Portal:Current events/2004 January 14

January 14, 2004 (2004-01-14) (Wednesday)

• J.P. Morgan Chase strikes a $58 billion merger deal to buy Bank One to create the second-largest bank in the United States.
• Iraq and weapons of mass destruction: Tests performed by American and Danish military experts indicate no chemical agents are present in the "suspicious" mortar shells discovered in Iraq on January 9.
• Self-confessed killer of Swedish FM Anna Lindh, 25-year-old Mijailo Mijailovic, says during cross-examination in a Stockholm court that he heard voices in his head commanding him to attack Lindh when he encountered her in a Stockholm shopping mall 10 September last year. Lindh died the next day from the many stab wounds she received.
• Federal Reserve Bank Chairman Alan Greenspan said, "It's just a matter of time before we begin to see employment start to pick up quite significantly, as it always has in the past." Greenspan is also not worried about the fall of the dollar or the half trillion dollar U.S. trade deficit.
• Israeli-Palestinian conflict:
  • Reem El-Reyashi, a Palestinian suicide bomber, kills four border guards at the Erez Crossing. She is the first female suicide bomber used by Hamas. Four months before, Israel targeted Hamas leadership, including Ahmed Yassin, as a result Hamas halted all suicide bombing for four months.
  • Jack Kelley, USA TODAY foreign correspondent and a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize just two years ago, was forced to resign after the newspaper determined he repeatedly misled editors during an internal investigation into stories he wrote. Among the stories that are being investigated is one published September 4, 2001, contains an account of an attack on Palestinians by 13 Jewish settlers in the West Bank. Mark Memmott, the reporter asked to investigate Kelley, said he could not find anyone with first-hand knowledge of the attack.
• A secondary school student in the Netherlands kills a teacher in his school cafeteria.
• Greek electronic game ban: Greek police raid Internet cafés in Larissa. 80 computers are taken by the police as evidence and three Internet café owners are arrested. (in Greek).
• Education in Greece: 114 University professors sign a document against George Papandreou's positions on private universities and their recognition (anagnorisi). (Greek)
• Jacques Delors referred to Prime Minister of Greece Costas Simitis, Prime Minister of Luxembourg Jean-Claude Juncker, and former Prime Minister of Belgium Jean Luc Dehaene as the top three candidates for the position of the President of the European Commission.
• A 45-year-old Sudanese man travelling from Washington Dulles International Airport to airport Dubai is arrested en route at London's Heathrow Airport on suspicion of carrying five bullets in his coat pocket.
• U.S. President George W. Bush, in a speech at NASA headquarters, announces a plan to develop a new space vehicle to return humans to the Moon by 2015 and proposes the retirement of the Space Shuttle fleet by 2010 along with a $1 billion funding increase for NASA.
• Enron Corporation: Former CFO Andrew Fastow and his wife Lea Fastow, former Assistant Treasurer, accept a plea agreement. Andrew Fastow will serve a ten-year prison sentence and forfeit $23.8 million. Lea Fastow will serve a five-month prison sentence and a year of supervised release, including five months of house arrest. Both will provide testimony against other Enron corporate officers.
• Turkey and Greece: 22 Turkish military aircraft entered into the Greek Athens FIR. Five of these aircraft were loaded with ammunition. Greek aircraft intercepted them. Source: Athens News Agency and in.gr. (Greek)

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