US Health SecretaryTommy Thompson warns that the world is losing the war against
AIDS. Thompson said, "We need
America, the
European Union and everybody. Nobody is going to be spared unless we all come together in the fight against this disease."
[3]
Venezuelan opposition leaders claim to have gathered enough petition signatures to force a referendum to recall
President Hugo Chávez; in response, the government alleges the four-day signature drive was tainted by "massive fraud".
[12][13]
The
US dollar continues to decline, hitting a new low of 1.2 against the
euro; the dollar is suffering from deteriorating support against the background of a large
current account deficit and fears of growing
protectionism.
[15]
Andrei Illarionov, economic advisor to President
Vladimir Putin, indicates
Russia will not ratify the
Kyoto Protocol in its current form, a decision that would kill the accord. Some observers speculate that this is purely domestic posturing for forthcoming
elections.
[16]
Hospitals around
Paris struggle to cope with an outbreak of
influenza and gastro-enteritis.
[20]
The
European Union threatens retaliatory sanctions unless the
United States lifts its threat of restrictions on imports of
steel; the US measures have been declared illegal by the
WTO.
[21]
Pirate copies of a pre-alpha version of
Microsoft's
Windows "Longhorn" operating system go on sale in
Malaysia more than a year ahead of its expected release date.
[22]
GIMPS has confirmed that 220996011-1 is
prime. At 6320430
decimaldigits, it is easily the largest known prime number. 220996011-1 is the 40th known
Mersenne prime and the 6th Mersenne prime discovered by GIMPS.
[23]
In
Kassel,
Germany, the trial of
Armin Meiwes begins. He is charged with killing and eating
Bernd-Jürgen Brandes who was one of 200 people who replied to an Internet advertisement for "a well-built male prepared to be slaughtered and then consumed". The whole episode was videotaped. The case is legally difficult as
cannibalism is not explicitly prohibited by the German
penal code, and the defence argues that as the victim was willing, no murder took place.
[28]
Facing the threat of a
trade war,
U.S. PresidentGeorge W. Bush lifts 20-month-old
tariffs on foreign
steel. Within minutes of the announcement, the
European Union announces that it is lifting its threat of
sanctions on $2.2 billion of U.S. products that would have taken effect in mid-December based on a ruling from the
World Trade Organization that the tariffs were in violation of global trade rules.
[36]
The
Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) is opened in
Abuja,
Nigeria, by
Queen Elizabeth II. The future of
Zimbabwe's membership is threatening to dominate the gathering. The debate has been marked by bitter personal polemics between Zimbabwean President
Robert Mugabe and
Australian Prime Minister
John Howard, whom Mugabe accuses of leading an "
Anglo-Saxon conspiracy" against Zimbabwe. Mugabe himself is barred from entering the
European Union. Zimbabwe was suspended from the Commonwealth last year on charges that Mugabe had rigged his re-election in
2002.
[43][44]
SCO v. IBM: in the opening discovery stages of the SCO v. IBM conflict, a judge grants IBM's two
motions to compel against SCO, and defers consideration of SCO's motions until later.
The draw for the qualifying stages of the
2006 Football World Cup is made.
England,
Wales and
Northern Ireland are drawn together in group 6 of the Europe (
UEFA) section, making the group three-quarters of a home nations championship - Scotland missed out by being drawn (amongst others) against Italy and Norway.
Experts say that the US
flu season will be worse than average, but they are not yet ready to say how bad it will be.
[57] The USA is running out of the injectable version of the
vaccine and is encouraging people to use the nasal spray.
[58]
Zimbabwe fails to find supporters at the
Commonwealth Prime Minister's Conference in Nigeria.
[59]
Zimbabwean President
Robert Mugabe announces that he is withdrawing his country from the
Commonwealth of Nations. The Commonwealth had earlier decided to maintain Zimbabwe's suspension until
human rights and democratic reforms had taken place.
[63]
President Putin's
United Russia wins a resounding victory in the
2003 Russian election, with 37% of the vote. Second place and 12.5% of the vote goes to the
Communist Party, with
Zhirinovsky's
LDPR nationalists close behind with 11.5%. However, electoral monitors say the democratic process was "overwhelmingly distorted" in the government's favour.
[64][65]
Afghan villagers have disputed
United States claims that a bombing by the US that killed nine children had killed the intended target,
Taliban militant,
Mullah Wazir. They say Wazir had left the village ten days earlier.
[66][67]
Currency analysts remain negative on the
US dollar.
[68]
One US soldier is killed and two are injured Sunday in
Mosul when a convoy is attacked.
[69]
King Harald V of
Norway successfully undergoes a 5½-hour
cancer operation in which his bladder is removed and a new one constructed, at Rikshospitalet University Hospital in
Oslo.
[71]
In
San Juan, Puerto Rico, four men are killed and a woman critically injured during a massacre in a discotheque. It is the largest massacre in Puerto Rico since
1988.
[75] (in
Spanish)
750,000 people crowd the streets of
London to see the victory parade of the
England rugby team following their victory in the
Rugby Union World Cup.
[77]
Greek electronic game ban: The Greek government in an attempt to fight illegal gambling passes an old decision (1107414/1491/T. & E. F.) regarding the 3037/2002 law.
