Portal:Current events/2004 October 11
October 11, 2004 (Monday)
- The Saudi Arabian Interior Ministry requests that all non-Muslims currently in Saudi Arabia refrain from eating, drinking or smoking in public. "Authorities will take deterrent measures such as terminating work contracts of, and deporting, violators"[1]
- War on Terrorism: Human Rights Watch issues a report charging that the US government's treatment of certain suspected terrorists being held outside the U.S. is in violation of U.S. treaties, international human rights law, and the Geneva Conventions. (BBC)
- Conflict in Iraq: A rocket attack in southern Baghdad kills two US soldiers and injures five others, while in the northern city of Mosul a suicide car bomb detonated near a U.S. military convoy kills a U.S. soldier and two Iraqis and injures 27 others. (ABC/AP) (News.com.au)
- Israeli-Palestinian conflict:
- Israeli military police are investigating charges that an Israeli army company commander repeatedly shot a 13-year-old Palestinian girl while the girl lay wounded or dead. (Haaretz) (BBC) (Maarviv) (The Guardian)
- Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is withholding his approval to end Operation Days of Penitence, the Israeli offensive in the Gaza Strip, despite a recommendation by the Israel Defense Forces to withdraw. Since the offensive began, 114 Palestinians—39 civilians and 75 combatants—have been killed. (Haaretz)
- Finn Kydland and Edward Prescott are awarded the Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel for "their contributions to dynamic macroeconomics: the time consistency of economic policy and the driving forces behind business cycles". (Nobel Foundation)
- Rescue efforts end in Taba, Egypt at the site of Thursday's bombing. Egypt and Israeli forensic experts announce that they have identified 12 Israelis, 6 Egyptians, 2 Italians, 1 Russian, and 13 Eastern Europeans among those killed. (Haaretz) (Israeli MFA)
- Workers in Nigeria begin a four-day general strike in protest of fuel price increases caused by the last year's repeal of government subsidies. (BBC)
- Early results in the first round of Lithuania's general election show the opposition Labour Party winning the largest proportion of the vote. (BBC)
