VARIOUS: 2005 News review of the year - Yearender

Record ID: 275955

  • Title: VARIOUS: 2005 News review of the year - Yearender
  • Date: 1st January 2006
  • Summary: BRITISH SOLDIERS ESCAPE BURNING TANK CAUGHT IN RIOT AFTER RAID ON IRAQI JAIL ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- BASRA, IRAQ (SEPTEMBER 19, 2005) (REUTERS) TANK MOVING FORWARD AS FLAMES BURN OVER TURRET/ MAN JUMPS ON TANK AND THROWS OBJE
  • Embargoed: 16th January 2006 12:00
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  • Topics: International Relations,Domestic Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVA2ISO5YPOPY5RT7QZDV8G4XZL9
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  • Story Text:INTRODUCTION: 2005 has been marked by big stories. Humanitarian disasters, global conflicts, insurgencies and fundamentalism, weather chaos, political upheavals and revolutions have all dominated international news.

    JANUARY

    ASIAN TSUNAMI KILLS OVER 250,000 PEOPLE ACROSS INDIAN OCEAN REGION
    The year 'started' the day after Christmas 2004 with the Asian tsunami. One of the most powerful earthquakes recorded, measuring 8.9 on the Richter scale and centered off Sumatra, triggered a series of waves that devastated the coastal regions of countries across south east Asia.
    The raging waters dragged villagers out to sea, flung others inland and tore children from their parents arms. Fishing boats were smashed and beach hotels drowned in mud after waves up to 30 feet engulfed the shorelines. Many tourists lost their lives at popular resorts in the region. An estimated 250,000 people died with tens of thousands still unaccounted for.
    The scale and reach of the devastation was enormous, from Indonesia in the east, across to the coast of Africa, 4,000 miles away. All points between were hit, including the Maldives, Sri Lanka, India, Bangladesh, Burma, Thailand and Malaysia.
    Tens of millions of U.S. dollars in aid was donated by individuals and pledged by governments across the globe.
    An international relief effort swung into action but in some areas help was slow to come, hampered by the complete devastation of roads and infrastructure. Locals, charities and individual volunteers helped each other as governments debated how best to proceed. In one Indonesian hamlet, villagers decided to rebuild their coastal homes on top of a nearby hill, but for many the reconstruction of their lives, homes and businesses would much longer.

    IRAQ ELECTION
    In Iraq another type of rebuilding was taking place. As an anti-U.S. insurgency formented following the toppling of Saddam Hussein, the first free multi-party elections for half a century were held, the first building blocks of a new democracy.
    Across the country on January 30 voters braved the threats of violence and cast their ballots in millions. Kurds danced and women ulalated as they left the polling stations. But 44 people died in bloody attacks aimed at wrecking the poll.
    The results showed a turn out of 58 percent - ranging from 89 percent in the Kurdish region of Dahuk to two percent in the Sunni region of Anbar, and returned a 275-member Transitional National Assembly that will draft a permanent constitution and pave the way for new national elections at the end of 2005.
    The new government, headed by Shia Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jafari (appointed in April 2005) has been beset by the problems of security and a nationwide insurgency that has killed thousands of Iraqi civilians and splits amongst its Shia and Sunni Muslim and Kurdish factions.
    Iraq Body Count, a British anti-war group that has compiled a death toll based on media reports says between 26,690 and 30,051 Iraqi civilians have been killed in the 30 months since the war began.
    By late October, 2000 U.S. soldiers has been killed in the conflict.
    **election results: National Assembly - percent of vote by party - United Iraqi Alliance 48.2%, Democratic Patriotic Alliance of Kurdistan 25.7%, Iraqi List 13.8%, others 12.3%; number of seats by party - United Iraqi Alliance 140, Democratic Patriotic Alliance of Kurdistan 75, Iraqi List 40, others 20**

    PALESTINE
    Elsewhere in the Middle East, there was hope that the election of a successor to former Palestinian President Yasser Arafat would help invigorate the peace process with Israel.
    The streets of Ramallah rang to the sound of celebratory gunfire and car horns on the evening of January 9, as Mahmoud Abbas, also known as Abu Mazen, won 62 percent of the vote despite a boycott by Hamas and other militant groups.
    The mandate gave strength to his calls to end violence against Israel and resulted in an invitation to the White House and a pledge of help from U.S. president George W Bush.

    BUSH INAUGURATION
    January also saw the inauguration of the U.S. president. George W Bush was sworn in for his final term on a cold and wintry day, January 20.
    Winner of a closely fought election, Bush began his second period of office with the lowest approval rating of a returning president for 30 years. Anti-Iraq war campaigners staged protests during the ceremony and the address, during which Bush vowed to advance democracy abroad.
    Bush led the United States into wars in Afghanistan and Iraq following the al Qaeda attacks of September 11, 2001. An insurgency in Iraq has killed thousands following the ousting of Saddam Hussein in 2003 and some observers fear a Vietnam-style military quagmire with no end in sight. Many anti-war activists want foreign troops out of the country.

    AUSCHWITZ 60TH ANNIVARSARY
    Closure of another kind was sought by survivors of the Nazi death camps at events marking the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz.
    A snow-bound ceremony at the concentration camp in Poland brought together world leaders and the remaining elderly survivors of the 7,000 prisoners who were released by shocked Soviet soldiers as the Germans withdrew on January 27, 1945
    Surrounded by barbed wire and remnants of the killing machine used by the Nazis to gas and incinerate camp inmates, a Jewish cantor blew a symbolic shofar (Ram's horn) and survivors wrapped in blankets and wearing their prisoner caps watched as candles were lit by dignitaries, who vowed the World War Two genocide must never be forgotten or repeated.
    Up to 1.5 million people, including more than one million jews, died at Auschwitz-Birkenau set up by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland in 1940 as the main centre of their "Final Solution."

    SUDAN PEACE SIGNING
    In Africa, Sudan celebrated a peace deal to end 20 years of civil war in the south of the country, despite threats of a new genocide.
    Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir edged his state back towards the international fold at a ceremony in Nairobi. But the deal to end strife in the south does not cover a new humanitarian crisis in the western Darfur region, where the United Nations says genocide has taken place.
    Bashir has overseen his country's transformation into a radical Islamic state but a cornerstone of the peace agreement says sharia law will not apply in the south. The application of sharia law across the ethnically and religiously diverse country was the catalyst for the war erupting in 1983. After years of fighting the rebel Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA), Bashir's government forged the interim peace deal in 2002,even offering southerners the right to secede after an interim period.



    FEBRUARY 2005

    LEBANON - HARIRI ASSASINATION
    February was marked by the assasination of former Lebanese President Rafik Al Hariri on Valentine's day (February 14).
    A massive car bomb in Beirut's waterfront district killed the ex-premier and 19 others in an attack that would reverberate through the following months and leave an indelible change in the Lebanon's political landscape.
    The explosion gouged a huge crater out of the road, ripped facades from luxury buildings and left cars ablaze on the rubble-strewn street.
    At least 150,000 people attended his funeral including French President Jacques Chirac.
    Sixty-year-old Hariri had held office for most of the previous 12 years before quitting in October 2004 amid a bitter rift with President Emile Lahoud.
    A direct consequence of the attack was the removal of 14,000 Syrian troops from Lebanon, which Hariri had been calling for in the run up to a May general election. Syria had been a major power broker in its smaller neighbour since the civil war when it was credited with helping to bring the conflict to a close in 1990.
    A U.N. report issued in late October accused high-ranking Syrian security officials and their allies in Lebanon of involvement in the plot to kill Hariri. The United States and France threatened economic sanctions if Syria did not cooperate in the probe and detain officials for interviews with U.N. investigators.

