May 6, 2004

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[edit] May 6, 2004

• Iraq Occupation and resistance:
  • The United States Senate votes (95-3) to approve John Negroponte as the head of the new U.S. embassy in Iraq despite concerns over his role in allegedly supporting widespread campaigns of terror and human rights abuses as ambassador of Honduras in the 1980s. (Los Angeles Times) (IPS) (Democracy Now!)
  • In Baghdad, a suicide bomber using a car packed with explosives and artillery shells kills 5 Iraqis and one American soldier and injures 25 people, including two American soldiers. (NYT)
• Israeli-Palestinian conflict:
  • Over U.S. and Israeli objections, the UN General Assembly votes 140-6, with 11 abstentions, to adopt a resolution that affirms the Palestinians' right of sovereignty over the territories seized by Israel during the 1967 Six-Day War. (Reuters) (AP)
  • An Israeli government report finds that Israel's Housing Ministry secretly gave about $6.5 million to help expand settlement outposts in the occupied West Bank territory between 2000 and 2003 which are illegal according to Israel. These included outposts which the government had promised to remove. (Philadelphia Inquirer) (Haaretz)
• Hamas co-founder Mohammad Taha, aged 68, is released from an Israeli prison. (INN)
• Iraqi abuse scandal at Abu Ghraib prison
  • The International Committee of the Red Cross states that, over a period of some months, it has repeatedly requested that the United States take action on alleged prisoner abuse at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison. (NYT)
  • U.S. Democratic Senator Tom Harkin calls on Donald Rumsfeld to resign from office to protect the image of America around the world in light of the abuse. (AP)
• President George W. Bush states that a resolution of the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians would be the result of negotiations and that the United States would oppose "any developments in the region that might endanger your (Jordan's) interests." (NYT)
• The television sitcom Friends airs its final episode in the United States and Canada.
• It is announced that John Scarlett is to succeed Sir Richard Dearlove as the head of the Secret Intelligence Service with Dearlove becoming master of Pembroke College at Cambridge University. Scarlett is the first head of the SIS ever to have a current photograph published.
• President George W. Bush calls for Israel to withdraw to her borders prior to the Six Day War of 1967, and to give the occupied territories to the Palestinians for a homeland. (Guardian Unlimited)
• Aslan Abashidze resigned as the head of the Autonomous Republic of Ajaria, Georgia, after months of tensions with the central Georgian government. (BBC)