October 31, 2005

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[edit] 31 October 2005 (Monday)

• Guinea-Bissau's president, João Bernardo Vieira, announces the dissolution of the government headed by his rival Prime Minister Carlos Gomes Junior. (allAfrica)
• In Germany, Social Democratic Party chairman Franz Müntefering announces his intention to retire after the party convention on November 14. The decision came after his candidate for Secretary General of the SPD, Kajo Wasserhövel, lost to left-wing candidate Andrea Nahles. (BBC)
• U.S. President George W. Bush nominates Judge Samuel Alito of the Third Circuit Court of Appeals to the U.S. Supreme Court. (CNN) (BBC)
• Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi announces his fifth cabinet. Shinzo Abe, former Secretary General of the Liberal Democratic Party, becomes Chief Cabinet Secretary and is widely speculated to be Koizumi's chosen successor. Former Interior Minister Taro Aso becomes Foreign Minister, and is replaced by former economic advisor Heizo Takenaka. (BBC)
• Conflict in Iraq:
  • A Pentagon report suggests that since 2004 about 26,000 Iraqi people have been either killed or injured in attacks by insurgents. (BBC)
  • Reports indicate that 40 people have died following a U.S. Air raid near Karabilah in Western Iraq. The military says it was a targeted strike against Al Qaeda, whereas doctors treating the injured and dead said the dead were all civilians, including many women and children. (Reuters)
  • 6 U.S. Soldiers die in two separate insurgent attacks. (BBC)
  • Italian Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi tries to distance himself from the U.S. President George W. Bush and claims that he "tried on several occasions to convince the American president not to wage war". (The Guardian)
• Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: 3 Palestinian militants die following an Israeli attack in the West Bank city of Jenin. (BBC)
• Roman Catholic priest, Father Athanase Seromba, denies charges of genocide at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. (BBC)
• The Spanish telco Telefónica announces a £18 billion deal to buy the British mobile network operator O2 plc. (Reuters) (Dow Jones/Cellular News)
• Infanta Leonor of Spain, second in the succession line to the Spanish throne, is born in Madrid at 01:46 AM, local time. (BBC)
• Exiled GAM leader, Bakhtiar Abdullah, visits the Indonesian special territory of Aceh for the first time in 25 years to see the peace process aimed at ending nearly three decades of conflict. (BBC)
• At approximately 3:13 AM in Cheyenne, WY, after leaving their Boulder, Colorado show, Bayside's tour van hit a patch of ice, skidded off the road, and flipped over. Drummer John "Beatz" Holohan was killed.