    BIRD FLU PANDEMIC FEARS IN YEAR OF ROOSTER
    Earlier in the month, fears of a bird flu pandemic emerged as the Chinese celebrated the start of the Year of the Rooster.
    In Vietnam, where 41 people have died of bird flu, over half of the country's 64 provinces are infected despite ruthless measures to stop the spread of the H5N1 strain, including the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of poultry.
    The World Health Organisation has said the lethal virus is endemic in poultry across much of Asia and it could only be a matter of time before it develops the ability to jump the species barrier and mutate into a form that could pass easily from human to human, triggering a pandemic that could kill millions.
    The disease has so far killed 62 people and infected 122 in four Asian countries, and caused 125 million bird fatalities across South-East Asia. Most human cases have been linked to contact with sick birds.
    The strain first surfaced in humans in Hong Kong in 1997, re-emerged in 2003 in South Korea and has reached as far west as European Russia, Turkey and Romania, tracking the paths of migratory birds.
    In October Europeans were advised not to eat raw eggs and cook chicken carefully and the European Union banned imports of pet birds after a parrot died of the H5N1 strain in Britain and halted some imports of live birds.
    Many countries have banned raising poulty in the open air or banned imports from countries with suspected outbreaks. There are fears that Africa, where many countries have poor health systems, could also soon report cases in birds.

    KYOTO PACT COMES INTO EFFECT
    After years of delays, the United Nations (U.N.) Kyoto protocol on curbing emissions of heat-trapping gases blamed for disrupting the climate took effect on February 16 with muted celebrations.
    The U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan asked signatories for immediate action when the pact was signed in 1997 .
    "I call on the world community to be bold, to adhere to the Kyoto protocol and to act quickly in taking the next steps. There is no time to lose."
    Washington has dismissed the deal as an economic straitjacket, but 141 nations have signed up to a first step to halting global warming by imposing legally binding caps on greenhouse gas emission, mainly from burning fossil fuels in power plants factories and cars, in 35 developed nations. But the protocol excludes until at least 2012 major developing nations India, China and Brazil which comprise a third of the world's population.
    Environmentalists celebrated the pact, but many think it is not enough. Climate experts fear temperature rises will disrupt farming, raise sea levels by melting icecaps, cause more extreme weather like hurricanes or droughts, spread disease and wipe out thousands of plant and animal species by 2100.

    IRAQ INSURGENCY CONTINUES WITH MASSIVE SUICIDE BOMB
    In Iraq the violence continued. A massive suicide bomb on February 28 killed at least 115 near the marketplace in Hilla, 100 kilometers south of the capital. It was the single bloodiest attack in the country since the fall of Saddam Hussein.
    The bomber drove a car into a crowd of people queueing outside a government building, apparently to get health certificates needed to apply for government jobs.
    Many of the dead were shopping at market stalls across the road. Smoke rose from the wreckage as bystanders loaded mangled corpses onto wooden carts usually used to carry fruit and vegetables.
    Insurgents fighting to drive U.S. troops from Iraq and wreck the transition to democracy have often targeted people looking for state jobs or army and police recruits.
    The attack came as interim prime minister Iyad Allawi acknowledged Iraqi security forces were unable to take on the insurgency without the help of U.S.-led forces.

    MARCH 2005

    GLOBAL FLYER WORLD RECORD
    At the beginning of March adventurer, Steve Fossett became the first person to make a solo, non-stop flight around the world.
    After three days in the air his single-engine jet-powered experimental plane sponsored by Virgin Atlantic touched down smoothly in Kansas 67 hours after he left the same airstrip.
    Fossett has claimed a number of air, land and sea records and was the first person to make a solo non-stop balloon circumnavigation.
    The first non-stop flight around the world without refueling was made in 1986 by Jeana Yeager and Dick Rutan, who completed the 26,366 miles (42,430 km) in nine days.

    ITALIAN JOURNALIST RELEASED BY IRAQI INSURGENTS, FRENCH JOURNALIST AND IRAQI DRIVER RELEASED TWO MONTHS LATER
    Italy celebrated and mourned after Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena was released by Iraqi militants. But her freedom was tainted by the death of the secret agent, Nicola Calipari who negotiated her release. He was killed by U.S forces who shot at the car in which they were travelling.
    Calipari was given a posthumous award for valour after he saved Sgrena by acting as a human shield when bullets riddled the car as it approached Baghdad airport.
    U.S. forces said they opened fire on the car as it drove at speed towards a checkpoint.
    Calipari's death fuelled calls by anti-war activists to withdraw Italian troops from Iraq. Later in the month Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi announced a progressive planned reduction of the 3,000 serving soldiers from September.
    Two months later France was welcoming home another journalist held hostage for five months by Iraqi sunni insurgents.
    Liberation reporter Florence Aubenas was greeted by her family and President Jacques Chirac at Villacoublay airport outside Paris.
    Aubenas' driver, Hussein Hanun al-Saadi, who was kidnapped with her, was also released and returned home to music and celebration at his Baghdad home. Al-Saadi looked pale and withdrawn and later stated his intention to leave Iraq following his ordeal.
    The pair were snatched after leaving their Baghdad hotel on January 5th. The French governemnt denied a ransom was paid to secure their sudden release

    KYRGYZSTAN - POPULAR REVOLT UNSEATS PRESIDENT AFTER OPPOSITION ALLEGATIONS OF VOTE RIGGING
    On March 24, violent anti-government protests led to the storming of government buildings in the capital Bishkek and the eventual downfall of veteran Kyrgyz President Askar Akayev.
    Protesters were demonstrating against elections results which handed Akayev overwhelming control of government, but which international observers said were flawed.
    Fighting broke out between Akayev supporters and opposition protesters in the city centre and riot police moved in. The two sides battled with rocks and sticks and gunfire was heard as people run in all directions in chaotic scenes.
    The protesters wanted Akayev to annul parliamenatry elections in which the opposition were routed and two of Akyev's children elected, and had already taken control of two towns, Osh and Jalal-Abad in the poor south of the mountainous country.
    Akayev refused to resign, but after protesters seized control of the seat of state power, he fled the country with his family for Russia where he tendered his resignation. The Kyrgyz Parliament accepted on April 11, having first stripped him and his family of special privileges granted by the previous parliament.

    INDONESIA EARTHQUAKE
    Whilst politcial upheaval threatened to split Kyrgyzstan, four days later a natural one was compounding the misery of Indonesia, recovering from the December 26th tsunami.
    An earthquake measuring 8.7 devastated Nias island, killed at least 800 people and left thousands injured and homeless. About 700,000 people live on the island which escaped major damage in the December tsunami.
    Large parts of the island, famed as a surfing paradise, were damaged and much of the regional capital, Gunungsitoli was flattened.
    Rescue efforts were hampered by poor weather, fuel shortages and the logistical problems in reaching the island, which lies 850 miles (1,400 km) north of Jakarta.
    The quake was centered 100 miles (160 km) south east of the bigger one three months previously, prompting unfounded fears of another tsunami.