A
suicide bombing in central
Moscow at 11 a.m. local time (0800
UTC) kills six people and wounds 13 others. The police reports that one of the dead bombers has been identified as a woman.
[79]
Doctors at the U.S.
Centers for Disease Control are worried that the 2003-2004
influenza season will be the worst in years. Early signs indicate that a particularly virulent strain of the flu
virus that is not well-covered by this year's
vaccine is hitting hard in some states. Young children and the elderly have been urged to receive the vaccine, doses of which are running low.
[80][permanent dead link]
Some 60
U.S. soldiers and a handful of
Iraqis are injured in
Tal Afar, west of
Mosul, when a pre-dawn
car bomb explodes at an entrance to an army base.
[83][84]
A U.S.
Kiowa helicopter makes a controlled landing after being struck by an
RPG near
Fallujah; the two-man crew is uninjured.
[85]
Canada's
BC Ferry system experiences a total shutdown due to
job action by its union, after an 80-day cooling-off period, imposed by the provincial government, was not rescinded.
[97]
Elizabeth II,
Queen of Canada, issues a proclamation officially acknowledging the deportation of the
Acadians, 248 years after it took place. The proclamation is delivered by Heritage Minister
Sheila Copps, who is of Acadian descent.
[108]
In
Israel, an explosion at a money exchange office in a shopping district near the city center of
Tel Aviv at 1230 local time (1030
UTC) kills three and injures at least eighteen people. Police say the cause of the explosion was probably criminal rather than terrorist.
[115]
A general
strike in
Quebec interrupts road and port traffic as well as non-essential surgeries and day-care service in
Montreal,
Quebec City, and
Trois-Rivières. The strike was called in opposition to the
Charest government's policies.
[116]
Queen
Elizabeth II has a benign non-
cancerous growth removed from her face.
Buckingham Palace confirms the removed growths will be subject to further tests but denies there are any cancer fears surrounding the 77-year-old
sovereign. She also underwent a knee operation.
[123]
Keiko (whale) from Warner Brothers movie's Free Willy dies at age 27, at
Norway's bay
In
Haiti the biggest anti-government demonstrations in a decade take place, calling for the removal of
President Aristide; after nightfall, squadrons of armed Aristide supporters take to the streets in response.
[128][129]Archived 2007-03-13 at the
Wayback Machine
Spain has announced an agreement with
Morocco to proceed with plans to build a rail
tunnel beneath the
Strait of Gibraltar, linking Europe and Africa. Assuming the project is technically and financially feasible, digging would start in
2008.
[133],
[134]
Wanderley Carlos Stringhini, retired partner of Ernst Young, dies at age 51, of suicide. During his life, he was partly responsible for the founding of
Ernst Young offices in
Curitiba,
Blumenau, and
Porto Alegre.
Iraq's Civil Administrator
L. Paul Bremer announces that
Saddam Hussein was
captured by US forces. Saddam was found approximately 15 km south of his home town of
Tikrit at 2030 local time on
December 13. Hussein was captured without resistance in a so-called "
spider-hole" at a farmhouse in the town of
ad-Dawr. He is in
Coalition custody at an undisclosed location. At a press conference, Bremer presents video of Saddam in custody with a full beard, which is later shown removed. Bremer says that Saddam is in good health and is being "co-operative and talkative". He says that Saddam will "face justice" before an Iraqi court and under Iraqi law.
[142][143][144][145]
In an address to his nation, US president
George W. Bush comments on the capture of Saddam, "Now the former dictator of Iraq will face the justice he denied to millions."
[146]
British Prime Minister
Tony Blair welcomes the capture of Saddam, urging the Iraqi people "to reach out and to reconcile." Other world leaders offer similar sentiments: Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov says that the arrest "will contribute to the strengthening of security in Iraq and to the process of political regulation in the country," while UN Secretary General Kofi Annan comments that Saddam's capture provides a chance "to give fresh impetus to the search for peace and stability in Iraq".
[147][148]
A
car bomb explodes at a police station in
Khaldiyah, 60 km west of Baghdad, killing at least 17 and wounding 30.
[149]
US Secretary of State
Colin Powell successfully undergoes two hours of
prostate cancer surgery at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, DC.
[155]
The results of parliamentary elections in the self-proclaimed
Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus are announced: pro-
European Union parties won a narrow victory over the ruling nationalist coalition, with the opposition Republican Turkish Party becoming the largest party. However, the republic's complicated electoral system means that the two sides will each have 25 seats in the 50-seat assembly.
[158]
The
Israeli military reveals it developed a secret plan to assassinate
Saddam Hussein in retaliation for
Scud missile attacks on that country during the
Gulf War. The plan was called off after five
commandos were accidentally killed while training for the mission.
[163]
Saddam Hussein's daughter, Raghad Saddam Hussein, tells the
Dubai-based
Al Arabiya television network, Saddam "should not be tried by the
Iraqi governing council which was put in place by occupiers ... we want an international, fair and legal trial".
[164]
Mowaffaq al-Rubaie says that
Saddam Hussein will be tried in Iraq by an Iraqi court. Mowaffaq, a member of the Iraqi Governing Council, denies reports that the prisoner has been taken out of Baghdad.
