On this day
Revisit the music, news, notable people, and historical moments connected to this date.
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Cambodia's legislature votes to approve nation's entry into World Trade Organization, step forced by new rules for international textile and apparel trade that could otherwise have smothered country's garment industry; photo (M)
Hollinger Report Says Ex-Officials Diverted Cash A special committee of the publishing company Hollinger International concluded in a report that the former officials Conrad M. Black and F. David Radler ran a ''corporate kleptocracy,'' diverting to themselves virtually all the company's $400 million in earnings over seven years. The report also criticized certain directors for being ''ineffective and careless'' in stopping the ''systematic looting'' of the company. In a statement, the holding company of Lord Black and Mr. Radler that effectively controls Hollinger International dismissed the report as trafficking in recycled ''exaggerated claims laced with outright lies.'' [Page A1.]
Family of Shannon Walsh, 24-year-old pesticide applicator who died in 1997 after spraying trees, calls for tougher laws requiring training of insecticide workers; environmental groups say training and testing of applicators is far from adequate and inexperienced workers pose danger to residents, workers and, in some cases, themselves; New York, New Jersey and Connecticut have two general categories of pesticide technicians: operators, who are fully trained and certified, and technicians, who are given only one day's training before being sent on jobs; technicians are supposed to be closely supervised, but often operators are miles away; exterminators say that almost all chemicals that they apply can be bought commercially by consumers; photos (M)
National Grid Transco, owner of Britain's power and natural gas grids, agrees to sell half of its gas-distribution networks for 5.8 billion pounds ($10 billion), move that would help company cut debt and prepare for possible expansion in US; buyers include Scottish and Southern Energy, Macquarie European Infrastructure Fund, which is run by Macquarie Bank of Australia, and Cheung Kong Infrastructure Holdings, which is controlled by Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka-shing; National Grid will return 2 billion pounds to shareholders; photo (M)
I.M.F. Accepts Standstill to Let A8
Music on My Birthday
The Top 50 albums for the chart week of September 1, 2004, covering September 1, 2004.
Various Artists
Ashlee Simpson
Prince
213
Usher
2004Ahmed Kuftaro, Syrian religious leader, Grand Mufti of Syria (born 1915)[†]
Ahmed Kuftaro was the Grand Mufti of Syria, the highest officially appointed Sunni Muslim representative of the Fatwa-Administration in the Syrian Ministry of Auqaf in Syria. Kaftaro was a Sunni Muslim of the Naqshbandi Sufi order.
2004Alastair Morton, South African businessman (born 1938)[†]
Sir Robert Alastair Newton Morton was Chief Executive of Eurotunnel and Chairman of the Strategic Rail Authority, industrialist and the last chairman of the British Railways Board.
2004The Beslan school siege begins when armed terrorists take schoolchildren and school staff hostage in North Ossetia, Russia; by the end of the siege, three days later, more than 385 people are dead (including hostages, other civilians, security personnel and terrorists).[†]
The Beslan school siege, also referred to as the Beslan school hostage crisis or the Beslan massacre, was an Islamic terrorist attack that started on 1 September 2004. It lasted three days, and involved the imprisonment of more than 1,100 people as hostages, including 777 children, ending with the deaths of 334 people, 186 of them children, as well as 31 of the attackers. It is considered the deadliest school shooting in history.
In 2004, the world population was approximately 6,503,377,772 people[†]