January 2004
2004 :
January -
February -
March -
April -
May -
June -
July - August - September - October - November - December
January 31, 2004
January 30, 2004
\n*Hutton Inquiry: Reporter
Andrew Gilligan resigns from the
BBC in the continuing fallout of the publication of
Lord Hutton's report into the circumstances of the death of Dr
David Kelly. This follows the earlier resignation of the
Director-General Greg Dyke and chairman of the Board of Governors
Gavyn Davies.
[1] [1]\n* Former
French Prime Minister and current Mayor of
Bordeaux Alain Juppe is convicted of a party funding scam in the
1980s and early
1990s, and is given an 18 month suspended jail sentence and disqualified from elected office for 10 years, although he retains his mayoralty pending his appeal. He had been viewed as
Jacques Chirac's likely successor in the 2007 Presidential election.
[1]\n*
Muslims begin the annual
Hajj today amid fears of a possible attack by Saudi-born
Osama bin Laden's
al Qaeda network.
[1]\n* Sheik
Ahmed Yassin, leader of
Hamas, announces that his group is making an all-out effort to kidnap
Israeli soldiers to use as bargaining chips for
Palestinians in Israeli prisons, following the prisoner exchange between
Israel and
Hezbollah in which the remains of three Israeli soldiers and a businessman were exchanged for over 400 prisoners on
January 29,
2004.
[1]\n* Self-confessed
German cannibal Armin Meiwes is sentenced to 8 years and 6 months' imprisonment for
manslaughter [1]. The prosecution had sought a life sentence for murder.\n*
David Bradley, creator of the famous "
Ctrl-Alt-Del" keystroke combination, retires from
IBM.
[1]
January 29, 2004
\n* A 60-ton sperm whale carcass explodes in downtown
Tainan,
Taiwan, causing traffic chaos and showering vehicles and pedestrians with blood and entrails.
[1]\n* A report submitted today to the State of
Maryland states that the
electronic voting machiness made by
Diebold "have such poor computer security and physical security that an election could be disrupted or even stolen by corrupt insiders or determined outsiders". The machines have been purchased by a number of states in the
United States.
[1] This is the third report to state that the machines do not meet the security requirements of an election. Previous reports are available online:
[1],
[1].\n*
Hutton Inquiry: The
BBC Director-General,
Greg Dyke, resigns in the continuing fall-out from the report. Mr Dyke is the second high-ranking BBC official to resign.
Mark Byford is appointed Acting Director-General.
[1] The UK media in general condemns the report as a whitewash.
[1]\n* The
Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades of
Fatah claim responsibility for a
suicide bombing aboard a city bus, in which Ali Yusuf Jaara, a member of the
Palestinian police force, kills 10
Israelis and wounds more than 50, outside the Prime Minister's residence in
Jerusalem. Simultaneously with the bombing,
Shaul Mofaz,
Israeli Defense Minister, is meeting with American envoys Wolfe and Sauterfield, who have requested an easing-up of conditions for the Palestinians. The explosion also coincides with a German-brokered prisoner swap between Israel and the Lebanese
guerrilla group
Hezbollah.
[1] [1] [1]
January 28, 2004
January 27, 2004
\n* The People's Republic of China announces an outbreak of the deadly H5N1 strain of
avian influenza in the autonomous region of
Guangxi, becoming the 10th country in Asia to do so
[1]. There are suspected cases in
Hunan and
Hubei provinces
[1] [1].\n* British Prime Minister
Tony Blair narrowly defeats a rebellion in his own party over the
Higher Education Bill - a highly controversial bill to reform
higher education funding, including the introduction of increased and variable
tuition fees. It is approved in the
House of Commons by 316 votes to 311.
[1] [1]\n*
U.S. presidential election, 2004: Senator
John Kerry wins the
New Hampshire primary.
Howard Dean comes second.\n*
Academy Awards: nominations announced, leading films are
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (11),
Master and Commander (10),
Seabiscuit (7),
Mystic River (6), and
Cold Mountain (6).
Keisha Castle-Hughes, at 13, becomes the youngest nominee ever for the
Academy Award for Best Actress\n* A new
e-mail worm,
Novarg/Mydoom, is spreading rapidly to thousands of machines running
Microsoft Windows. It rapidly becomes the fastest-spreading e-mail worm to date.
[1],
[1],
[1],
[1],
[1] [1].
January 26, 2004
\n* President Hamid Karzai signs into law the new constitution of
Afghanistan.
[1]\n*
Avian influenza has now been detected in a total of nine countries, with
Pakistan and
Laos as the latest additions. Pakistan has detected less dangerous strains H7 and H9. A six-year-old
Thai boy became the seventh victim in
Asia, with another ten suspected cases in the country. Around 19 million chickens have been slaughtered as a result of fighting the spread of the flu. The
World Health Organisation expresses concern about a serious human outbreak. (WHO)
[2]class="external">[1\n*In
Fellers v. United States, the
United States Supreme Court unanimously reaffirms the
Miranda Warning.