    APRIL 2005

    MUGABE RETAINS POWER IN ZIMBABWE ELECTIONS CONDEMNED AS UNFAIR BY THE WEST
    Zimbabweans kept President Robert Mugabe in power after March 31 elections gave him an overall majority in the 150-seat parliamentary assembly.
    Despite turnout of less than 50 percent and accusations that the polls were flawed, Mugabe's Zanu-PF (Zimbabwe African National Unity-Patriotic Front) party took 78 seats, leaving the main opposition Movement for Democratic Change led by Morgan Tsvangirai with 41 seats and one independent. 30 other seats are directly appointed by Mugabe.
    Some 5.9 million of Zimbabwe's 12.6 million people are on the electoral register, but opposition and critics said the roll was inflated by about a million to help Zanu-PF. Human rights groups say that hundreds of thousands of "ghost voters" appeared on the electoral roll and used to record fraudulent votes.
    Mugabe is now just one seat short of a two-thirds majority needed to change the constitution, to enable him to install a successor without immediately calling elections, as presently required.
    81-year-old Mugabe has held power for 25 years since independence from Britain and has been isolated and criticised by the international community for misrule and wrecking the economy.

    POPE JOHN PAUL II DIES, CARDINAL RATZINGER ELECTED SUCCESSOR
    An estimated 300,000 people crammed into the Vatican city on April 8 to watch one of the most momentous funerals in recent history.
    Polish Pope John Paul II died on April 2nd after a 26-year papacy, after long bouts of illness and increasing frailty. He was buried a week later in a simple wooden coffin, after a huge outpouring of grief, during which millions files past his body as it lay in state.
    The funeral service, led by his eventual successor and architect of some of his most conservative teachings, Cardinal Ratzinger, was watched on live television by tens of millions of people worldwide. It brought together 11 monarchs and at least 70 presidents and heads of state, amongst massive security.
    The conservative German 78-year-old Ratzinger was elected Pope Benedict XVI surprisingly quickly on April 19 and faced with the daunting task of leading 1.1 billion Roman Catholics through what some predict will be a difficult papacy.

    BRITAIN'S PRINCE CHARLES FINALLY MARRIES CAMILLA PARKER BOWLES AFTER 35-YEAR AFFAIR
    The day after attending the pope's funeral, Britain's heir to the throne, Prince Charles finally married his mistress of 35 years, Camilla Parker Bowles.
    After a simple town hall civil ceremony in the riverside town of Windsor, west of London and marriage blessing by the head of the Anglican church in nearby St George's Chapel, Charles and Camilla entertained 800 guests at a reception, before heading to Scotland for their honeymoon, cheered on their way by diehard flag waving royalists and wellwishers.
    Charles troubled first marriage to Diana, Princess of Wales, was unable to survive his continuing affair with Camilla and they divorced before Diana's death in a Paris car crash.

    TOGO - VIOLENCE FOLLOWS DISPUTED POLL, KILLING AT LEAST 100
    Togo voted for a new president amid opposition allegations of vote rigging and bouts of violence on April 24.
    With a political crisis following the death of the tiny West African country's long-serving ruler, Gnassingbe Eyadema, the army had named Eyadema's 39-year-old son, Faure as his successor, provoking an international outcry until Faure stepped aside and agreed to hold an election.
    In the capital, Lome, groups of opposition supporters armed with stones faced off against security forces. Many shops and businesses and schools were closed as the military policed the streets in search of protesters, firing tear gas and stun guns.
    Western diplomats said the rioting killed at least 100 people after the disputed presidential poll and thousands fled for neighbouring countries. The UNHCR said 20,000 refugees had left for Ghana and neighbouring Benin.
    Togo's constitutional court confirmed Gnassingbe as the winner of the poll with 60 percent of the vote, against 38 percent for the opposition candidate Emmanuel Akitani-Bob.

    PROTESTS ACROSS ASIA AS JAPAN USES CONTROVERSIAL HISTORY TEXTBOOK IN SCHOOLS
    Japan's use of controversial history textbook which critics said whitewashed the country's brutal colonial and wartime past provoked sometimes violent protests in South Korea and China.
    The New History Textbook, published in 2001, is used in only 18 of Japan's 11,102 junior high schools. The writers, the Society for History textbook reform have criticised other texts as offering a "masochistic" view of history. But the furore it created sold 600,000 copies to general readers and its approval by the Education Ministry ignited big demonstrations in China and violent protest in Seoul.
    The textbook reiterates Tokyo's claim to rocky south Korean-held islands known as Takeshima in Japan and Tokto in South Korea, and Japan's biggest teaching union said the text lacked an awareness of the "pain and suffering" caused to Asian people in World War II. Other critics say it does not provide enough detail of the 1937 Nanking massacre when Japanese soldiers killed civilians and does not mention "comfort women", a euphemism for women forced to become sex slave for the Japanese army before and after the war.
    Ties between Japan and China had deteriorated to their worst level since normalisation of relations in 1972, and prime minister Junichiro Koizumi took the unusual step of apologising publicly for his country's wartime atrocities during a summit in Jakarta.
    Japan occupied much of China from 1931-45 and Beijing says 35 million Chines were killed or wounded. Beijing is also offended by Japanese poiticians', including Koizumi, visits to a controversial Tokyo war shrine.

    ECUADOR CIVIL UNREST FORCES PRESIDENT GUITERREZ FROM OFFICE
    Street protests erupted in Quito after a Supreme Court decision to drop corruption charges against former President Abdala Bucaram, a key political ally of President Lucio Gutierrez.
    Demonstrations and civil unrest in the capital gathered pace after the Supreme court was fired
    and Gutierrez declared a state of emergency. Protesters, including miners and peasants converged on the capital demanding the resignation of Gutierrez.
    Within a week Gutierrez fled office after congress voted to oust him for "abandoning his post" and the state prosecutor's office ordered his arrest for two deaths during the huge demonstrations and rioting by rival groups. He was flown from the presidential palace by military helicopter and replaced by Vice President Alfredo Palacio.
    Gutierrez became the third president of the Andean nation toppled amid popular unrest since 1997. In 2000, Guteirrez himself helped oust President Jamil Mahuad. He was briefly jailed for leading a coup and was elected in 2002 with support from the poor majority, but alienated many supporters for pursuing austere economic policies and negotiating with the International Monetary Fund.

