Portal:Current events/2005 May 12
May 12, 2005 (Thursday)
- Malcolm Glazer wins control of UK football team Manchester United F.C. after securing a 70% share. (BBC) (ABC News) (NY Times)
- The British Air Accidents Investigation Branch states that it has reached "no definite conclusion" about the reason of air crash that claimed the life of billionaire Paul-Louis Halley, his wife and their pilot in 2003. (BBC)
- Zimbabwe releases 60 South African mercenaries that were linked to an alleged coup attempt in the Equatorial Guinea last year. (BBC) (IOL) (Reuters AlertNet)
- A United States Senate probe releases evidence showing two prominent British and French politicians received vouchers for millions of barrels of Iraqi oil in exchange for their support of Saddam Hussein's regime. George Galloway is accused of using the Mariam Appeal, the children's leukemia charity he founded, to conceal the transfer of 3 million barrels of oil, although he denies any wrongdoing. (BBC), (ABC News)
- The European Court of Human Rights rules that Turkey's 1999 trial of Kurdish leader Abdullah Öcalan was not fair. (Zaman Online, Turkey) (IHT) (Reuters)
- Nigerian president Olusegun Obasanjo opens the country's first blood transfusion centre. The centre is meant to screen blood to hinder the spread of the AIDS. (Reuters AlertNet)
- Western countries pledge funds to Ukraine so the country can cover the Chernobyl nuclear reactor. (Planet Ark) (Reuters AlertNet)
- In Colombia, former justice minister Alberto Santofimio Botero is arrested suspected of complicity in the murder of presidential candidate Luis Carlos Galán in 1989. (Reuters AlertNet) (ABC)
- A federal judge in Houston, Texas, sentences former Enron executive Dan Boyle to 3 years and 10 months in prison for his involvement with a barge scam with securities firm Merrill Lynch. Two Merrill Lynch executives also receive sentences. (Houston Chronicle) (Businessweek) (Reuters) Archived 2005-05-27 at the Wayback Machine
- La Cumbre volcano on Fernandina Island in the Galápagos Islands begins to erupt. (ABC News)
- The Xbox 360 is announced on MTV.