[1]\n*A federal judge in
Los Angeles, California declares a portion of the
USA Patriot Act, banning "expert advice and assistance" to suspected foreign
terrorist groups, to be
unconstitutional.
[1]\n*The House of Representatives of
Connecticut votes unanimously to investigate the dealings of
Governor John Rowland, a step which might lead to
impeachment proceedings. Rowland is accused of using state contractors for his personal gain.
[1]\n*The
US Energy Department's Inspector General releases a report stating that guards at the Y-12
enriched uranium storage facility in
Oak Ridge, Tennessee have been cheating on
security drills, possibly for 20 years.
[1] [1]\n* Top
Hamas official
Abdel-Aziz al-Rantissi offered a 10-year
truce if
Israel would withdraw from territory occupied since 1967 and acknowledge the creation of a Palestinian state. Israel dismissed the peace offer as "ridiculous".
[1]
January 25, 2004
\n* Georgia's new president,
Mikhail Saakashvili, is sworn in.
[1]\n*
Chess player
Viswanathan Anand wins in group A of the
Corus chess tournament. Thirteen-year-old Norwegian prodigy,
Magnus Carlsen, wins in group C.
[1]\n*
David Kay says, in his opinion,
Iraq had no banned
WMD stockpiles: "I don't think they existed," Kay said, "What everyone was talking about is stockpiles produced after the end of the last (1991)
Gulf War, and I don't think there was a large-scale production program in the '90s."
[1] David Kay also says that part of
Saddam Hussein's secret weapons programme may have been hidden in
Syria.
[1] [1] Syria denies receiving Iraq arms.
[1]\n*
Indonesia announces that millions of birds have died from
avian flu in the last few months.
[1]\n*
Golden Globe Awards: Major winners include
The Return of the King,
Lost in Translation and
Angels in America.
January 24, 2004
\n* Mars Exploration Rover Mission\n**
NASA isolates the
flash memory aboard
Spirit as the most probable cause of communications problems; work continues on a method to operate the rover without it.
[1]\n**
MER-B Opportunity successfully lands on Mars and continues communications through all stages.
January 23, 2004
\n* David Kay steps down from
Iraq Survey Group.
George Tenet names former UN weapons inspector Charles Duelfer to succeed Kay.
[1]\n* The
International Monetary Fund has joined the
World Bank in forgiving US$4 billion of the $6.5bn debt owed by
Nicaragua, sharply reducing the nation's overall debt payments.
[1]\n* The
European Space Agency's
Mars Express orbiter directly detects water
ice in the southern polar region of the planet
Mars.
[1] [1]\n*
NASA's
Spirit rover communicated with Earth in a signal detected by NASA's
Deep Space Network antenna complex near
Madrid, Spain, at 12:34 Universal Time (4:34 a.m. PST) this morning. The transmissions came during a communication window about 90 minutes after Spirit woke up for the morning on Mars. The signal lasted for 10 minutes at a data rate of 10 bits per second. Mission controllers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., plan to send commands to Spirit seeking additional data from the spacecraft during the subsequent few hours.
[1] The flight team for NASA's Spirit received data from the rover in another communication session that began at 13:26 Universal Time (5:26 a.m. PST) and lasted 20 minutes at a data rate of 120 bits per second.
[1]\n* A
Thai man suspected of having
bird flu died, according to the Public Health Ministry.
[1]\n*At least 51 people, including a
bridegroom, were killed on Friday when a fire ripped through a makeshift wedding hall in the southern
Indian state of
Tamil Nadu during a marriage ceremony.
[1]\n*An explosion has killed two people at
Zhengzhou railway station, one of the
People's Republic of China's biggest transport hubs.
[1]
January 22, 2004
\n*Mars Exploration Rover Mission:
MER-A Spirit rover stops transmitting meaningful data and has thought to have gone into 'safe mode'. The cause of this is unknown but the rover is still able to send back a simple acknowledgement tone.
[1]\n*Staff members of the
United States Republican Party are accused of infiltrating
Democratic Party computers and making copies of confidential files stored on the compromised computers. The infiltrations reportedly began in early 2002.
[1]\n*
Maher Arar sues the
United States government for having deported him to
Syria and not
Canada, his country of citizenship. He was reportedly tortured in Syria.
[1]\n*
Enron Corporation:
Richard Causey, former chief accounting officer was indicted in
Houston, Texas on federal charges of securities fraud and conspiracy for his role in masking Enron's faltering fiscal health in late
2001. He has pled not guilty.
[1]\n*
Zimbabwe's only independent daily newspaper resumes publishing.
[1]
January 21, 2004
\n* The International Olympic Committee urges
Athens to continue working round-the-clock for the
2004 Summer Olympics. The deadline is for
August 13.
