Portal:Current events/2005 August 24

August 24, 2005 (Wednesday)

Conflict in Iraq: At least 17 people are killed in a series of gun battles and a suicide car bombing that targeted the Iraqi Police in Baghdad. (BBC)
Israeli-Palestinian Conflict:
- A British haredi Jew, Shmuel Matt, is stabbed to death, and his American friend, Sammy Weissbard, is wounded when a Palestinian man attacked the pair in Jerusalem. (ITN) (Telegraph) Archived 2007-03-13 at the Wayback Machine
- The Israeli government issues orders to seize Palestinian land close to the Israeli settlement of Maale Adumim on the West Bank for continued construction of the Israeli West Bank barrier. (BBC)
- Five Palestinians, including Islamic Jihad leader Ribhi Amara, are killed in a gun-battle following an Israeli raid on the Palestinian refugee camp of Tulkarm in the West Bank. Israel maintains that all five were militants, while eye witnesses say that three were unarmed teenagers. (BBC) (Reuters) (YNETnews) (New York Times) (Chicago Tribune)^{[permanent dead link]}
Heavy floods hit Switzerland, Austria and Germany forcing thousands of people to abandon their homes. (BBC)
Chinese railroad workers in Tibet laid rail tracks on the Tanggula Mountain Pass in the Tanggula Mountains in Tibet at 5,072 m (16,640 ft) above sea level, surpassing the altitude of the highest Peruvian railway by 255 m (837 ft). This section of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway is now the highest railway in the world. The railway also includes the highest railway station in the world at Lhasa, 5,068 m (16,627 ft) above sea level. The railway is expected to open later in 2005. (Xinhua)
American televangelist and former Presidential candidate, Pat Robertson apologizes for calling for the assassination of Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez. (Financial Times)