Events in January 2005
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Jan. 1
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Cosmonaut Salizhan Sharipov and astronaut Leroy Chiao, the crew members of the International Space Station become the first in the world to be greeted by the New Year. |
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Jan. 4
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Gunmen assassinate the Baghdad Governor, Ali al-Haidri, in the Hurriyah neighbourhood of the Iraqi capital. |
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The Chilean Supreme Court upholds the indictment and house arrest of Gen. Augusto Pinochet for incidents during his 1973-90 dictatorship. |
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Jan. 5
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More than 150 Maoist rebels are killed in a gunbattle with security forces in western Nepal. |
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Jan. 6
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The U.N. Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, announces the launch of a $ 1 billion relief effort at the ASEAN summit on tsunami in the Indonesian capital Jakarta. |
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Jan. 7
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“I have never seen such utter destruction mile after mile,” says the U.N. Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, after an aerial survey in Indonesia. |
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A Ku Klux Klan leader, Edgar Ray Killen (79), appears in a Mississippi court to be charged with murder for a 1964 event concerning the deaths of three civil rights workers. |
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Jan. 9
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The Palestinian leader, Mahmoud Abbas, wins a landslide victory in the presidential polls. |
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The Sudanese First Vice-President, Ali Osman Mohamed Taha, and John Garang, chairman of the Sudan People’s Liberation Army, sign a peace pact to end a civil war that has claimed more than 2 million lives since 1983, in the Kenyan capital Nairobi. |
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Jan. 10
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Brigadier Amer Ali Nayef, the deputy police chief of Baghdad, and his son, Lt. Khalid Amer, also a police officer are shot dead while driving to work. |
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The Ukrainian Supreme Court rejects the Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich’s appeals about irregularities during the December 26 presidential runoff won by Viktor Yushcheano. |
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Jan. 12
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The 732-member European Parliament gives its approval to the E.U.’s first-ever Constitution after a meeting in Strasbourg. The treaty was signed in Rome last October. |
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A new chapter in South Asian geopolitics is ushered in as Energy Ministers of India, Myanmar and Bangladesh weigh options on a gas pipeline, at a meeting in Yangon. |
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Deep Impact, a NASA spacecraft lifts off from Cape Canaveral in Florida, the U.S., to smash a hole in a comet. |
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A French woman, Moud Fontenoy, the first woman to seek to row across the Atlantic Ocean from west to east, sets off in her boat, Oceor, in a bid to become the first person to row 8,000 km from Peru to Tahiti. |
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Jan. 13
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Sir Mark Thatcher, son of former British Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, pleads guilty of helping finance unknowingly an alleged coup plot in Equatorial Guinea in 2004. He accepts a 3 million rand fine and a four-year suspended jail sentence. |
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An agreement to lay a pipeline to transport gas from Myanmar to India via Bangladesh is signed after a historic trilateral meeting in Yangon. |
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Jan. 14
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The Huygens space probe beams back images of an unexpected mix of icy land and liquid after touchdown on the Saturnian moon, Titan. The $ 3 billion Cassini-Huygens mission was launched in 1997. |
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Army Spc. Charles A. Graner Jr. (36), the ring leader of a band of rogue guards at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, is convicted of prisoner abuse at the trial in Fort Hood, Texas. He is the first leader to be court-martialled in the scandal. |
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Jan. 15
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Mahmoud Abbas is sworn in Palestinian Authority President and calls for ceasefire, a day after Israel breaks off contact and isolates Gaza following a militant attack. |
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Taiwan and China agree to temporarily lift Taipei’s five-decade ban on direct flights between the two rivals. |
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U.S. military court sentences Spc. Charles Graner to 10 years in jail for his leading role in the 2003 Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse case. |
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The U.S. and India reach an open skies pact that will led to more flights, lower fares. |
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Jan. 16
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Britain cancels Mozambique $ 150 million debt and offers to pay 10 per cent of the African nation’s multilateral debt to the world bank. |
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A Romanian woman, Adriana Iliescu (66), becomes the world’s oldest mother after giving birth to Eliza Maria at a Bucharest hospital. Her twin sister is still-born. |
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The Croatian President, Stipe Mesic (70), wins the presidential runoff poll defeating Jadranka Kosor. The first round was held on Jan. 2. |
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“The Aviator” bags the best dramatic film award and Leonardo Dicaprio picks up a best actor trophy at the Golden Globes ceremony in Beverley Hills, Los Angeles. Hillary Swank bags the best actress award for her role in “Million Dollar Baby”. “Sideways” is named the best comedy film. |
