end of the apartheid system in 1994, is re-elected with an increased majority. (CNN)
Palestinian Cabinet Minister Saeb Erekat rejects statements by President of the United States George W. Bush stating that Israel would be allowed to keep some West Bank Israeli population centers. (NYT)
United States President
proposed withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and states that Palestinian refugees should return to a new Palestinian state, not to Israel. Bush says it is unrealistic to expect "full and complete return to the armistice lines of 1949." (NYT)
Jewish museum in Budapest and assassinate Israeli president Moshe Katsav who arrived to attend the museum's inauguration ceremony. (HaAretz)
The Australian Family Court allows a thirteen-year-old child, born female, to start preliminary hormone treatment: the child identifies as being male and has been suffering from gender dysphoria. (transcript)(The Australian)
India beats Pakistan 2-1 in the historic friendship Test cricket series. This is India's first away win after 11 years and the first against archrivals Pakistan, in Pakistan.
Three Japanese civilians taken hostage in Iraq are released unharmed after one week in captivity. (Japan Times)(NYT)
capital. Sharon, who wants to withdraw Israel from the Gaza Strip, faces opposition to his withdrawal plan. (VOA)
LindowsOS changes its name to Linspire, in a move to counter Microsoft's lawsuit strategy against the company. (eWeek)
Long-time Canadian
member of Parliament Svend Robinson admits that he stole a piece of jewelry at a public sale in what he describes as "a moment of total, utter irrationality." He states he has turned the ring into police, with whom he is cooperating, and that he is putting his career on hold, taking medical leave to obtain psychological help. The auction house later accepted Svend's apology and decided not to press charges, but a special prosecuter was appointed by the government to weigh the decision of whether to prosecute Robinson.(CBC)
Three planets are discovered via gravitational microlensing orbiting stars many light years away, including one that is more than three times farther away than the previous record holder. (Space.com)
Hong Kong Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa submits a report on the constitutional development to NPC, asking Beijing's permission to reform the way HK's legislature and the top leadership are chosen in 2007 and 2008.
Foreign Minister Miguel Ángel Moratinos, after being sworn into office, will offer to replace Spanish troops in Iraq with non-military assistance when he visits Washington this week. (Reuters)
In Kosovo, a JordanianUN police officer opens fire upon a convoy of UN police officers killing two female Americans and injuring eleven others. The attack reportedly stemmed from an argument between American and Jordanian UN police over Iraq policies. (BBC)
Ten Iraqi Kurds and North Africans are arrested by UK police on suspicion of violating the Terrorism Act 2000. The arrests are made in dawn raids in Greater Manchester and other parts of the North and Midlands. (BBC)
The law firm Davis Polk & Wardwell makes public a 463-page report on
Royal Dutch/Shell. The report, prepared at the request of Shell's audit committee, explains how lax standards have allowed the company to vastly overstate the extent of its oil and natural gas reserves. (company website)
Two car bombs explode outside the General Security headquarters of Saudi Arabia in Riyadh, killing nine and wounding 125. (AP)(CNN)
Insurgency
:
Three car bombs explode outside police stations in
suicide bombers for the terrorism. 23 of the casualties are school children. A fourth car bomb explodes in Zubeir, south of Basra, killing three and wounding four. British soldiers assisting the wounded are pelted with stones, injuring four, two seriously. (BBC)(NYT)
insurgents in Fallujah, Iraq, have "days, not weeks" to fulfill a clause in the ceasefire that requires them to turn over heavy weapons. To date, only rocket-propelled grenade rounds marked "inert", rusted mortar shells, dud rockets and unusable guns have been surrendered. (AP)(Defenselink)
Palestinian gunmen attack a police station in the Gaza Strip, freeing three men arrested for the October 2003 bomb attack against an American diplomaticconvoy. A fourth man arrested for the bombing refuses to leave the police station. (AP)
A major fire in downtown Bangkok leaves thousands of residents homeless. Hundreds of buildings, including several hotels, are destroyed in the area near the Australian and German embassies. (AP)
A bomb in Baghdad's Sadr City market kills 12 Iraqis. In a separate incident, five US soldiers are killed in a rocket attack on a military base north of Baghdad. (CNN)(AP)
Leaders of Australia and Bulgaria visited their troops Sunday. Australian Prime Minister John Howard joined Australian troops in Baghdad for ceremonies honoring the country's war dead. Bulgarian President Georgi Parvanov visited his country's troops two days after a Bulgarian soldier was shot dead in Karbala, the sixth from that country to die in the war.
In the
reunification referendum, 65% of Turkish Cypriot voters accept and 75% of Greek Cypriot voters reject the Annan Plan. (BBC)(BBC)
Forgent Networks sues 31 companies for infringement of their software patent, which they claim is used in the JPEG standard. (AP)
withdraw settlers from the Gaza Strip while leaving some in the West Bank as "one-sided and illegal and which will cost yet more Israeli and Palestinian blood."[2]
Indian general election, 2004: The second phase of elections in the world's largest democracy takes place. Many key states such as Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra and Bihar vote; exit polls favour the opposition (BBC)
Grandmaster (GM), and the second youngest ever, after four wins and four draws out of nine games in the 6th Dubai Open Chess Championship. (Aftenposten)
A bomb explosion and gun battle occur in Damascus, Syria between security forces and a "terrorist group," in which four people are killed and a vacant United Nations building badly damaged. The identity and motives of the attackers is unclear but Islamist militants are the prime suspects. (BBC).
South African president Thabo Mbeki is sworn in for a second term after being overwhelmingly reelected on April 14. The event is marred by controversy over the attendance of Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe.[4]
Republic of China presidential election, 2004: The Judicial Yuan
schedules a vote recount for 10 May.
resistance
:
Intense fighting breaks out in
AC-130 gunships are used to bombard guerrilla positions, but the number of casualties is as yet unknown. (BBC)
According to a
Gallup poll, 71 percent of Iraqis see the U.S. troops in their country as "occupiers" while 19 percent see them as "liberators," although 61 percent say that ousting Saddam Hussein was worth any hardships they had suffered. Still, 57 percent would like U.S./British forces to leave immediately. (CNN)(USA Today)
bn bid to take over Disney, citing a lack of interest from the Disney board. (BBC)
Google announces plans for an initial public offering to raise as much as US$2.72 billion. The IPO will be unconventional in that it will use an auction process and a complex averaging formula designed to prevent brokers' elite customers from winning more shares than average investors. (SF Chronicle)(The Age)
Ten U.S. soldiers are killed in three attacks in Iraq, raising the number of U.S. combat deaths in April to 126. More U.S. troops have been killed this month than during the six weeks of "major combat" in 2003. (Washington Post)[permanent dead link]
Federal authorities file the first criminal charges under the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 against a group that had spammed ads for allegedly worthless "diet patch" products. (Detroit Free Press)
says it is meant as "an expression of respect which simply seeks to honor those who have laid down their lives for this country.
President George W. Bush expresses his "disgust" at images of Iraqi prisoners being mistreated by U.S. soldiers: "Their treatment does not reflect the nature of the American people."[6]
Macedonian officials admit that they staged a bogus gun-battle with "terrorists" in March 2002 and that they knew the seven men slain had no terrorist connections. Four members of the security forces face murder charges for their staged killing.[7]