    CALLS FOR US TO QUIT IRAQ GROW WITH VIOLENT INSURGENCY
    Thousands of supporters of rebel shi'ite leader Moqtada al Sadr marched on the second anniversary of the fall of Saddam Hussein to denounce the U.S. presence in Iraq and demand a speedy trial of their former president.
    The protesters marched from Sadr city to Firdos Square in central Baghdad where a statue of Saddam Hussein was toppled two years previously by U.S. troops and celebrating Iraqis.
    Chanting 'No America, No Saddam, yes to Islam', protesters waved flags and displayed puppets of U.S. President George W. Bush, British Prime Minister Tony Blair and their former president.
    The protest was also joined by Sunni muslims and tapped into the growing frustration felt among large swathes of the Iraqi population at the continued U.S. presence in the country.
    Scandals such as the abuse of detainees at Abu Ghraib prison and the deaths of Iraqi detainees in U.S. custody have exacerbated the situation. More than 10,000 Iraqis are being held, most without trial.
    A violent insurgency aimed at forcing U.S.-led forces from the country continued with more than 40 attacks a day, despite an apparent slowing down over the two months since the elections.
    A surge of guerrilla attacks hit both civilians and security forces at the end of the month. In two of the worst incidents on April 20, nine died as a Russian-built commercial helicopter was shot down north of Baghdad, and 19 Iraqi guardsmen were taken prisoner, handcuffed and blindfolded before being shot at a Haditha soccer stadium. On April 25 two bombs exploded near the Shi'ite Ahl al-Beit mosque in Baghad, killing at least 15 people and injuring 57.
    The continuing violence poses major problems for the newly appointed government, led by Kurdish President Jalal Talabani and dominated by Shi'ite leaders after once-dominant Sunnis were sidelined in the January elections.

    MAY 2005
    UNITED KINGDOM - LABOUR WIN HISTORIC THIRD TERM DESPITE OPPOSITION OVER WAR IN IRAQ
    British Prime Minister survived opposition over the Iraq war to secure a historic third straight victory, but with a slashed majority in parliament. He was third leader of three key global allies in Iraq - the United States, United Kingdom and Australia, to win re-election postwar, but admitted voters had sent a clear signal they wanted to curb his power.
    He also became the first leader to win three successive elections for the Labour party, the socialist party founded a century ago, which is now the dominant force of the British centre-left following extensive remodelling after being in opposition for 18 years under four Conservative governments.
    Blair's party took 356 seats in the 646 seat House of Commons giving them an overall majority of 66 seats ahead of the opposition parties, but gaining only 37 percent of the British public's vote - an all-time low for a winning party. Blair had already announced he would step down after a third term, most likely in favour of the Chancellor of the Exchequer (Finance minister) Gordon Brown.

    UZEBKISTAN PROTESTERS MASSACRE
    Protests sparked by the trial of 23 Muslim businessmen in the Uzbek town of Andihzan capital turned into a bloody massacre on May 13 as troops moved to suppress what was deemed by President Islam Karimov an uprising formented by Islamic extremists.
    The trial of the businessmen were widely perceived as unfair and prompted hundreds of people to peacefully protest against it in the weeks prior to the massacre. The businessmen were freed by an armed group who had earlier in the day raided a military barracks and siezed weapons, before proceeding to take over a local government building and take law enforcement and government officials hostage.
    Human Rights groups and opposition leaders estimate between 500 and 745 people died as witnesses said security forces using an armoured personnel carrier's machine gun opened fire on a crowd of rebels, protesters and onlookers, among them women and children, outside a school. The official death toll was 187.
    The violence in Andhizan followed protests in nearby Kyrgyz cities Osh and Jalal Abad which led to the overthrow of President Askar Akayev in March, a fate which may ultimately follow for Karimov.
    The European Union imposed sanctions on the central Asian mostly Muslim state in October. Human Rights groups have repeatedly criticised the former Soviet state for jailing dissident Muslims and using torture. The U.S. after an initial silence, supported the demand by the United Nations to set up an independent inquiry into the slaughter. Uzbekistan has been a close U.S. -ally, letting Washington use an air base in its war in neighbouring Afghanistan.

    KHODORKOVSKY SENTENCED
    Russian oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky was found guilty of six of seven charges of fraud and tax evasion on May 31 and sentenced to nine years in prison, a year short of the maximum demanded by prosecutors.
    The verdict on the man who made billions from the YUKOS oil company took judges 12 days to read, after an 11-month trial.
    His business associate and co-defendant Platon Lebedev received the same sentence. Both men said they would appeal.
    Whilst the trial - widely seen as orchestrated by the Kremlin to crush a political rival - raised concerns in the West, many ordinary Russians were unmoved by Khodorkovsky's plight.
    They often view the hugely wealthy and usually young oligarchs who emerged from the ruins of the Soviet Union as little more than thieves of state wealth who left them even worse off than under communist rule.

    FRANCE REJECT NEW CONSTITUTION OF EUROPEAN UNION IN REFERENDUM
    France voted overwhelmingly against the European Union new constitution on May 29 in rejection that could sound the death knell for the proposed charter.
    The resounding "No" vote sent shock waves through Europe but was seen by some analysts as a punishment for the policies of French president Jacques Chirac's conservatives which have resulted in a fragile economy and high unemployment, which at the time of the poll was at a five-year high of 10.2 percent.
    The charter, designed to ensure smooth decision-making in the enlarged 25-nation bloc requires the backing of all member states to enter into force.
    EU leaders said the treaty was still alive but acknowledged the French result could affect its chances of success elsewhere in the alliance. They stressed there was no fall-back plan and EU rules left open what would happen in the event of one of mroe rejections.
    Nine countries representing nearly half of the EU's 454 citizens had already approved the constitution and leaders from Greece, Poland and Denmark said the process must continue as planned.



    JUNE 2005

    NETHERLANDS VOTES AGAINST NEW EUROPEAN UNION CONSTITUTION
    The Netherlands emphatically rejected the EU referendum, plunging the bloc deeper into crisis. Official results confiemed 61.5 percent voted 'NO' with a turnout of 63.3 percent.
    The vote effectively meant the indefinite delay of the treaty designed to make the running of the EU smoother following its enlargement from 15 to 25 states.
    Analysts said the vote was fuelled by anger at the political elite over the euro, fears of a European superstate, concerns about immigration and security, and a loss of Dutch influence in Brussels, as ell as disenchantment at the government and a slugglish economy.
    Denmark, Poland, Portugal, Ireland, the Czech Republic and the United Kingdom postponed referenda on the issue and EU leaders extended the November 2006 deadline for ratification of the constitution
    to allow a "period of reflection", without setting a new date.
    Austria, Cyprus, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Slovakia, Slovenia and Spain have ratified the treaty and the German parliament has voted in favour.
    In September the European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said the EU will not have a constitution for "at least two or three years", leaving the issue on ice.

    ZIMBABWE CONTROVERSIAL EVICTIONS

    Zimbabwe continued with its campaign of evictions which have left thousands homeless.
    In Harare's Kambuzuma suburb, police oversaw "Operation Restore Order", the demolition of urban neighbourhoods that President Robert Mugabe says are a haven for black-market traders and other criminals.
    Bulldozers ploughed through the concrete walls of suburban-style bungalows in Joshua Mqabuko Nkomo Heights leaving a trail of rubble lining the streets and residents crying at the loss of their homes.
    The United Nations believes 200,000 people have been left homeless by the evictions which critics say has worsened the plight of ordinary Zimbabweans already grappling with an economic crisis showing itself in record inflation, 70 percent unemployment and acute shortages of foreign currency fuel and food. Amnesty International puts the figure higher at 300,000.
    There are fears 2-3 million people could be targeted by the campaign, which has resulted in the arrests of 22,000 people. The main opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) accuse Mugabe of cleansing areas where they won most seats in the March elections.

