Portal:Current events/2006 July 2
July 2, 2006 (Sunday)
- One year on from the Live 8 concerts, U2 frontman Bono announces that world leaders are not making good on their promises to Africa. According to Bono in a recent CNN interview, not enough is being done to make trade fair. (CNN)
- Polling closes in the Mexican general election, with voters electing a new President, both houses of Congress, and four state/district governors. Exit polls show the presidential race between Felipe Calderón of the National Action Party and Andrés Manuel López Obrador, a former mayor of Mexico City, as too close to call. (CBS News)
- Iraqi authorities distribute a most wanted fugitives list containing Saddam Hussein's wife and daughter and with Izzat Ibrahim al-Duri at the top of the list. (CNN)
- The launch of the Space Shuttle Discovery is postponed until Tuesday at 2:38pm local time due to stormy weather in Florida. (CBC)
- In Pakistan, all parliament members from the Jamaat-e-Islami political movement resign over fighting between the army and terrorists in Waziristan and General Musharraf's support for the United States in an effort to force Musharraf to step down. (IRNA)
- Israeli-Palestinian conflict (Operation Summer Rains):
- Israel strikes an empty office of Palestinian PM Ismail Haniyeh. Two other Hamas operatives are killed in two separate aerial strikes. Israeli defense minister Amir Peretz warns stepping up quality of targets, reiterating the responsibility of Syrian president Bashar Assad for the continued crisis. (Ynet), (BBC)
- Hamas spokesperson threatens further attacks against Israeli schools and power plants if the military campaign to free the kidnapped soldier Gilad Shalit continues. (Haaretz)
- Israeli ground forces deployed in Dahaniya airport kill three approaching Palestinian gunmen, two of them strapped to explosive belts.(Ynet)
- Israeli PM approves a military operation in the northern Gaza Strip aimed at halting Qassam rocket attacks. More than 1200 Qassam rockets, three of them on Sunday, were launched since October 2001, killing 12 Israeli civilians and a comparable number of Palestinian civilians. (Haaretz),(Ynet)