Information about August 2004

Events

Events

August 31, 2004

• Football (soccer): Manchester United F.C. sign England star Wayne Rooney from Everton F.C.. The potential fee of £27 million is the second highest ever for an exclusively British transfer.

• Lawyers reveal that African American workers are to sue Eastman Kodak Co., charging that the firm paid them less and promoted them less often than white colleagues. (Reuters)
• The U.S.

• U.S. President George W. Bush urges Congress to create a national intelligence director and a national counterterrorism center.

• Saddam Hussein's daughter Raghad reveals her willingness to hire an American lawyer as long as her father gets a fair trial. (Times Of India)
• Two 'high-value' al-Qaida targets are arrested in Pakistan.

• The National Institutes of Health decides not to override drug patents to allow generic production of anti-AIDS drug Norvir in the United States, despite claims of price gouging by patients' groups and some

• At least seven Iraqis and a U.S. soldier die in clashes; and a U.S. helicopter is shot down, injuring two. (BBC)
• The U.S.

• Pacific Islands Forum leaders call for assistance for Nauru to prevent the emergence of another "failed state". (The Age)
• U.S.

• The Iraqi Interim Government bans Al Jazeera from operating in Iraq for 30 days; police order staff from their Baghdad newsroom.
• U.S.

• U.S. intelligence officials and non-government experts conclude that diplomatic efforts to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons to Iran and North Korea have failed to slow their weapons development

• Microsoft issues Service Pack 2 for its Windows XP operating system. (BBC)
• Pakistan protests to the U.S. over an FBI sting operation involving a fake plot to kill Pakistan's UN envoy.

• The South Korean government announces that the country's capital is to be moved from Seoul to a new site at Gongju in South Chungcheong province.

• The Olympic flame arrives in Greece after a relay through 26 countries. (News24)
• British scientists (at University of Newcastle upon Tyne) become the first in Europe to be granted permission to clone human

• Lee Hsien Loong is sworn in as the 3rd Prime Minister of Singapore. (Taipei Times) (VOA)
• New Jersey Governor Jim McGreevey resigns his post effective November 15, saying that his extramarital homosexual

• Aides to rebel Iraqi Shia cleric Moqtada al Sadr report that he has been wounded in fighting in the holy city of Najaf; the government denies the reports.

• Gunmen kill at least 156 people – mainly women and children – in an overnight raid on the Gatumba camp for Congolese Tutsi refugees in Burundi, the UN says.