November 26, 2004

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[edit] November 26, 2004

• A Wisconsin girl becomes the first person to survive rabies without a vaccination, after an experimental treatment using an induced coma and a cocktail of anti-viral drugs. (TheDenverChannel)
• Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf begins a tour of several American and European countries to urge Western leaders to resolve the Kashmir and Palestinian disputes, which he sees as root causes of terrorism by Muslims. (Reuters)
• Ukraine presidential election, 2004:
  • The Luhans'k region of Ukraine, the easternmost Russian-speaking region, has reportedly declared itself autonomous and requested recognition from the Russian Federation. Several more regions, including Donetsk, have ruled to put autonomy on popular referendum.
  • Supporters of opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko blockaded official buildings in Kiev Friday, in a direct challenge to the Moscow-backed government's control of the country. (Reuters)
  • Russian President Vladimir Putin said after a summit meeting with the European Union that the results of the Ukrainian presidential elections are absolutely clear. (AFP)
  • Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma began meeting with key European envoys, including European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana, Polish president Aleksander Kwaśniewski, Lithuanian president Valdas Adamkus and Russian parliament speaker Boris Gryzlov. Opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko has requested a new vote to be held on December 12 (BBC)
• Alberto Abadie, a professor at the Harvard University School of Government, theorizes that the level of political freedom, not poverty, explains terrorism. Areas with intermediate levels of political freedom experience the most terrorism, while societies with high levels of political freedom or authoritarian regimes have low levels of terrorism. (PDF) (Harvard Gazette)
• People are evacuated from Manam in northern Papua New Guinea during eruption of the island's volcano. (New Zealand Herald) (Scotsman) (SwissInfo)
• In one of Canada's largest class-action lawsuits, the Ontario Court of Appeal upholds a lower court ruling whereby Canadians whose same-sex partners died after April 1985 are entitled to Canada Pension Plan survivors' benefits. (CBC News)
• The director for the western region of the World Health Organization says that an influenza pandemic is inevitable and plans to combat it are needed urgently. (In 1918-20, the Spanish Flu killed up to 40 million people.) The new virus is likely to develop out of avian influenza. (Reuters)
• Conflict in Iraq: In Baghdad, an American civilian contractor is shot near the Green Zone. The largest Sunni political party, Iraqi Islamic Party, calls for elections to be postponed for six months to allow better security and threatens a boycott. British troops join the operation to pacify the insurgency in the "Sunni Triangle." Iraqi police state they have arrested five suspected foreign fighters in the south. The Iraqi Minister of State says Iraqi National Guard discovered a small chemical and explosive lab in Falluja. (Reuters) (BBC)
• Fatah officially picks former Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas, already PLO chairman, as its candidate for January's presidential elections. (BBC) (Reuters)
• The President of Indonesia, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, visits the province of Aceh for the first time, the location of a long separatist movement. (BBC)
• Over 8,000 landless activists, including the Landless Workers' Movement (MST), march on Brasilia, Brazil to demand the speeding up of land reform promised by President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. (Reuters)
• The Pakistani army states they find no evidence Osama bin Laden is hiding in the mainly tribal border with Afghanistan after combing through the area. (Reuters)
• A man kills 8 and injures four people with a knife at a Chinese high school in Ruzhou, Henan. (BBC) (Xinhua)