[170]
Stephen Kenny, the first civilian lawyer to visit any of the former Afghan war suspects in
Guantanamo Bay, describes it as a physical and moral black hole. He says prisoners are not treated equally and that there is a pecking order with Americans being treated best. (In fact there are no Americans being held at Guantanamo Bay.)
[172][173]Archived 2005-04-08 at the
Wayback Machine
Occupation of Iraq: A fuel tanker explodes in downtown
Baghdad, killing 10 and wounding 15. Initially believed to be caused by a bomb, officials later conclude that a traffic accident was responsible.
[174]
The head of the Greek terrorist group
Revolutionary Organization 17 November and their chief hitman are jailed for life, along with four other members of the organisation.
[175]
Thomas Kean, chairman of the independent commission investigating the
September 11, 2001 attacks, says that the attacks could have been prevented and that public officials were to blame for not anticipating and pre-empting the threat. The commission's report is due in May, 2004.
[176][177]
Taiwan reports the first confirmed
SARS case in 5 months, a medical researcher who had studied the virus.
[179]
The
United StatesNational Weather Service warns of "excessive heat" after the
Earth reportedly breaks out of its orbit and begins falling into the
sun. Fortunately, it turns out to be a mistakenly published test message.
[180]
Former
Governor of IllinoisGeorge H. Ryan is indicted on corruption charges for receiving payoffs, gifts and vacations in return for government contracts and leases while he served as the Governor and Secretary of State of
Illinois.
[184]
Governor of ConnecticutJohn G. Rowland announces that he will not resign, despite allegations of corruption involving the receipt of free modifications to a vacation cottage, and the indictments of several of his top aides.
[185]
It is alleged that, in cases where their treatment of a detainee may never come under public scrutiny,
The Pentagon and
CIA are using a number of controversial techniques to extract information.
[199]
Prosecutors in
California charge singer
Michael Jackson with seven counts of child molestation and schedule hearings for January 16, 2004.
[202]
Israeli Prime Minister
Ariel Sharon warns the
Palestinian Authority that Israel will take unilateral steps to separate from the Palestinians unless there is progress on the
road map peace plan and sets a deadline of "a few months" for Palestinian compliance. The speech is strongly criticised by the
United States, the Israeli left, the Jewish settler movement and the Palestinians.
[203]
Red Hat, in its third quarter, buys
Sistina Software. Red Hat expects that it will close the deal by early January for $31 million dollars.
[204]
Sudanese authorities close the
Khartoum office of the Arab satellite channel
Al Jazeera and detain its bureau chief for questioning.
[205]
Italian dairy company
Parmalat declared a 3.96 billion euro hole in its accounts when the amount held by Cayman Islands-based unit, Bonlat Financing Corporation, was declared false by Bank of America.
[206]Archived 2013-02-01 at
archive.today
Prime Minister of JapanJunichiro Koizumi orders the deployment of Japanese forces for non-combat duties in Southern Iraq; polls show that most Japanese voters are opposed to the mission.
[211]
Flights from
Vancouver International Airport bound for the U.S. are delayed following the discovery of an envelope containing suspicious white powder and a threatening note at one of the terminals.
[212][permanent dead link]
SARS quarantine orders are lifted on up to 75 people in
Singapore but concerns remain that the deadly
virus could yet make a comeback across
Asia.
[213]
Australia sends
AU$1.2m to
Nauru so that the
Pacific island-state can pay its public servants before Christmas in a move that Foreign Minister
Alexander Downer says illustrates the need for long-term solutions to the island's deep-seated problems.
[214]
The British spacecraft
Beagle 2 successfully separates from the
ESA's
Mars Express orbiter and is now less than 10 days away from its scheduled landing on the surface of
Mars; it will attempt to parachute onto the surface on
Christmas morning.
[216][217][218]
Police seal off the printing plant and offices of
Zimbabwe's last remaining independent daily newspaper, Daily News.
[219]
CCTV footage at
Hampton Court Palace near London, once home of King
Henry VIII of England, is released, and claimed to show a "
ghost". The footage, taken in October 2003, shows a man in
16th century clothes closing a firedoor that had blown open. The palace markets itself as one of
Britain's most haunted locations.
[224][225]
Irish charity fundraiser
John O'Shea attacks
Manchester United football manager Sir
Alex Ferguson as "greedy" for demanding £90,000 to attend a
cancer charity function in Ireland in 1999. According to O'Shea, a sports celebrity demanding 'appearance money' from a charity is unheard of in his experience. Ferguson's appearance fee amounted to half the money raised. The fundraisers, until now unaware that Ferguson had taken half the proceeds, denounce his behaviour and say if they had known about it at the time they would have cancelled the event.
Former
Argentinian president
Carlos Menem is charged with tax fraud for failing to declare a
Swiss bank account containing $600,000. If convicted he could be debarred from public office.
[227]
The
World Court says it will hear legal arguments about
Israel's construction of a controversial barrier in the
West Bank to separate Israeli and
Palestinian areas. The hearings will begin on 23 February 2004.
[228]
Massive landslides in the
Philippines caused by heavy rain result in the deaths of up to 90 people.
[230]
A
Malaysian opposition
website is shut down by its
British web-hosting company amid claims of "political censorship" from the opposition.
