Portal:Current events/2004 April 5

April 5, 2004 (Monday)

Occupation of Iraq:
- Paul Bremer states that militant Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr is an outlaw and warns that uprisings by the cleric and his followers will not tolerated. (Middle East Online)
- The U.S. Army closes off the turbulent Iraqi city of Falluja ahead of a major operation against insurgents following the slayings of four civilian American security contractors. (Middle East Newsline) (NYT) (NPR)
- The U.S. is examining the possibility of sending more troops to Iraq if situation gets out of control. (BBC)
- An Iraqi judge issues arrest warrant for Muqtada al-Sadr, whom the Coalition Provisional Authority accuses of igniting anti-American violence that led to the deaths of eight U.S. troops. (Online NewsHour)
- Secretary-General's Special Adviser, Lakhdar Brahimi holds talks with the Iraqi Governing Council in Baghdad. (UN)
Queen Elizabeth II begins a state visit to France in honour of the centennial of the Entente Cordiale, arriving in the Eurostar via the Channel Tunnel. The following day, she is to address the French Senate. (CBC)
Ottawa orders the slaughter of 19 million chickens in British Columbia due to bird flu fears. (CBC)
The Los Angeles Times wins five journalism awards in the 2004 Pulitzer Prize. (Mercury News)
Emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, of Qatar, calls upon Arab states to consider United States proposals for democratic reform. He states that Arabs should no longer use the 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 African-American woman was 23 times more likely to be infected with AIDS than is a white woman. Recent studies suggest that 30 percent of all black bisexual men may be infected with HIV. (NYT)
In South Korea, Uri Party chairman Chung Dong-young calls on the opposition parties to withdraw the motion for impeachment against President Roh Moo-hyun. (Hankooki)
Investigators trace ties of international Islamist groups to Madrid train bombers from six international arrest warrants. (Reuters)
Swedish business weekly Veckans Affärer argues that Ingvar Kamprad, a Swede who founded the furniture retail chain store IKEA, has overtaken Microsoft's Bill Gates as the world's richest person. IKEA disagrees, stating that he does not personally own the company. (Hindustan Times) Archived 2007-09-30 at the Wayback Machine (KTVU.COM)
Australia's biggest supplier of the potential explosive ammonium nitrate will pull the product from its stores in response to concerns it could be used by terrorists. (News Limited)
After "serious social resonance", the Duma's United Russia majority backpedals from outright support of a bill banning public protests in many public places. (Moscow Times)