January 7, 2005 (Friday)
- 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake:
- Japan sends its largest military deployment since World War II to tsunami-hit countries, with around 1,000 troops on standby. (CNA)
- The Group of Seven Industrialised Nations (G7) agrees to a moratorium on the debt repayments of countries worst affected by the tsunamis in Asia, sources at the HM Treasury said. (CNA)
- FBI warn of fake disaster appeal scams (CNN)
- Ten gang members are sentenced to prison terms of 25 to 40 years for the murders of 12 women in Juárez, Mexico; however, many hundreds of the deaths in Ciudad Juárez remain unsolved. (BBC)
- Northern Ireland police Chief Constable Hugh Orde publicly accuses the Provisional IRA of the largest bank robbery in U.K. history, now assessed at £26.5 million. The money was taken from the Northern Bank in Belfast on December 20. (BBC) (RTÉ)
- Conflict in Iraq:
- Seven U.S. soldiers are killed in a bomb attack in Baghdad. (BBC)
- The French newspaper Libération reports that its journalist Florence Aubenas is missing in Iraq. (Libération) (Reuters) (BBC)
- Israeli–Palestinian conflict:
- Palestinian presidential candidate Mustafa Barghouti is arrested by Israeli police on the last day of the campaign as he tried to enter the Al-Aqsa Mosque. (BBC)
- One Israeli is killed and four are wounded in a Palestinian shooting attack in the north West Bank. The al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades claim responsibility. (Haaretz)
- The People's Republic of China jails five people for eight years for selling fake infant formula, which has caused the deaths of at least 13 infants and illness in 189. (Reuters Alertnet)
- The Ukrainian Supreme Court rejects Viktor Yanukovych's appeal against the electoral commission's decision that he lost the presidential election. (BBC) (Reuters)
- Chilean officials search the offices of Augusto Pinochet and investigate his U.S. bank accounts. (BBC)
- 80-year-old Edgar Ray Killen is arrested for the 1964 killings of three civil rights workers that inspired the American Civil Rights Movement and the film Mississippi Burning. (CNN)