Portal:Current events/2004 October 25

October 25, 2004 (Monday)

The Roman Catholic Church publishes a handbook intended to guide business, cultural], and political leaders in making decisions regarding social issues. The publication comes one week before the U.S. presidential election. In response to a journalist's question as to how Roman Catholics should vote, Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro Valls says that "the Holy See never gets involved in electoral or political questions directly". (MSNBC)
At the behest of Premier Ralph Klein, the provincial legislative assembly of Alberta, Canada, is dissolved and elections called for November 22. (CBC)
Tensions remain high in French Polynesia as the Leadership remains in doubt. The Legislative Assembly failed to sit on Monday 25 October. Gaston Flosse, elected President on 22 October, attempted to enter the Presidential palace on the weekend but was met by closed gates. (Oceania Flash)
Conflict in Iraq: A roadside bomb kills a U.S. soldier and wounds five others in western Baghdad. Hospital officials say five civilians are killed from U.S. snipers in the western city of Ramadi. In Kirkuk, a roadside bomb kills an Iraqi civilian. An Estonian soldier is killed and five wounded in a bomb blast in Baghdad. A mortar lands on an Iraqi National Guard checkpoint north of Baghdad, killing an Iraqi civilian. In Mosul, a car bomb kills a tribal leader and two civilians. (Reuters) Archived 2004-11-14 at archive.today (BBC)
Israeli-Palestinian Conflict:
- Yasser Arafat undergoes minor exploratory surgery for stomach pains and vomiting. (Reuters)^{[permanent dead link]}
- Israeli television news reports that Yasser Arafat is granted permission to go to hospital due to suffering from gall stones and had an intestinal infection. Palestinian spokesman Saeb Erekat says "It is unfounded that President Arafat requested to go to a Ramallah hospital" and "He is recuperating from an acute case of the flu". (Reuters) Archived 2005-01-24 at the Wayback Machine
- 14 Palestinians are killed in the Gaza Strip following "ceaseless mortar attacks" on neighboring Israeli settlements. (Reuters) Archived 2005-04-08 at the Wayback Machine
The International Atomic Energy Agency announces that two weeks ago, the Iraqi government informed the agency that about 380 tons (345,000 kg) of powerful explosives, potentially usable in detonators for nuclear bombs, apparently disappeared from the Al-Qaqaa weapons facility, a site about 30 miles south of Baghdad, sometime shortly before or after Saddam Hussein's government fell. The Iraqi director of planning attributed the disappearance to "the theft and looting of the governmental installations due to lack of security", although other sources indicate the explosives could have been removed by the Hussein regime itself. (Reuters: 1 Archived 2004-10-26 at archive.today, 2 Archived 2005-04-08 at the Wayback Machine, CNN: 1, 2)
Six men from Pitcairn Island, including mayor Steve Christian, are convicted of sexual offences involving women and girls as young as 12. The island has a population of 47, mainly descendants of the Bounty crew. (MSNBC) (ABC)