August 2, 2004 (Monday)
- U.S. President George W. Bush urges Congress to create a national intelligence director and a national counterterrorism center. (Centre Daily)
- Jorge Hank Rhon, candidate of the left-conservative PRI party—which had held power in Mexico for more than 70 years—wins the Tijuana mayoral election by just 1.09%, on a platform of solving organized crime by omnipresent public surveillance. (El Universal Online)
- A poll shows that U.S. presidential candidate John Kerry gained limited support after the Democratic Convention. (ABC News)
- The U.S. plans to shift 3,600 soldiers to Iraq from South Korea. (Reuters) Archived 2004-08-31 at the Wayback Machine
- Turkey's truckers' association says it will stop delivering goods to U.S. forces in Iraq, in what appears to be a direct response to insurgents' videotaped killing of a Turkish hostage. (Herald Sun)
- Doom 3, the long-awaited second follow-up to the 1993 first-person shooting classic, is leaked online. (BBC)
- A Philippine lawyer who helped recover millions of dollars stashed by late dictator Ferdinand Marcos and a doctor who exposed China's SARS outbreak are among this year's winners of the Ramon Magsaysay Award, a prestigious prize in Asia. (AP)
- Five Moroccans detained at the U.S. military camp in Guantanamo Bay are turned over to authorities in their home country. (The Australian)
- The Indian Army claims to be confronting teenaged militants, some as young as 13 or 14, wielding sophisticated arms, along the Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir. (Times Of India)
- The Iraqi government blames Al Qaeda ally Abu Musab al-Zarqawi for a series of church bombings that killed at least 11 people, saying the aim was to spark religious strife and drive Christians out of the country. (Khaleej Times)
- Sudan's army says the UN resolution on the conflict in Darfur is "a declaration of war" and threatens to fight any foreign intervention. (BBC)
- India's junior Foreign Minister, Edappakath Ahamed, declares that the Indian government has no confirmation of the release of three truck drivers who were taken hostage in Iraq in late July. (Reuters)
- The government of Paraguay confirms that at least 275 people died in a supermarket fire in Asunción. The death toll is still expected to rise as a more thorough search is completed. (Seattle Post) (CNN)
- Police make arrests following the assassination attempt on Pakistan's prime minister-designate. (Herald Sun)
- U.S. General Tommy Franks discloses that, through a double agent codenamed "April Fool", he tricked Saddam Hussein into bungling the defense of his country. (The Australian)