    BOLIVIA CIVIL UNREST RESULTS IN PRESIDENT'S RESIGNATION
    President Carlos Mesa resigned early in the month after thousands of miner and peasants marched on the capital, a culmination of three weeks of sometime violent protests over control of Bolivia's oil and gas fields.
    Indigenous Indian leaders were calling for the nationalisation of Bolivia's huge national gas reserves and greater representation in parliament. The protesters blockaded La Paz for three weeks triggering fuel and food shortages in South America's poorest nation.
    The turmoil came after Congress approved a new energy law increasing taxes paid on foreign companies mining Bolivia's reserves, which Indian leaders want to be distributed more fairly amongst the poor majority.

    TODDLER KILLED IN CAMBODIA SCHOOL SIEGE
    In the ancient Cambodian city of Siem Reap, a Canadian toddler and two gunmen were killed in a six-hour siege at an international school.
    Twenty-nine mostly foreign nursery children were taken hostage by a disgruntled private security guard and five other gunmen demanding 30,000 U.S. dollars (USD) and a 12-seater van.
    The gunmen burst in on the class aged between two and six and and shot dead the two-year old boy, theatening to kill the other children one by one until their demands were met.
    The siege was ended by Cambodian police who intercepted the hostage takers as they herded the children into the van. Children and their carers ran in all directions as shots were exchanged. Two of the gunmen were chased and beaten by police and members of the public.
    Banditry and hostage-taking for money is not uncommon in Cambodia, which is still awash with weapons after decades of civil war. Millions of tourists visit the country, many drawn by the famed Angor Wat temple complex near Siem Reap.

    MICHAEL JACKSON CLEARED OF ALL CHARGES AFTER TRIAL LASTING FOUR MONTHS

    Pop icon Michael Jackson was found not guilty in mid-June of sexually molesting a teenage boy after a four-month trial that could have sent him to prison for 20 years.
    The musical megastar was cleared of all charges in the California courtroom, including child sex abuse, as relieved fans set free white doves in celebration outside.
    Jackson had strenously denied guilt on four counts of child molestation, one of attempted molestation, four of giving alcohol to a minor and one charge of conspiracy to commit child abduction, false imprisonment and extortion.
    The case against the "King of Pop" was sparked by a controversial television documnetary in which he was seen holding hands with his accuser and defended his practice of sharing a bed with young boys.
    The jury deliberated for seven days before acquiting Jackson, a former child star who released the best-selling pop album of all time, "Thriller". They considered testimony from 140 witnesses including a number of young men who claimed to have been abused by Jackson as boys, and 600 items of evidence.

    NORTH KOREA DEFECTOR CHARLES JENKINS RETURNS HOME FOR FIRST TIME IN 40 YEARS
    Former U.S. army sergeant Charles Jenkins who deserted his squad and defected to North Korea in 1965, returned to his native North Carolina to see his mother on June 14.
    Despite some residents denouncing him as a traitor, 65-year-old Jenkins flew from Japan with his wife and two daughters for the reunion with his 91-year Mom and his first steps on American soil for 40 years.
    Jenkins abandoned his patrol as a 24-year-old and fled to the communist north. He later told a court martial he feared going to Vietnam. He became part of the North Korean propoganda machine, teaching English to cadets and married his Japanese wife who was one of at least a dozen Japanese citizens abducted by the regime.
    He remained in Korea with his two daughters after his wife Hitomi Soga was allowed to return to Japan, fearing severe punishment by the U.S. But he eventually turned himself in to U.S. authorities in September 2004, after being reunited with his wife and two daughters in Indonesia in July 2004, and served 25 days in a military jail with a dishonourable discharge.

    IRAN ELECTS ULTRA-CONSERVATIVE PRESIDENT
    Iran elected a new president on June 24th who promised a peaceful and moderate government, but said the Islamic state of 67 million people will continue to pursue its controversial nuclear programme causing concern in the European Union and United States.
    Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the 48-year-old ultra conservative Tehran mayor, won the support of Iran's poor with pledges to share out Iran's oil wealth more fairly.
    Ahmadinejad, the surprise contender in the presidential run-off against moderate cleric and former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, is a staunch supporter of Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has the final say in matters of state in the Iran's system of clerical rule.
    Outgoing President Mohammed Khatami had loosened Islamic rules and pursued detente with the West but Ahmadinejad has said he sees no need for relations with the U.S, but will continue talks with the EU over the country's nuclear programme.



    JULY 2005

    LONDON WINS OLYMPIC BID 2012
    London rejoiced on July 6 after unexpectedly winning the race to stage the 2012 Olympics, beating Paris, Madrid and New York.
    A jubilant crowd thronged Trafalgar square as they watched the announcement on a huge screen as it was announced live from Singapore.
    London, which previously staged the Games in 1908 and 1948, edged the French capital by four votes in the final round of the closest bidding war in Olympic history, helped by lobbying from the London Mayor Ken Livingstone and Prime Minister Tony Blair.
    But the euphoria at hosting the world's largest sporting extravaganza was shortlived.

    LONDON TRANSPORT SYSTEM ATTACKED BY SUICIDE BOMBERS KILLING 52 PEOPLE
    On Thursday July 7 a series of 4 bomb attacks struck London's public transport system during the morning rush hour.
    At 0850 bst (british summer time) (0750gmt) three suicide bombs exploded within 50 seconds of each other on three underground trains. A fourth bomber exploded on a bus just under an hour later at 0947 bst (0857gmt) in Tavistock Square.
    The attacks killed 56 people including the bombers and injured 700 and led to a severe, day-long disruption of the city's transport and mobile telecommunications infrastructure.
    In an emotional response, London Mayor Ken Livingstone, in Singapore to support London's Olympic bid, vowed Londoners would never be divided by militant attacks.
    "This city of London is the greatest in the world because everybody lives side by side in harmony and Londoners will not be divided by this cowardly attack."
    Police investigators subsequently identified Hasib Hussain, Mohammad Sidique Khan, Germaine Lindsay and Shehzad Tanweer as the four men responsible for the first home-grown attacks in Western Europe planned by Islamist militants.

    BLAIR CONDEMNS BOMBINGS AT G8 SUMMIT
    The bombings came while the Britain was hosting the first full day of the 31st G8 summit. Prime Minister Tony Blair broke off from the meeting to fly back to London.
    "Here at the summit, the world's leaders are striving to combat world poverty and save and improve human life. The perpetrators of today's attacks are intent on destroying human life," Blair said with G8 leaders standing in support behind him.
    The incident was the deadliest single act of terrorism in the United Kingdom since the 1988 Lockerbie bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 (which killed 270), and the deadliest bombing in London since World War II.

