Portal:Current events/2005 June 28

June 28, 2005 (Tuesday)

Operation Red Wings, a counterterrorism mission in Kunar province, Afghanistan, involving four U.S. Navy SEAL members, took place. Three of the SEALs were killed during the operation, whilst a fourth was protected by local villagers and was rescued by the US military. In addition, an MH-47 Chinook helicopter carrying 8 Nightstalkers - members of the Army's elite 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (SOAR) - and 8 US Navy SEALs was shot down while attempting to come to their rescue to provide extraction in the mountains of the Kunar province, Afghanistan.
Bill C-38 passes through the Canadian House of Commons, placing Canada on track to become the third country in the world to legalize same-sex marriage, likely by July. (CBC)
AMD files an antitrust lawsuit against rival chipmaker Intel (Tom's Hardware)
Pakistan's Supreme Court suspends the acquittal of five men accused of raping Mukhtaran Bibi. (BBC)
In France, police search offices of specialty chemicals company Rhodia and finance ministry in the investigation of accounting irregularities and inside trading. Finance minister Thierry Breton was a member of the Rhodia board. (Business Week) (Forbes) (IHT)
Countries backing the ITER fusion reactor meet in Moscow to decide if the experimental fusion reactor will be built in Cadarache, Southern France, instead of Japan. (PhysOrg) (European Commission) (BBC) (IHT)
Emperor Akihito of Japan and empress Michiko pay an unannounced visit to the memorial of Korean war dead during his visit in Saipan. (Japan Today) (Asahi Shimbun) (Reuters)
A team of US and Canadian scientists announces that they may have found a way of vaccination against Lassa fever. (BBC) (Reuters)
Italian police detain Angelo Sacco after a shooting spree in Bogogno, near Milan. Three people are dead. (AGI)^{[permanent dead link]} (BBC)
Guinea-Bissau's former president Kumba Yala declares that he accepts the results of presidential elections in the country "in the interest of peace and democracy" but still insists that he actually won. No candidate has won 50% of the vote and the next round of elections commences in July. (Reuters SA) (BBC)
United Nations rapporteur Manfred Nowak states that the United States may be secretly holding prisoners on military vessels. (BBC)
In Egypt presidential candidate Ayman Nour pleads not guilty in forging signatures in his party's registration. His supporters demonstrate outside the courthouse. Nour is regarded as the main rival candidate to incumbent president Hosni Mubarak. (Arab News) (Al-Jazeera) (BBC) (Reuters)
Ugandan parliament votes to remove the law that limits presidential terms to two 5-year terms. Opposition critics say that it intended to make Yoweri Museveni president-for-life. Police disperses opposition demonstrators with tear gas. (BBC) (Reuters)^{[permanent dead link]} (Reuters AlertNet)
Supreme Court of Canada rules that Rwandan Leon Mugesera should be deported. He is accused of incitement during Rwandan genocide. (Canada.Com) (Reuters)^{[permanent dead link]}
In Malawi, parliament speaker Rodwell Munyenyembe dies, four days after he collapsed during a heated parliamentary debate. (News24) (Reuters AlertNet) (BBC)
In Germany, former deputy defense minister Holger Pfahls admits that in 1990 he took a bribe worth million euros from arms dealer Karlheinz Schreiber in connection of a sale of armored vehicles to the US. He is in trial accused of taking bribes from Saudi Arabia in a similar deal in 1991. (Deutsche Welle) (Bloomberg)
In Australia, councillor Paul Tully wants to exhume the bodies of outlaws Steve Hart and Dan Kelly, two members of Ned Kelly's gang, because he suspects they may have survived and fled to Queensland. (ABC) (Australian) (BBC)
A federal jury in Birmingham, Alabama acquits Richard Scrushy, the former chief executive of HealthSouth, of all criminal charges arising out of the $2.7 billion in accounting fraud at that company.