[231]
Zimbabwean opposition leader
Morgan Tsvangirai tells his supporters to "fight fear" as they campaign against President
Robert Mugabe. His comments follow the decision of Zimbabwe's police to occupy the offices of Zimbabwe's only privately owned
newspaper in defiance of a court order that the newspaper could resume publication.
[232]
A senior French police source claims
Diana, Princess of Wales was pregnant when she was killed in a car crash in Paris in
1997. A
Clarence House spokesperson for
The Prince of Wales refuses to comment on the issue.
Mohamed Al-Fayed, the father of Diana's partner
Dodi Al-Fayed had long insisted that Diana was pregnant with Dodi's baby and that she was murdered to stop her from giving birth.
[243][244]
Quoting an unnamed senior British military intelligence officer, a report in the Sunday Express (Britain) claims that before
Saddam Hussein was captured by US troops, he had already been discovered by the
Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK). Kurdish forces had been alerted to his location by a member of the al-Jabour tribe whose daughter had been raped by Saddam's son
Uday Hussein.
[245]
Retired Gen.
Wesley Clark presented 4,000 petition signatures to qualify for
South Carolina's Democratic presidential primary ballot today. He's the second of the nine candidates for the
Democratic nomination to file for the
February 3 ballot. Campaign workers for Sen.
John Kerry of
Massachusetts gave the state Democratic Party a check for $2,500 last week to qualify.
The
Gulf Cooperation Council announces that they will revise school textbooks and remove from them material describing followers of other religions as
infidels and enemies of
Islam.
[254]
SCO claims in a press release to be sending
DMCA notification letters alleging copyright infringement
[255][256]
Linus Torvalds says, in a post to the
Linux kernelmailing list, "... I think we can totally _demolish_ the SCO claim that these 65 files were somehow "copied". They clearly are not."[257]
Novell has also registered their claim to the copyright of original
UNIX source code, effectively challenging SCO's registration of the same code
[258][259]
The
Philippines declares a calamity in a southern province after floods killed up to 209 people.
[262]
Drive-By Truckers' bassist, Earl Hicks, leaves the band and is replaced by Shonna Tucker.
Brett Favre played one of the most memorable games of his career, leading the
Green Bay Packers to a win over the
Oakland Raiders, 41-7, the day after the death of his father, Irvin.
The
United States Department of Agriculture confirms the first case of
BSE (mad cow disease) in the
United States, detected at a small slaughter house. The USDA has found no evidence that the infected materials made it into the food supply. Specimens have been sent to the
United Kingdom for further analysis. Authorities quarantined a ranch near
Yakima where the animal was raised.
[264][265]
Bolivian President
Carlos Mesa declares a state of emergency because of flooding in central Bolivia, which killed at least 19 people and collapsed a bridge crucial to Bolivian exports.
[272]
Following
Beagle 2's expected landing, US probe
Mars Odyssey (already in
Martian orbit) listens for the lander's distinctive musical callsign. A further scan for the lander is conducted using the
Jodrell Bankradio telescope. No signal is detected.
[274][275]
An Israeli helicopter gunship attacks a car in
Gaza City, killing
Islamic Jihad commander
Mekled Hameid and two fellow militants, together with two bystanders.
[276]
A suicide-bomber strikes a bus stop
Tel Aviv, killing four civilians and himself.
[277]
A
UK lab confirms the presence of
BSE in samples taken from a cow in Washington
[279].
Mexico joins the list of countries which have banned imports of US beef.
Reports emerge of a major leak of
natural gas in a gas field near the south-western
Chinese city of
Chongqing. Over 100 people are believed dead and up to 40,000 people have been evacuated from the area surrounding the leak.
[280]
A
powerful earthquake occurs near the southern
Iranian city of
Bam at 0156 GMT (5.26am local time). The
USGS estimates its magnitude as 6.7 on the
Richter scale. The BBC reports that "70% of the modern city of Bam" is destroyed. Iranian government officials estimate the death toll at over 20,000 with a further 50,000 injured.
Bam Citadel the largest
adobe structure of the world is destroyed. The area of the citadel is about 180,000 square meters and the construction date of parts of it goes back for about 2500 years.
[282][283][284]
The death toll in the Chinese gas-leak rises to 191.
[285]
The estimate of the number of dead in the
Bam earthquake increases to 40,000, according to the provincial governor.
Iran has refused earthquake aid from
Israel.
[287]
British scientists are continuing their efforts to make contact with the
Mars probe
Beagle 2, which was designed to perform advanced studies of the Martian soil in an effort to find microbial life.
[291]Archived 2007-09-07 at the
Wayback Machine
The
United States Department of Homeland Security announces that it will require armed security personnel on all airline flights, whether US or foreign carriers, when the department has intelligence that there is a threat to a flight.
[294]
Cuban officials are investigating who is responsible for altering a photograph of
Fidel Castro on the front page of the official government
newspaper, Granma, to make him look like
Adolf Hitler.
[295]
The
Federal Bureau of Investigation issues a memo instructing police to be alert of people carrying
almanacs, stating that information in these reference works could be used to aid in the planning of terrorist attacks.
[296]
Occupation of Iraq: A
car bomb detonates outside an upmarket
Baghdad restaurant much favoured by foreign journalists, killing five New Year revelers.