    G8 SUMMIT PROTESTS, CAMPAIGNERS FOR MAKE POVERTY HISTORY AND LIVE 8 CONCERT PRESSURE LEADERS FOR DEBT RELIEF IN AFRICA AND A DOUBLING OF AID AND FAIRER TRADE CONDITIONS
    Protesters and campaigners had gathered near Gleneagles to pressure the G8 leaders for debt relief in Africa, fairer trade conditions, action on global warming and the tackling of diseases such as tuberculosis and HIV.
    A huge security operation was set up around the luxury resort to combat disruption from protests, including a cordon of kilometres of wire fencing and road blocks.
    At least 60 protesters were arrested were arrested during clashes with police in the town of Stirling. In nearby Auchterarder anti-poverty campaigners donned huge masks of the G8 leaders symbolically taking money from Africa.
    The final Live 8 concert was held in Edinburgh, the culmination of a week-long series of concerts and events calling on the leaders of the world's richest nations to act on global poverty.
    The Long Walk to Justice ended in the city, after concerts in London, Philadelphia, Berlin, Paris and Rome on July 2nd brought together millions of people to call for complete debt cancellation, more and better aid and trade justice for the world's poorest people.
    The concerts were spearheaded by Bob Geldof, who alongside rock musician Midge Ure had initiated and organised the original Band Aid single 20 years previously.
    "How can these eight men refuse us now. How can they refuse us, now," Geldof appealed to the Murrayfield crowd.

    DROUGHT AND LOCUSTS IN NIGER LEADS TO FAMINE OF UP TO 2.5 MILLION PEOPLE
    The effect of poverty and drought had been seen all too clearly earlier in the month in Niger.
    Natural disasters, civil conflict, poverty and locust invasions led the West African nation to be crippled by famine. The World Food Programme estimated 2.5 million people were suffering chronic hunger, from a total population of 11.5 million.
    As aid began to reach the country, Aid agencies said Niger was just one of a swathe of countries in the region affected. The aid was too little and too late for many and agencies appealed for the relief effort to be stepped up after months of delays.
    Poverty and hunger in Niger kill one in four children under the age of five even in a good year. Agencies said a million children were suffering from malnutrition with 150,000 likely to die in 2005 without emergency help.
    Niger is just one of about 15 African countries facing major food problems. Concern Worldwide estimated the lives and livelihoods of 30 million people are at risk. Every 30 seconds an African child dies of hunger.

    BRAZILIAN MAN SHOT DEAD BY LONDON POLICE ON UNDERGROUND TRAIN
    Two weeks after the July 7 attacks, a second series of four attacks took place on the London Underground and a London bus. But the bombs failed to explode and all suspected bombers from the attempt were detained by police.
    The following day Brazilian electrician Jean Charles De Menezes was shot dead by London police on an underground train at Stockwell tube station.
    De Menezes had been followed from his flat in south London by undercover police who suspected him to be a potential suicide bomber. But police had wrongly identified him and when he ran to catch a train they chased him, restrained him and shot him eight times in front of other passengers.
    Firearms officers had been cleared to kill suicide bombing suspects, but admitted the day after his shooting a mistake had been made.
    De Menezes' body was flown home for burial in Gonzago, where thousands of people joined his family in mourning.
    An official investigation into de Menezes death is continuing.



    AUGUST 2005

    MOTHER OF SOLDIER KILLED IN IRAQ SETS UP PROTEST VIGIL OUTSIDE GEORGE W BUSH'S TEXAS RANCH
    The mother of a soldier killed in Iraq in 2004 took her quest for answers straight to the U.S. president's front door in August.
    Cindy Sheehan set up camp outside George W Bush's ranch in Crawford, Texas in an attempt to meet and question him on his Iraq war policies face-to-face.
    Sheehan's son, Casey, was killed in an ambush on his convoy on a mission to rescue other soildiers under fire. He had been in Iraq for two weeks.
    "And if I have to stay out here all month in this heat, it's not anything compared to what our soldiers are going through or what the people of Iraq are going through," 48-year-old Sheehan said from her camping chair outside the 1600-acre spread.
    Sheehan was joined in her attempt by a crowd of up to 300 other protesters but her determined campaign struck a chord with the anti-war movement and sparked over 1,600 other vigils across America in support.

    ISRAEL WITHDRAWS FROM GAZA AFTER 38-YEAR OCCUPATION
    After years of being the driving force behind settlement building in the occupied territories, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon made a tactical U-turn in 2003 and declared a plan to withdraw from some of the conclaves to reduce conflict with the Palestinians and safeguard the demographics of the Jewish state.
    On August 15, 2005, the scheduled disengagement with Gaza began after months of legal and polictical wrangling and hundreds of demonstrations, road blocks and acts of sabotage by orange-clad opponents.
    Twenty-one settlements in Gaza and four in the West bank (of 120) were closed after Israeli soldiers moved in and in some cases, had to forcibly eject hardline settlers who refused to leave by the August 17 evacuation deadline. The area was closed to non-residents days ahead of the scheduled pullout to frustrate an influx of rightist radicals bent on obstructing the process.
    Thousands of Israeli police and troops surrounded the Neve Dekalim and Kfar Darom settlements, as settlers and ultra-nationalist supporters barricaded themselves inside synagogues in a last stand against eviction.
    The end of the 38-year occupation was marked by President Mahmoud Abbas planting a Palestinian flag in the sand and rubble of one of the demolished former blocs.
    Palestinians have welcomed the process but suspect Sharon plans to cement Israel's grip on the West Bank blocs he says are strategically vital.
    Around 240,000 settlers live in fortified enclaves among 3.8 million Palestinians, who fear rapid settlement growth in the West Bank will strip them of land central to their dream of a viable state. The West bank is approximately 15 times the size of Gaza.

    HURRICANE KATRINA SWAMPS NEW ORLEANS
    Back in the United States, Hurricane Katrina wreaked havoc with the southern city of New Orleans.
    The third most powerful storm of the season and the sixth-strongest storm ever recorded in the Atlantic basin made landfall along the Central Gulf Coast on August 29, as a Category 4 storm.
    Katrina's storm surge soon breached the levee system that protected New Orleans from Lake Pontchartrain and the Mississippi river. Eighty percent of the city was subsequently flooded.
    The Bush administration was caught offguard by the scale of the disaster and was stung by criticism that crisis aid was not reaching the region fast enough.
    Around 1,300 people died in the deluge and estimates of the cost have been put at between from 70 to 130 billion U.S. dollars. Over a million people were displaced in a humanitarian crisis on a scale unseen in the U.S. since the Great Depression of the 1930's, making Katrina the most destructive and costliest natural disaster in the history of the U.S.

    BRIDGE STAMPEDE KILLS AT LEAST 700 PEOPLE IN BAGHDAD
    On the last day of the month Iraq suffered its largest single loss of life since the U.S.-led invasion more than two years ago.
    More than 960 people died in a stampede over a Baghad bridge, apparently triggered by rumours of an imminent suicide attack. Shia leaders accused Sunni Arab militants of starting the rumours.
    About one million pilgrims were estimated to be converging on the Kadhimiya mosque, the burial place of a venerated Shia religious leader, when the crush happened.
    Masses of people clambered down from the bridge to escape the surging crowd, leaving behind thousands of lost shoes. Many of the dead were women, children, or elderly, who drowned when the railings over the River Tigris gave way under pressure.
    More than 800 people were injured in the accident.



