July 5, 2002 – BBC World Service – World Briefing – BBC Radio – Gordon Skene Sound Collection –
July 5, 2002 – Fourth of July was a nervous event in America in 2002 – a year after September 11th, the country was braced for another terrorist attack in the scale of the World Trade Center – but it didn’t materialize and America went about its business celebrating Independence Day. So the shooting at LAX on the morning of the 4th led many to believe this wasn’t a terrorist attack but rather something random; an Egyptian limousine driver who was in the U.S. on a green card attacked the ticket counter for the Israeli airline El-Al, killing two before being taken down by Airline security. Most of America seemed undaunted by the incident, relieved it was the only attack that happened on the 4th, that they had feared much worse. Although Israeli officials called it a terrorist attack, Washington remained silent with spokespeople saying it was far too early to make any judgement. Still . . .
But there was violence in other places in the world – in Katmandu Nepal, a bomb had exploded in the office of New Party Of the Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba. A government minister was quoted as saying at least six people had been injured, some of them seriously. Mr. Deuba was reported to not be in the office at the time. At the moment, there was no indication as to who carried out the attack – no one was claiming responsibility.
And talks with Iraqi officials about resuming Weapons inspections by the United Nations were continuing, set to take place in Vienna this day. Iraq was said to have requested answers on sanctions against it could be lifted in the event of inspectors returning. Observers said the first set of talks, which took place the previous Thursday were positive and took place in a serious atmosphere.
And that’s just a small sample of what was going on in the world as reported by the BBC World Service program World Briefing for July 5, 2002.