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Jan. 17
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India and Pakistan successfully end survey of the Sir Creek, a 60-mile long strip of water which runs along Rann of Kutch in India and Sindh in Pakistan. |
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India and Singapore sign an MoU for organising their first-ever “joint army exercise.” |
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Jan. 18
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Airbus unveils A380, a double-decked behemoth, the world’s largest passenger plane with a 262-ft wingspan and a tail as tall as a seven-storeyed building at a ceremony in Toulouse, France. It is also the world’s only twin-deck four-aisle airliner. |
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A British Court Martial in Germany releases photographs of three English soldiers from the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers abusing Iraqis at an aid camp near Basra in May 2003. |
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Jan. 19
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Twentysix persons are killed as a series of massive blasts rocks Baghdad city. Australian embassy and the International Airport among main targets. |
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The toll in the December 26 Asian tsunami rises to 226, 566, with Indonesia alone accounting for 166,320 deaths. |
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The U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee confirms Condoleezza Rice as the next Secretary of State. |
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Jan. 20
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“In a world moving toward liberty, we are determined to show the meaning and promise of liberty,” says the U.S. President after taking oath for a second term in office, in Washington. |
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The Afghan strongman, Abdul Rashid Dostum escapes a bid on life by a suicide bomber outside Ghocha Park Mosque in the town of Shibirghan. |
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The U.N. unveils plan for an “International Early Warning Programme” at the World Conference on Disaster Reduction, in Kobe, Japan. |
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Jan. 23
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Viktor Yushchenko (50), is sworn in Ukraine President and vows to take the nation into the European Union. |
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Jan. 24
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Yulia Timoshenko is appointed Ukraine’s acting Prime Minister. |
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Forty South African MPs, past and present, are charged with illegally using parliamentary travel vouchers worth £ 1.5 million to pay for lavish trips (Dubbed “Travelgate,” the scandal was exposed by South Africa’s Sunday Times in July last year). |
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Jan. 25
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Gunmen assassinate a senior judge, Qais Hashim Shameri, in Baghdad. Eleven policemen die in spiralling violence in the run-up to elections. |
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Frank Hsieh (58), an amateur gymnast, is named Taiwan Premier. |
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Jan. 26
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Thirtyone U.S. Marines are killed in a helicopter crash near Iraq’s border with Jordan. |
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U.S. Senate confirms Condoleezza Rice as the new Secretary of State. |
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Maoists kidnap about 1,100 students and teachers in two incidents in Nepal’s Sankhuwasabha and Dhading districts. |
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Jan. 27
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World leaders remember the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp in Poland 60 years ago by the Russian soldiers. It was here that 1 million Jews met with death at the hands of their Nazi captors. |
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Germany ends free education after the Supreme Court overturns a ban on the introduction of tuition fees. |
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The former Bangladesh Finance Minister, S.A.M.S. Kibria, is killed after a grenade attack at an Awami League rally in Habigang district. |
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Condoleezza Rice (50) sworn in as new U.S. Secretary of State. |
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Jan. 28
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Australia’s Opposition Labour Party endorses the return of Kim Beazley as leader, replacing Mark Latham. |
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The Procter & Gamble Co., strikes a $ 57 billion deal to buy shaver and battery maker Gillette Co. |
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The Portuguese Supreme Court clears extradition of Abu Salem, accused in the March 1993 Mumbai serial blasts. |
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Maoists free 325 students but abduct 700 youths from Nepal’s Sankhuwasabha district. |
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Jan. 29
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Flights from China touch down in Taiwan for the first time in 56 years. |
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Manuel Contreras (75), the former chief of Chile’s DINA secret police during Augusto Pinochet’s rule is sent to jail to serve a 12 year sentence for the disappearance of a leftist rebel. |
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“Cooperative consensus” is reached on a tsunami alert system for the Indian Ocean region and Southeast Asia at a conference in Phuket, Thailand. |
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Maoists abduct 400 businessmen in Doti district, far-western Nepal. |
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Jan. 30
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Fortyfour persons are killed in widespread violence as Iraq goes to the polls. |
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Jan. 31
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A U.S. judge rules that the Guantanamo military tribunals for terrorism suspects “are unconstitutional”. |
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Events 2005
Jan
Feb
Mar
Apr
May
Jun
Jul
Aug
Sep
Oct
Nov
Dec
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