Portal:Current events/2004 October 15
October 15, 2004 (Friday)
- Presidential elections in the war torn country of Burundi are postponed until April 2005. (BBC)
- Conflict in Iraq:
- The US Army is investigating up to 19 members of an Army Reserve unit stationed in Iraq who refused to take part in a fuel delivery convoy mission they considered unsafe. Relatives of the soldiers say that several soldiers described it as a "suicide mission". Relatives also say that the soldiers were held under guard for almost two days, although an army spokesperson denies the claim. (Daily Telegraph) Archived 2007-03-13 at the Wayback Machine (San Francisco Gate) (Washington Times)
- Major United States air strikes against Fallujah continue. The U.S. military says that the bombings are "not the beginning of a major offensive". (Reuters) Archived 2004-12-26 at the Wayback Machine
- Senior British military sources say that the US has asked that some British troops be moved to an area south of Baghdad to replace U.S. troops moved to Fallujah. Sources also say that the troops would be under U.S. command, a possibility which provokes criticism from opposition members of Parliament. (BBC)
- Former OAS and Costa Rican president, Miguel Angel Rodriguez, is arrested after stepping down last week on allegations of corruption. He is not formally charged but a judge is demanding him to testify. (BBC)
- Israeli-Palestinian Conflict:
- The Israel Defense Forces clears an officer accused of repeatedly shooting a Palestinian schoolgirl, Iman al-Hams, while she lay wounded or dead, accepting the officer's claim that he actually shot into the ground near the girl. A separate military police investigation is continuing. (BBC)
- The United Nations chooses Argentina, Denmark, Greece, Japan, and Tanzania as the non-permanent members of the UN Security Council for its next two-year term, which begins in January 2005. (BBC)
- A United Nations official says that about 70,000 people have died in the troubled Darfur region of Sudan since March. (BBC)
- Zimbabwean opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai is acquitted of treason charges. (BBC)
- Indonesian prosecutors file charges against Abu Bakar Bashir, alleging he was involved in an August 2003 bomb attack on a Jakarta hotel and accusing him for the first time of involvement in the 2002 Bali terrorist bombing. (BBC) (ABC)