July 27, 2004

• South African authorities announce that Al-Qaeda militants have illegally obtained a large number of South African passports, enabling operatives to travel to many African countries and Britain without visas. It is believed that the passports came from crime syndicates operating within the passport office. (AP)
• The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court orders the unsealing of investigative files related to the unsolved 1972 murder of 13-year-old altar boy Danny Croteau. Richard Lavigne, a defrocked priest convicted of child molestation, is the only suspect in the case. (ABC)
• A lower French court annuls the same-sex union of Stephane Chapin and Bertrand Charpentier, stating that the Civil Code does not allow same-sex unions and that allowing them is for the legislature. The couple say they will appeal against the court's ruling, even to the European Court of Human Rights. The mayor who officated at the ceremony, Noel Mamere of the left-wing Greens Party, had been suspended from duties for one month by the national executive. (AP)
• Iran is alleged to have broken seals placed upon uranium centrifuges by the International Atomic Energy Agency and resumed their construction. (AP)
• Violence in Iraq:
  • Guerilla mortar fire, directed at the Green Zone in Baghdad, strikes the nearby neighborhood of Salhiya, killing an Iraqi garbage collector, wounding another, and injuring 15 U.S. soldiers.
  • Dr. Qassem el-Obaidi, assistant director of Mahmudiya hospital, is assassinated in Mahmudiya, 25 miles south of Baghdad.
  • A suicide bomber launches a failed attack in Baquba, north of Baghdad, killing himself but inflicting no other casualties.
  • The Jordanian company Daoud and Partners decides to withdraw from Iraq, so as to secure the release of two Jordanian hostages. [1]
• The United Nations warns that Bangladesh is on the verge of an humanitarian crisis, as severe flooding causes more than 350 deaths. Forty-one of the country's sixty-four districts are affected by the floods, and officials say 14 million people are either marooned or homeless; other estimates reach as high as 30 million. (BBC)
• The European Union's 25 foreign ministers jointly call on the United Nations to pass a resolution threatening sanctions if the Sudanese government does not rein in the Arab militias blamed for atrocities in Darfur. (BBC)