[302]
US Health SecretaryTommy Thompson warns that the world is losing the war against
AIDS. Thompson said, "We need
America, the
European Union and everybody. Nobody is going to be spared unless we all come together in the fight against this disease."
[3]
Venezuelan opposition leaders claim to have gathered enough petition signatures to force a referendum to recall
President Hugo Chávez; in response, the government alleges the four-day signature drive was tainted by "massive fraud".
[12][13]
The
US dollar continues to decline, hitting a new low of 1.2 against the
euro; the dollar is suffering from deteriorating support against the background of a large
current account deficit and fears of growing
protectionism.
[15]
Andrei Illarionov, economic advisor to President
Vladimir Putin, indicates
Russia will not ratify the
Kyoto Protocol in its current form, a decision that would kill the accord. Some observers speculate that this is purely domestic posturing for forthcoming
elections.
[16]
Hospitals around
Paris struggle to cope with an outbreak of
influenza and gastro-enteritis.
[20]
The
European Union threatens retaliatory sanctions unless the
United States lifts its threat of restrictions on imports of
steel; the US measures have been declared illegal by the
WTO.
[21]
Pirate copies of a pre-alpha version of
Microsoft's
Windows "Longhorn" operating system go on sale in
Malaysia more than a year ahead of its expected release date.
[22]
GIMPS has confirmed that 220996011-1 is
prime. At 6320430
decimaldigits, it is easily the largest known prime number. 220996011-1 is the 40th known
Mersenne prime and the 6th Mersenne prime discovered by GIMPS.
[23]
In
Kassel,
Germany, the trial of
Armin Meiwes begins. He is charged with killing and eating
Bernd-Jürgen Brandes who was one of 200 people who replied to an Internet advertisement for "a well-built male prepared to be slaughtered and then consumed". The whole episode was videotaped. The case is legally difficult as
cannibalism is not explicitly prohibited by the German
penal code, and the defence argues that as the victim was willing, no murder took place.
[28]
Facing the threat of a
trade war,
U.S. PresidentGeorge W. Bush lifts 20-month-old
tariffs on foreign
steel. Within minutes of the announcement, the
European Union announces that it is lifting its threat of
sanctions on $2.2 billion of U.S. products that would have taken effect in mid-December based on a ruling from the
World Trade Organization that the tariffs were in violation of global trade rules.
[36]
The
Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) is opened in
Abuja,
Nigeria, by
Queen Elizabeth II. The future of
Zimbabwe's membership is threatening to dominate the gathering. The debate has been marked by bitter personal polemics between Zimbabwean President
Robert Mugabe and
Australian Prime Minister
John Howard, whom Mugabe accuses of leading an "
Anglo-Saxon conspiracy" against Zimbabwe. Mugabe himself is barred from entering the
European Union. Zimbabwe was suspended from the Commonwealth last year on charges that Mugabe had rigged his re-election in
2002.
[43][44]
SCO v. IBM: in the opening discovery stages of the SCO v. IBM conflict, a judge grants IBM's two
motions to compel against SCO, and defers consideration of SCO's motions until later.
The draw for the qualifying stages of the
2006 Football World Cup is made.
England,
Wales and
Northern Ireland are drawn together in group 6 of the Europe (
UEFA) section, making the group three-quarters of a home nations championship - Scotland missed out by being drawn (amongst others) against Italy and Norway.
Experts say that the US
flu season will be worse than average, but they are not yet ready to say how bad it will be.
[57] The USA is running out of the injectable version of the
vaccine and is encouraging people to use the nasal spray.
[58]
Zimbabwe fails to find supporters at the
Commonwealth Prime Minister's Conference in Nigeria.
[59]
Zimbabwean President
Robert Mugabe announces that he is withdrawing his country from the
Commonwealth of Nations. The Commonwealth had earlier decided to maintain Zimbabwe's suspension until
human rights and democratic reforms had taken place.
[63]
President Putin's
United Russia wins a resounding victory in the
2003 Russian election, with 37% of the vote. Second place and 12.5% of the vote goes to the
Communist Party, with
Zhirinovsky's
LDPR nationalists close behind with 11.5%. However, electoral monitors say the democratic process was "overwhelmingly distorted" in the government's favour.
[64][65]
Afghan villagers have disputed
United States claims that a bombing by the US that killed nine children had killed the intended target,
Taliban militant,
Mullah Wazir. They say Wazir had left the village ten days earlier.
[66][67]
Currency analysts remain negative on the
US dollar.
[68]
One US soldier is killed and two are injured Sunday in
Mosul when a convoy is attacked.
[69]
King Harald V of
Norway successfully undergoes a 5½-hour
cancer operation in which his bladder is removed and a new one constructed, at Rikshospitalet University Hospital in
Oslo.
[71]
In
San Juan, Puerto Rico, four men are killed and a woman critically injured during a massacre in a discotheque. It is the largest massacre in Puerto Rico since
1988.
[75] (in
Spanish)
750,000 people crowd the streets of
London to see the victory parade of the
England rugby team following their victory in the
Rugby Union World Cup.
[77]
Greek electronic game ban: The Greek government in an attempt to fight illegal gambling passes an old decision (1107414/1491/T. & E. F.) regarding the 3037/2002 law.
