February 17, 2005

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[edit] February 17, 2005

• A car bomb explodes in southern Thailand near the Marina Hotel in Sungai Kolok, a popular tourist town close to the Malaysian border. Five people are killed and more than 40 injured. The car bomb is believed to be the first to explode in the Muslim dominated region. (Yahoo!) (Boston Globe) (BBC)
• Irish police arrest four people in Cork and three in Dublin in raids concentrating on the financing of the Provisional IRA. Over 2.3 million pounds sterling were seized in Cork, and £60,000 in Northern Bank notes believed to be from the £26.5 million robbery in Belfast just before Christmas. Reportedly, among the people arrested are former Sinn Féin councillor Tom Hanlon and someone working in the banking industry. (RTE) (BBC) (Scotsman).
• Cyclone Olaf passes Samoa and American Samoa largely without incident. No deaths or injuries on land are reported, but two fishermen are unaccounted for and are feared dead. (USA Today)
• Japan's Chubu Centrair International Airport opens on Ise Bay, south of Nagoya. Built on an artificial island, the airport is Japan's third largest international passenger airport, and is intended to replace nearby Nagoya Airport. (Daily Yomiuri) (Kyodo News)
• The European Union introduces new laws that increase the rights of air passengers so that they receive higher compensation for overbooking, delays and cancellation of flights. (BBC) (Forbes) (Bloomberg)
• The BNFL nuclear plant at Sellafield, in the United Kingdom, reports that 30 kg (66 lb) of plutonium is "unaccounted for". This amount of missing plutonium would be sufficient to make seven atomic bombs. The UK Atomic Energy Authority states that the discrepancy in the record keeping is merely an auditing issue, and that there was no "real loss" of plutonium. (ITV) (BBC) (The Times)
• The government of Burma/Myanmar reopens constitutional talks but there is widespread criticism that the approximately 1,000 delegates, selected by the military, form an unrepresentative group. They do not include main opposition group National League for Democracy and its leader Aung San Suu Kyi. (Bloomberg) (DVB) (Reuters) (BBC) (Mizzima News)
• In Ecuador, there are mass rallies for and against the government of Lucio Gutiérrez. His opponents accuse him of using heavy handed tactics to remove his political opponents. (Reuters) (BBC)
• US President George W. Bush names John Negroponte as his nominee to be the first United States Director of National Intelligence. (Reuters)
• Exiled Bangladeshi author Taslima Nasreen, currently living in Sweden, is seeking Indian citizenship. Conservative Muslims of Bangladesh have deemed her works blasphemous and have called for her execution. Nasreen states her wish to live in West Bengal. (BBC) (Hindustan Times)
• The United States House of Representatives passes a Class Action Fairness Act that intends to curb class action suits, moving them from state courts to federal courts. (US Newswire) (USA Today) (Bloomberg)
• The Brazilian government intends to create a protected rainforest region in the aftermath of the murder of US missionary Dorothy Stang. (Reuters) (CNN) (ABC) (BBC)
• The government of Sudan rejects the United Nations' demand that the suspects of war crimes in the violence ridden western Sudanese region of Darfur would be put before the International Criminal Court in The Hague. (AllAfrica) (Reuters Alertnet) (BBC)