October 18, 2004

• India's most wanted bandit, sandalwood smuggler and elephant poacher Veerappan, is shot dead by the Special Task Force in Tamil Nadu at 11 PM IST, after having evaded capture for 20 years. (Reuters) (BBC)
• Venkaiah Naidu resigns from his post as president of India's main opposition party, BJP. He will be replaced by Lal Krishna Advani. (BBC)
• Conflict in Iraq:
  • Dalibor Lazarevski and Zoran Naskovski, citizens of the Republic of Macedonia, are believed to have been beheaded by the group Islamic Army in Iraq. (Reuters)
  • U.S. and Iraqi interim government officials decline a Saudi proposal for a Muslim peacekeeping force to be deployed in Iraq over concerns regarding the chain of command. (NYT).
  • The Iraqi resistance group Tawhid and Jihad declares an alliance with al Qaida. Group leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi swears loyalty to Osama bin Ladin and claims to have contacted him regarding operations in Iraq. (Arabic News)
• Early voting begins in Florida and ten other U.S. states for the 2004 U.S. presidential election, which officially takes place November 2. (CNN)
• A referendum is held in Belarus on a proposal by President Alexander Lukashenko to permit Lukashenko to run for a third term by amending the country's constitution to remove term limits. The Belarus electoral commission says the referendum won the support of at least 75 percent of voters, but independent elections monitors say that the voting procedures "fell significantly short" of international standards. In Minsk, the capital, more than 2,000 people protest the results of the referendum. (BBC) (Reuters)
• Iran says that it is willing to negotiate with the U.K., Germany, and France regarding a suspension of its uranium enrichment activities, but that it will never renounce its right to enrich uranium. Iran's nuclear program is currently under investigation by the International Atomic Energy Agency. (Reuters)
• The Anglican Communion's Lambeth Commission on Communion releases the Windsor Report. The Commission recommends that churches throughout the Communion express regret for the divisions that they have caused in the Communion. This report was precipitated by the consecration of the openly gay Reverend Gene Robinson as a bishop in the United States Episcopal Church, and by the responses of other Anglican churches to his consecration. (BBC) (Windsor Report)
• David Ortiz single-handedly triumphed over the New York Yankees in the American League Championship Series twice on this day. His first triumph occured at 1:10 am EST when he hit a two-run walkoff homerun. At 10:50 pm, Ortiz hit a walk-off single into centerfield. [1]
• Australian journalist John Martinkus is released after approximately one day in the custody of unknown captors in Iraq. Martinkus strayed into an unsafe part of Baghdad while compiling a report for SBS' Dateline program. (AAP)