A
suicide bombing in central
Moscow at 11 a.m. local time (0800
UTC) kills six people and wounds 13 others. The police reports that one of the dead bombers has been identified as a woman.
[79]
Doctors at the U.S.
Centers for Disease Control are worried that the 2003-2004
influenza season will be the worst in years. Early signs indicate that a particularly virulent strain of the flu
virus that is not well-covered by this year's
vaccine is hitting hard in some states. Young children and the elderly have been urged to receive the vaccine, doses of which are running low.
[80][permanent dead link]
Some 60
U.S. soldiers and a handful of
Iraqis are injured in
Tal Afar, west of
Mosul, when a pre-dawn
car bomb explodes at an entrance to an army base.
[83][84]
A U.S.
Kiowa helicopter makes a controlled landing after being struck by an
RPG near
Fallujah; the two-man crew is uninjured.
[85]
Canada's
BC Ferry system experiences a total shutdown due to
job action by its union, after an 80-day cooling-off period, imposed by the provincial government, was not rescinded.
[97]
Elizabeth II,
Queen of Canada, issues a proclamation officially acknowledging the deportation of the
Acadians, 248 years after it took place. The proclamation is delivered by Heritage Minister
Sheila Copps, who is of Acadian descent.
[108]
In
Israel, an explosion at a money exchange office in a shopping district near the city center of
Tel Aviv at 1230 local time (1030
UTC) kills three and injures at least eighteen people. Police say the cause of the explosion was probably criminal rather than terrorist.
[115]
A general
strike in
Quebec interrupts road and port traffic as well as non-essential surgeries and day-care service in
Montreal,
Quebec City, and
Trois-Rivières. The strike was called in opposition to the
Charest government's policies.
[116]
Queen
Elizabeth II has a benign non-
cancerous growth removed from her face.
Buckingham Palace confirms the removed growths will be subject to further tests but denies there are any cancer fears surrounding the 77-year-old
sovereign. She also underwent a knee operation.
[123]
Keiko (whale) from Warner Brothers movie's Free Willy dies at age 27, at
Norway's bay
In
Haiti the biggest anti-government demonstrations in a decade take place, calling for the removal of
President Aristide; after nightfall, squadrons of armed Aristide supporters take to the streets in response.
[128][129]Archived 2007-03-13 at the
Wayback Machine
Spain has announced an agreement with
Morocco to proceed with plans to build a rail
tunnel beneath the
Strait of Gibraltar, linking Europe and Africa. Assuming the project is technically and financially feasible, digging would start in
2008.
[133],
[134]
Wanderley Carlos Stringhini, retired partner of Ernst Young, dies at age 51, of suicide. During his life, he was partly responsible for the founding of
Ernst Young offices in
Curitiba,
Blumenau, and
Porto Alegre.
Iraq's Civil Administrator
L. Paul Bremer announces that
Saddam Hussein was
captured by US forces. Saddam was found approximately 15 km south of his home town of
Tikrit at 2030 local time on
December 13. Hussein was captured without resistance in a so-called "
spider-hole" at a farmhouse in the town of
ad-Dawr. He is in
Coalition custody at an undisclosed location. At a press conference, Bremer presents video of Saddam in custody with a full beard, which is later shown removed. Bremer says that Saddam is in good health and is being "co-operative and talkative". He says that Saddam will "face justice" before an Iraqi court and under Iraqi law.
[142][143][144][145]
In an address to his nation, US president
George W. Bush comments on the capture of Saddam, "Now the former dictator of Iraq will face the justice he denied to millions."
[146]
British Prime Minister
Tony Blair welcomes the capture of Saddam, urging the Iraqi people "to reach out and to reconcile." Other world leaders offer similar sentiments: Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov says that the arrest "will contribute to the strengthening of security in Iraq and to the process of political regulation in the country," while UN Secretary General Kofi Annan comments that Saddam's capture provides a chance "to give fresh impetus to the search for peace and stability in Iraq".
[147][148]
A
car bomb explodes at a police station in
Khaldiyah, 60 km west of Baghdad, killing at least 17 and wounding 30.
[149]
US Secretary of State
Colin Powell successfully undergoes two hours of
prostate cancer surgery at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, DC.
[155]
The results of parliamentary elections in the self-proclaimed
Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus are announced: pro-
European Union parties won a narrow victory over the ruling nationalist coalition, with the opposition Republican Turkish Party becoming the largest party. However, the republic's complicated electoral system means that the two sides will each have 25 seats in the 50-seat assembly.
[158]
The
Israeli military reveals it developed a secret plan to assassinate
Saddam Hussein in retaliation for
Scud missile attacks on that country during the
Gulf War. The plan was called off after five
commandos were accidentally killed while training for the mission.
[163]
Saddam Hussein's daughter, Raghad Saddam Hussein, tells the
Dubai-based
Al Arabiya television network, Saddam "should not be tried by the
Iraqi governing council which was put in place by occupiers ... we want an international, fair and legal trial".
[164]
Mowaffaq al-Rubaie says that
Saddam Hussein will be tried in Iraq by an Iraqi court. Mowaffaq, a member of the Iraqi Governing Council, denies reports that the prisoner has been taken out of Baghdad.