    SEPTEMBER 2005

    ANGELA MERKEL ELECTED GERMANY'S FIRST WOMAN CHANCELLOR AFTER WEEKS OF HARD COALITION TALKS
    After inconclusive September 18 elections, Angela Merkel of Germany's Christian Democrats was confirmed as Chancellor heading a grand coalition in early October.
    The deal was agreed after tough negotiations between the main forces of the centre-left and centre-right after the election gave neither the conservatives or the Social Democrats (SPD) enough votes to rule with their preferred partners.
    Following the tight vote of Germany's 61.7 million electorate, former Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder initially refused to step aside. Detailed talks on forming the country's second "grand coalition" since World War Two followed. The deal will give his party top ministerial positions, including foreign, financial and labour market affairs.
    Merkel was confirmed as Chancellor by parliamentary vote on November 22 and took the oath of office.
    Merkel has vowed to cut unemployment and repair ties with Washington, which were strained by Schroder's vocal opposition to the U.S.-led Iraq war. But, during the coaliton negotiations Merkel was forced to abandon her most ambitious plans for shaking up the German social welfare system and many Germans are convinced the grand coalition will not last a full four-year term.

    BRITISH SOLDIERS ESCAPE BURNING TANK CAUGHT IN RIOT AFTER RAID ON IRAQI JAIL
    British troops escaped from a burning Warrior tank on September 19 after it was attacked by a crowd throwing bricks, stones and petrol bombs in the southern city of Basra.
    Dramatic video showed one soldier stumbling through the flames as he fled the tank.
    The incident happened after British raid on an Iraqi jail to free two undercover soldiers detained by Iraqi security forces. The raid provoked a furious response from Basrans and an investigation was launched by the Iraqi government.
    British forces eventually completed the raid, breaching the wallls of the jail and freeing the detainees. The incident heightened tension between Iraqis and the 8,500 British troops stationed in the port city.



    OCTOBER 2005

    ANNULAR ECLIPSE VISIBLE IN AFRICA, WESTERN ASIA, PARTS OF EUROPE
    Nature provided stargazers across the world with a rare annular eclipse at the start of October (October 3).
    The small dusty trading centre of Archer's post in Kenya's arid north came to a standstill as the sun was blocked out by the moon. Business was temporarily forgotten and men and women wearing traditional blankets and beads stared at the spectacle through smoke blackened pieces of glass.
    The annular eclipse in which the moon covers 90 percent of the sun, was fully visible in a narrow band across the Iberian peninsula, the first time it had been seen there since 1764.
    Nasa said a partial eclipse was also seen within a broader path of the moon's penumbral shadow, including Europe, western Asia, the Middle East, India and most of Africa.

    SUICIDE BOMBERS KILL 27 IN BALI
    Attacks on restaurants packed with diners killed at least 27 people including foreign tourists in a Bali resort on October 1.
    The three suicide bombs tore through 3 crowded Jimbaran and Kuta Beach cafes, wounding over 120 people.
    The attacks were the latest in a number of bomb blasts in Indonesia, several against Western targets, which have hurt tourism and raised concerns among investigators about security in the
    world's fourth most populous nation.
    The tourism industry, responsible for nearly 70% of the island's economic activity, had just begun to recover after 2002's suicide bombing which killed 202 people, mostly foreign tourists.
    One of those beleived by police to be responsible for the blasts was militant bomb expert Azahari Husin, killed during a police raid in early November. Azahari, a Malaysian, was an explosives expert believed to have built the bombs used in the 2002 Bali attacks. Police believe he and two other suspects are memebers of the militant group Jemaah Islamiah (JI).

    PAKISTAN EARTHQUAKE
    A major earthquake measuring 7.9 on the Richter scale struck northern Pakistan and parts of India-controlled Kashmir on October 8, killing at least 87,350 people according to government estimates, a figure that could still rise.
    In India a further 2,000 people were feared to have died.
    Most of the affected areas were in mountainous regions and access was impeded by landslides that blocked the roads. International relief efforts provided food, clothing, tents and medical aid, but the inaccessiblility of the region hampered efforts.
    At an international conference attended by 80 nations and aid agencies in mid November, donors made pledges of an extra 3.4 billion U.S dollars (USD) after appeals from the Pakistan government as winter weather drew near, theatening more lives of people living without basic amenities. The new monies brought the total pledged to the region to about 5.8 billion USD.
    An estimated 3.3 million were left homeless in Pakistan. The UN reported that more than 4 million people were directly affected and as winter snows start, many of them were at risk of dying from cold and the spread of disease.

    ATTACK ON RUSSIAN TOWN OF NALCHIK BY CHECHEN REBELS LEAVES OVER 100 DEAD
    Chechen rebels launched coordinated attacks on police, state security and other strategic buildings in the Russian town of Nalchik on October 13 resulting in over 100 dead including most of the gunmen.
    Russian security forces said they had all but wiped out the remnants of the small army of rebels, linked to the Chechnya independence cause. The interior ministry said 72 fighters were killed and 31 detained. 24 police officers and 12 civilians in the Caucasus town also died in the fighting.
    Separatists from nearby Chechnya, who have been fighting against Moscow rule for nearly a decade, said they staged the audacious daylight raid with support from anti-Kremlin insurgents.
    The authorities rapid response to the crisis was in contrast to 2004's deadly attack by Chechen militants on a school in Beslan, when the Russian leadership was widely criticised for its slow response.

    DEPOSED IRAQI PRESIDENT SADDAM HUSSEIN GOES ON TRIAL
    In Iraq, former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein went on trial charged with crimes against humanity committed two decades ago.
    Nearly two years after he was found hiding underground near his home town of Tikrit, the former president and seven senior members of his regime stood in the court on charges including the murder, torture and forced penalty of over 140 men in 1982 in the town of Dujail, north of Baghdad. Many there were killed after a failed assasination attempt on Saddam in the village, whilst others were executed.
    Saddam pleaded "Not Guilty" to the charges and challenged the legitimacy of the court. Human Rights groups have raised profound concerns about the independence of the court presided over by Judge Rizgar Mohammed Amin and whether the accused are able to mount an adequate defence.
    The trial was adjourned after three hours to resume on November 28, but in the intervening time two of the defence team were killed in separate attacks, leading to calls for the trial to be moved abroad.
    When the trial resumed, at least four defence lawyers did not attend and it was again adjourned until December 5 to allow time for replacement lawyers to be found. The defence say they have not had enough time to prepare for the trial.

    ATTACKS IN NEW DELHI KILL AT LEAST 61 PEOPLE, INJURE UP TO 200
    Three powerful bombs tore through New Delhi markets and shoppers on October 29 ahead of the biggest Hindu and Muslim festivals of the year, killing 61 people and injuring scores.
    Charred bodies, blood, glass and smoking debris littered the scene as rescuers frantically pulled out dead and searched for survivors. The blasts occurred within eight minutes of each other at the Parhaganj market, in the Govindpuri area and in the busy Sarojini Nagar market place.
    Many of the victims were women and children, brightly dressed for the last big night out shopping for Diwali and the end of Ramadan.
    The government initially said the attacks were coordinated acts of terrorism, but could not say who was responsible. An obscure Kashmiri militant group, the Islami Inqilabi Mahaz (Islamic Revolutionary Group) later claimed responsibility for the blasts.
    After allegations of the involvement of Pakistani militant groups fighting Indian rule in Kashmir, Pakistan aksed India to provide evidence of any links and promised to assist in investigations.

