Portal:Current events/2005 July 27

July 27, 2005 (Wednesday)

British "Shoot to Kill" Police Policy:
- The British Police member who shot an innocent Brazilian man seven times in the head and once in the shoulder has been given a free holiday, paid for by Scotland Yard.(BBC News)
- Sir Ian Blair, Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police has told Channel 4 news that on seven separate occasions British police have come close to killing suspected Suicide Bombers who it transpired were not Suicide Bombers. (The Times), (Financial Times)
Conflict in Iraq:
- Two US Troops were killed following a bomb in Baghdad. (BBC News)
- Two Algerian diplomatic staff who had been kidnapped by insurgents have been killed. (BBC News)
- At least five people have died following an apparent Suicide Bomb blast outside a hospital in the Iraqi Capital, Baghdad. (BBC News)
- The interim Prime Minister of Iraq, Ibrahim Jaafari, has called on US troops to leave Iraq soon. (BBC News), (The Christian Science Monitor)
- Seven Iraqi soldiers, guarding a water plant north of Baghdad, have been shot and killed by Insurgents. (KCTV)
2005 Maharashtra floods: The death toll from the series of heavy monsoon rains and landslides they have triggered has been raised to at least 418 people in India's western state of Maharashtra.(ExpressIndia)
NASA postpones indefinitely future launches of the Space Shuttle after a piece of insulation broke off the Space Shuttle external tank during the July 26 launch of the Discovery. (Yahoo News) (SpaceDaily)
In Australia, New South Wales premier Bob Carr resigns and announces his disengagement from politics (ABC) (SBS)
Malaysia takes chairmanship of the ASEAN Standing Committee (Channel News Asia)
In China, the human death toll from an outbreak of the pig pathogen Streptococcus suis is 24. 21 are in critical condition and number of infections has increased to 117 BBC
In Kyrgyzstan, about 400 Vamshi Uzbek refugees who fled from Uzbekistan after crushing of an uprising last May will be moved to Romania (BBC News) (MosNews) (Reuters)
An explosion destroys an ONGC oil-drilling platform in the Bombay High field area late in the afternoon. The blast occurred possibly after a shipping vessel docked nearby collided with the platform during high tide. (Express India) (NDTV) (Reuters AlertNet)
In Spain, police arrests 6 suspected members of the Basque separatist group ETA (EITB) (Reuters)
In France, court in Angers sentences 62 members of a child sex ring to up to 28 years in jail. Trial lasted 5 months (Euronews) (Reuters)
Other French court in Bonneville finds 13 people and companies guilty of manslaughter for the March 24 1999 Mont Blanc tunnel fire. Gerard Roncoli, the French head of security, received six months in jail and 24 months of suspended sentence (Euronews) (BBC News) (IHT)
Microsoft releases Windows Vista Beta 1, the first beta version of Windows Vista codenamed "Longhorn".