[170]
Stephen Kenny, the first civilian lawyer to visit any of the former Afghan war suspects in
Guantanamo Bay, describes it as a physical and moral black hole. He says prisoners are not treated equally and that there is a pecking order with Americans being treated best. (In fact there are no Americans being held at Guantanamo Bay.)
[172][173]Archived 2005-04-08 at the
Wayback Machine
Occupation of Iraq: A fuel tanker explodes in downtown
Baghdad, killing 10 and wounding 15. Initially believed to be caused by a bomb, officials later conclude that a traffic accident was responsible.
[174]
The head of the Greek terrorist group
Revolutionary Organization 17 November and their chief hitman are jailed for life, along with four other members of the organisation.
[175]
Thomas Kean, chairman of the independent commission investigating the
September 11, 2001 attacks, says that the attacks could have been prevented and that public officials were to blame for not anticipating and pre-empting the threat. The commission's report is due in May, 2004.
[176][177]
Taiwan reports the first confirmed
SARS case in 5 months, a medical researcher who had studied the virus.
[179]
The
United StatesNational Weather Service warns of "excessive heat" after the
Earth reportedly breaks out of its orbit and begins falling into the
sun. Fortunately, it turns out to be a mistakenly published test message.
[180]
Former
Governor of IllinoisGeorge H. Ryan is indicted on corruption charges for receiving payoffs, gifts and vacations in return for government contracts and leases while he served as the Governor and Secretary of State of
Illinois.
[184]
Governor of ConnecticutJohn G. Rowland announces that he will not resign, despite allegations of corruption involving the receipt of free modifications to a vacation cottage, and the indictments of several of his top aides.
[185]
It is alleged that, in cases where their treatment of a detainee may never come under public scrutiny,
The Pentagon and
CIA are using a number of controversial techniques to extract information.
[199]
Prosecutors in
California charge singer
Michael Jackson with seven counts of child molestation and schedule hearings for January 16, 2004.
[202]
Israeli Prime Minister
Ariel Sharon warns the
Palestinian Authority that Israel will take unilateral steps to separate from the Palestinians unless there is progress on the
road map peace plan and sets a deadline of "a few months" for Palestinian compliance. The speech is strongly criticised by the
United States, the Israeli left, the Jewish settler movement and the Palestinians.
[203]
Red Hat, in its third quarter, buys
Sistina Software. Red Hat expects that it will close the deal by early January for $31 million dollars.
[204]
Sudanese authorities close the
Khartoum office of the Arab satellite channel
Al Jazeera and detain its bureau chief for questioning.
[205]
Italian dairy company
Parmalat declared a 3.96 billion euro hole in its accounts when the amount held by Cayman Islands-based unit, Bonlat Financing Corporation, was declared false by Bank of America.
[206]Archived 2013-02-01 at
archive.today
Prime Minister of JapanJunichiro Koizumi orders the deployment of Japanese forces for non-combat duties in Southern Iraq; polls show that most Japanese voters are opposed to the mission.
[211]
Flights from
Vancouver International Airport bound for the U.S. are delayed following the discovery of an envelope containing suspicious white powder and a threatening note at one of the terminals.
[212][permanent dead link]
SARS quarantine orders are lifted on up to 75 people in
Singapore but concerns remain that the deadly
virus could yet make a comeback across
Asia.
[213]
Australia sends
AU$1.2m to
Nauru so that the
Pacific island-state can pay its public servants before Christmas in a move that Foreign Minister
Alexander Downer says illustrates the need for long-term solutions to the island's deep-seated problems.
[214]
The British spacecraft
Beagle 2 successfully separates from the
ESA's
Mars Express orbiter and is now less than 10 days away from its scheduled landing on the surface of
Mars; it will attempt to parachute onto the surface on
Christmas morning.
[216][217][218]
Police seal off the printing plant and offices of
Zimbabwe's last remaining independent daily newspaper, Daily News.
[219]
CCTV footage at
Hampton Court Palace near London, once home of King
Henry VIII of England, is released, and claimed to show a "
ghost". The footage, taken in October 2003, shows a man in
16th century clothes closing a firedoor that had blown open. The palace markets itself as one of
Britain's most haunted locations.
[224][225]
Irish charity fundraiser
John O'Shea attacks
Manchester United football manager Sir
Alex Ferguson as "greedy" for demanding £90,000 to attend a
cancer charity function in Ireland in 1999. According to O'Shea, a sports celebrity demanding 'appearance money' from a charity is unheard of in his experience. Ferguson's appearance fee amounted to half the money raised. The fundraisers, until now unaware that Ferguson had taken half the proceeds, denounce his behaviour and say if they had known about it at the time they would have cancelled the event.
Former
Argentinian president
Carlos Menem is charged with tax fraud for failing to declare a
Swiss bank account containing $600,000. If convicted he could be debarred from public office.
[227]
The
World Court says it will hear legal arguments about
Israel's construction of a controversial barrier in the
West Bank to separate Israeli and
Palestinian areas. The hearings will begin on 23 February 2004.
[228]
Massive landslides in the
Philippines caused by heavy rain result in the deaths of up to 90 people.
[230]
A
Malaysian opposition
website is shut down by its
British web-hosting company amid claims of "political censorship" from the opposition.
