Portal:Current events/2005 October 24

October 24, 2005 (Monday)

• Rosa Parks, whose famous refusal in 1955 to surrender her bus seat to a white man in Montgomery, Alabama triggered a bus-boycott and the beginning of the modern U.S. civil rights movement, died at the age of 92. The recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom was known to have suffered from dementia. Sources state that she died at her home in Detroit of natural causes. (Bloomberg) (ClickOnDetroit.com).
• The Terrafrica partnership, a US$4 billion, 12-year campaign supported by the African Union, World Bank, United Nations, European Commission, and regional African governments, and aimed at fighting current, and preventing future desertification in Africa, begins. (Reuters)
• Escalating a 'minor diplomatic crisis' between Russia and Norway, two Russian fishing trawlers are taken into custody by the Norwegian Coast Guard after allegedly having done illegal reloading of their vessels near Bear Island (Norway). (RIA Novosti) (Aftenposten)
• Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: Two Palestinian militants have died following an Israeli raid into the West Bank area of Tulkarm. (BBC) (IOL)
• 2006 World Cup: Gordon Strachan is named as FIFA/SOS Ambassador for Scotland (joining Wayne Rooney for England) for the 2006 World Cup. (SOS Children's Villages) (Celtic FC)
• Zhou Shaoning is selected as the Chief Chinese Operations Officer for Google China. (Yahoo!)
• 11 Nepali Sherpa and 7 French mountaineers are feared dead by an attempt to climb 6981 metre (20000 feet) Mount Kanguru in north-west Nepal. (NepalNews) (Reuters) (Japan Today) (Kantipuronline)
• U.S. President George W. Bush nominates Ben Bernanke to succeed Alan Greenspan as chair of the Federal Reserve Board. (New York Times) (CNN)
• Hurricane Wilma hits South Florida with Category 3 and makes landfall.
• Xbox Live is shut down to upgrade for the Xbox 360.