    CIVIL RIGHTS HEROINE ROSA PARKS DIES AGED 92
    Icon of the black American civil rights movement, Rosa Parks died aged 92 on October 24, 50 years after igniting a revolution across the southern United States.
    She became the first woman to lie in honour in the U.S capitol rotunda in Washington D.C., a tribute usually reserved for presidents, soldiers and statesmen.
    Thousands of mourners filed past her open casket in Montgomery earlier in the week, the town where her quiet protest in 1955 sparked a revolt against the segregation of whites and blacks.
    Asked to give up her seat on the bus to a white man, as the segregation rules required, 42-year seamstress Parks refused saying "I'm tired of being treated like a second-class citizen." She was arrested and convicted and fined 10 USD, but her action sparked a boycott of the bus system, led by the then unknown Reverend Martin Luther King, that lasted 381 days. Legal challenges led to a Supreme Court decision that forced Montgomery to desegregate its bus system and helped end laws separating blacks and whites.
    Parks funeral was in her adopted home city of Detroit.



    NOVEMBER 2005

    PAKISTANI RAPE VICTIM MUKHTAR MAI GIVEN BRAVERY AWARD
    Glamour magazine honoured rape victim Mukhtar Mai with a bravery award for her courage in bringing her violators to justice in conservative Pakistan.
    Mukhtar was raped in 2002 by a group of men on the orders of the tribal council (Jirga) as a family punishment after her younger brother was accused of sexual relations with a girl from an influential tribe.
    Instead of then taking her own life to protect her family's honour in accordance with tradition, Mukhtar went to the police and pressed charges against the men.
    After the conviction of her attackers, Mukhtar became a symbol for advocates of the health and security of women in her region, attracting both national and international attention.
    Pakistan president Pervez Musharraf awarded Mukhtar a financial settlement of about 8000 U.S. dollars, which she used to build two local schools, one for girls and another for boys. There were no schools for girls in Mukhtar's village before this and she never had the opportunity to get an education.
    An appeal is pending in Paksitan's Supreme Court against a high court order to free 13 men of involvement in the crime.

    'SCOOTER' LIBBY PLEADS NOT GUILTY TO CHARGES IN CIA LEAK PROBE
    President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, Lewis Libby, plead not guilty on November 3 to charges in the CIA leak probe, in a case that could put a spotlight on how the Bush administration made its case for the Iraq war.
    Libby resigned in October after he was indicted on five counts of obstructing justice, perjury and lying in the two-year investigation into the leak of covert CIA operative Valerie Plame's identity.
    Plame's identity was leaked to the media in July 2003 after her diplomat husband, Joseph Wilson, accused the Bush administration of twisting intelligence on weapons of mass destruction to justify the war in Iraq.
    Cheney and other top White House officials could be called to testify at a trial and Libby faces a maximum sentence of up to 30 years in prison.
    President George W. Bush's top political adviser, Karl Rove, was not indicted along with Libby. But lawyers said Rove remained under investigation and may still be charged in the case.
    Libby's indictment was a damaging blow to the White House, which was already reeling from the mounting U.S. death toll in the Iraq war, the bungled response to Hurricane Katrina and the withdrawal of U.S. Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers under fire from Bush's conservative power base.

    RIOTING AND CIVIL UNREST SPREAD FROM IMPOVERISHED SUBURBS OF PARIS ACROSS FRANCE, GOVERNMENT IMPOSES STATE OF EMERGENCY
    Sixteen nights of rioting and civil unrest across France were sparked after two youths of North African origin were electrocuted on October 27 in an electricity substation in what locals say was an attempt to escape the police. Authorities deny that they were being chased by police at the time.
    The unrest started amongst deprived, largely immigrant, communities in north-east Paris and spread through early November to other cities.
    The government introduced emergency measures to impose regional curfews in an effort to restore order, as schools, warehouses and cars were torched and petrol bombs hurled at riot police night after night.
    More than 5,000 cars were set ablaze and at least 1,500 people detained, many of them of Arab and African origin.One person died.
    The disorder brought to the political fore the frustations of the immigrant community over racism, unemployment, police treatment and their marginal place in French society. Many of them lay the blame squarely at the government's door.
    "There is a general feeling of rage. We're French too. We have identity cards. Then they come and say: 'Arabs and all that -- we're going to clean up.' It's (French Interior Minister Nicolas) Sarkozy's fault. He put the pressure on and it's now about to explode," said one youth.
    Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, whose tough line on the unrest had been widely criticised, said "We can see that the French integration model is not working and needs to be seriously revisited."

    JORDAN HOTEL BOMBINGS KILL OVER 50 PEOPLE
    Three suicide attacks on luxury hotels in Jordan's capital killed 56 people and injured 96 people on November 9, many of them attending wedding parties.
    The blasts ripped through the Radisson, Grad Hyatt and Days Inn hotels in the worst attacks on Jordan in modern history. Most of the victims were Jordanian although the hotels are frequented by Western contractors, journalists and aid agency staff using Amman as a transit point or base for their operations in Iraq.
    The fathers of both bride and groom at one wedding party were both killed in the explosions.
    Al Queda in Iraq, led by Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi said in a statement that a "group of our best lions" had carried out the attacks.

    LIBERIA ELECTS FIRST FEMALE HEAD OF STATE IN AFRICA
    Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf became Africa's first elected female head of state after winning presidential elections in Liberia with 59.4 percent of the vote.
    Nicknamed the "Iron lady", the Harvard-educated economist beat former football star George Weah in an election run-off. Weah alleged the run-off vote was rigged but international observers said the poll was largely free and fair.
    Johnson-Sirleaf said her election victory had "shattered the glass ceiling theory". She promised to usher in a new era after 14 years of war. She also pledged to fight corruption, create jobs and restore electricity and water supplies.
    The polls were the first for eight years, and the first since Liberia emerged from 15 years of civil war. The official results came some two weeks after the polls took place partly because of the logistical difficulties of collecting and checking results from remote jungle locations.
    Weah's supporters, who include many fighters demobilised after the civil war, had taken to the streets several times to protest over alleged voting fraud. Street protests have now been banned.
    The election was organised and its security guaranteed by a 15,000-strong UN peacekeeping force.
    After a quarter of a century of war and misrule, Liberia's road network is in ruins, there is no national telephone network and no national electricity grid.

    SUICIDE ATTACKS ON TWO MOSQUES KILL AT LEAST 80 IN IRAQ
    A series of suicide bombings in Iraq left at least 80 people dead and another 100 injured on November 18.
    In the worst attacks, suicide bombers struck two Shia mosques in the town of Khanaqin near the Iranian border, killing at least 74 people.
    The bombers blew themselves up while hundreds of worshippers were attending Friday prayers.
    Both the Sheikh Murad and Khanaqin Grand mosques were reduced to rubble by the blasts in attacks that appeared certain to fuel sectraian tensions ahead of December 15 elections.
    The twin blasts followed suicide car-bomb attacks on a Baghdad hotel popular with foreign journalists and contractors. More attacks around the capital followed the next day.

    IRAQ PRISONER ABUSE ALLEGATIONS
    Earlier the same week, the Iraqi Interior Ministry denied allegations of systematic prisoner abuse, saying only a handful of the 173 detainees found by U.S. troops in a secret prison bunker were assaulted.
    Many of the prisoners said they had bee
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