[231]
Zimbabwean opposition leader
Morgan Tsvangirai tells his supporters to "fight fear" as they campaign against President
Robert Mugabe. His comments follow the decision of Zimbabwe's police to occupy the offices of Zimbabwe's only privately owned
newspaper in defiance of a court order that the newspaper could resume publication.
[232]
A senior French police source claims
Diana, Princess of Wales was pregnant when she was killed in a car crash in Paris in
1997. A
Clarence House spokesperson for
The Prince of Wales refuses to comment on the issue.
Mohamed Al-Fayed, the father of Diana's partner
Dodi Al-Fayed had long insisted that Diana was pregnant with Dodi's baby and that she was murdered to stop her from giving birth.
[243][244]
Quoting an unnamed senior British military intelligence officer, a report in the Sunday Express (Britain) claims that before
Saddam Hussein was captured by US troops, he had already been discovered by the
Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK). Kurdish forces had been alerted to his location by a member of the al-Jabour tribe whose daughter had been raped by Saddam's son
Uday Hussein.
[245]
Retired Gen.
Wesley Clark presented 4,000 petition signatures to qualify for
South Carolina's Democratic presidential primary ballot today. He's the second of the nine candidates for the
Democratic nomination to file for the
February 3 ballot. Campaign workers for Sen.
John Kerry of
Massachusetts gave the state Democratic Party a check for $2,500 last week to qualify.
The
Gulf Cooperation Council announces that they will revise school textbooks and remove from them material describing followers of other religions as
infidels and enemies of
Islam.
[254]
SCO claims in a press release to be sending
DMCA notification letters alleging copyright infringement
[255][256]
Linus Torvalds says, in a post to the
Linux kernelmailing list, "... I think we can totally _demolish_ the SCO claim that these 65 files were somehow "copied". They clearly are not."[257]
Novell has also registered their claim to the copyright of original
UNIX source code, effectively challenging SCO's registration of the same code
[258][259]
The
Philippines declares a calamity in a southern province after floods killed up to 209 people.
[262]
Drive-By Truckers' bassist, Earl Hicks, leaves the band and is replaced by Shonna Tucker.
Brett Favre played one of the most memorable games of his career, leading the
Green Bay Packers to a win over the
Oakland Raiders, 41-7, the day after the death of his father, Irvin.
The
United States Department of Agriculture confirms the first case of
BSE (mad cow disease) in the
United States, detected at a small slaughter house. The USDA has found no evidence that the infected materials made it into the food supply. Specimens have been sent to the
United Kingdom for further analysis. Authorities quarantined a ranch near
Yakima where the animal was raised.
[264][265]
Bolivian President
Carlos Mesa declares a state of emergency because of flooding in central Bolivia, which killed at least 19 people and collapsed a bridge crucial to Bolivian exports.
[272]
Following
Beagle 2's expected landing, US probe
Mars Odyssey (already in
Martian orbit) listens for the lander's distinctive musical callsign. A further scan for the lander is conducted using the
Jodrell Bankradio telescope. No signal is detected.
[274][275]
An Israeli helicopter gunship attacks a car in
Gaza City, killing
Islamic Jihad commander
Mekled Hameid and two fellow militants, together with two bystanders.
[276]
A suicide-bomber strikes a bus stop
Tel Aviv, killing four civilians and himself.
[277]
A
UK lab confirms the presence of
BSE in samples taken from a cow in Washington
[279].
Mexico joins the list of countries which have banned imports of US beef.
Reports emerge of a major leak of
natural gas in a gas field near the south-western
Chinese city of
Chongqing. Over 100 people are believed dead and up to 40,000 people have been evacuated from the area surrounding the leak.
[280]
A
powerful earthquake occurs near the southern
Iranian city of
Bam at 0156 GMT (5.26am local time). The
USGS estimates its magnitude as 6.7 on the
Richter scale. The BBC reports that "70% of the modern city of Bam" is destroyed. Iranian government officials estimate the death toll at over 20,000 with a further 50,000 injured.
Bam Citadel the largest
adobe structure of the world is destroyed. The area of the citadel is about 180,000 square meters and the construction date of parts of it goes back for about 2500 years.
[282][283][284]
The death toll in the Chinese gas-leak rises to 191.
[285]
The estimate of the number of dead in the
Bam earthquake increases to 40,000, according to the provincial governor.
Iran has refused earthquake aid from
Israel.
[287]
British scientists are continuing their efforts to make contact with the
Mars probe
Beagle 2, which was designed to perform advanced studies of the Martian soil in an effort to find microbial life.
[291]Archived 2007-09-07 at the
Wayback Machine
The
United States Department of Homeland Security announces that it will require armed security personnel on all airline flights, whether US or foreign carriers, when the department has intelligence that there is a threat to a flight.
[294]
Cuban officials are investigating who is responsible for altering a photograph of
Fidel Castro on the front page of the official government
newspaper, Granma, to make him look like
Adolf Hitler.
[295]
The
Federal Bureau of Investigation issues a memo instructing police to be alert of people carrying
almanacs, stating that information in these reference works could be used to aid in the planning of terrorist attacks.
[296]
Occupation of Iraq: A
car bomb detonates outside an upmarket
Baghdad restaurant much favoured by foreign journalists, killing five New Year revelers.
[302]