[1]\n*
Norwegian Crown Prince Haakon Magnus's wife
Crown Princess Mette-Marit gives birth to a daughter, at 0913 local time (0813 UTC), at Rikshospitalet University Hospital in
Oslo. The newborn princess, named Ingrid Alexandra, weighs in at 3,686
gramss and is 51
cm tall. She is second in succession to the Norwegian throne.
[1] [1]\n* The latest
World Economic Forum event opens in
Davos,
Switzerland, with a keynote address by
Iranian President
Mohammad Khatami.\n* The
Royal Canadian Mounted Police raid the residence of
Ottawa Citizen reporter Juliet O'Neill for the purposes of searching for evidence of leaked information in the
Maher Arar deportation scandal. It was widely denounced by media groups and civil libertarians
January 20, 2004
\n*2004 Canadian Federal Election:
Belinda Stronach officially announces her run for leadership of the
Conservative Party of Canada.
[1]\n*
Martha Stewart pleads not guilty to five criminal counts that include conspiracy, obstruction of justice and securities fraud stemming from a sale of
ImClone stock in
2001. Conviction on any of the charges against her could put Ms. Stewart in federal prison. The five counts carry a total prison term of 30 years and a $1.25 million fine.
[1]\n*Colonel Rashid Abu Shbak of the
Palestinian Authority, said that information was still coming in and the investigating team had been upgraded, but he had no new leads on who was behind the bombing attack of an
American diplomatic convoy on
October 15,
2002. Three people died in the attack. U.S. officials have been stopped from going to
Gaza since the attack. No decision has been made yet on when they might be allowed to return. Col. Shbak blamed
Israel for the lack of progress in the investigation.
[1]
January 19, 2004
\n*Cargo ship "MS Rocknes" with a crew of 30 including the pilot capsizes near Bergen, Norway at 1630 local time (1530
UTC). Two people are reported dead and 16 still missing the morning after the accident. The ship was carrying a heavy load of rocks for use as shielding on top of a gas pipeline to
Emden, Germany from the Norwegian Ormen Lange offshore gas field.
[1]\n* The
English Court of Appeal calls for an end to the prosecution of parents whose babies may have died of
Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (cot death) in cases where the only evidence is contended expert testimony.
[1]\n* The
European Space Agency releases detailed colour images of the surface of
Mars, taken by its orbiting
Mars Express probe.
[1]\n*
NASA's
Spirit rover arrives at its inital destination, a rock named "
Adirondack", and prepares for analysis.
[1] [1] \n*
U.S. presidential election, 2004: The
Iowa caucuses yield unexpectedly strong results for
Democratic candidates
John Kerry, who earns 38% of the state's delegates and
John Edwards, who takes 32%. Former front-runner
Howard Dean slips to 18%, and
Richard Gephardt's fourth-place (11%) finish
[1] [1] prompts him to end his presidential bid.
[1]\n*
Yigal Amir,
assassin of
Yitzhak Rabin, plans to marry.
[1]\n* "
Snow White and The Madness of Truth" displayed at a
Stockholm museum is again vandalized. A Russian-Jewish artist floats another image in the pool, that of
Mijailo Mijailovic, the murderer of Swedish foreign minister
Anna Lindh.
[1]\n*
José María Aznar's government in Spain is dissolved prior to March general elections. He has said he will not run for a third term of office.
[1].
January 18, 2004
\n*Occupation of Iraq: At around 8 A.M. local time (5 A.M. GMT) in
Baghdad,
Iraq, an
insurgent suicide bomber driving a car filled with explosives blows himself up while attempting to enter "Assassin's Gate." Early reports say that about 18 people, including 16 Iraqi civilians and two
United States Department of Defense workers were killed, while another 56 Iraqi civilians were wounded.
[1]\n*Israeli Prime Minister
Ariel Sharon praises the Israeli ambassador to Sweden,
Zvi Mazel, for vandalising the artwork entitled "
Snow White and The Madness of Truth" displayed at a
Stockholm museum. The piece, created by an Israeli-born composer/musician, consists of a white float carrying a picture of a Palestinian suicide bomber in a pool of blood-coloured water. Mazel was caught on surveillance video disconnecting the electric power from the display and throwing a lamp into the water. Mazel says, "This exhibit was the culmination of dozens of anti-Israel and anti-Jewish events in Sweden."
[1]n cricketer and current
Victorian coach
David Hookes is rushed to hospital after being hit from behind during a brawl outside the Beaconsfield Hotel in
St. Kilda, Melbourne. He is "technically dead" by the time paramedics arrive, but is revived, and is placed in
Melbourne's Alfred Hospital in a coma and on life support.
[1]
January 17, 2004
\n*Planned NASA servicing missions for the Hubble Space Telescope are cancelled. Safety concerns are cited as the main reason behind the decision.
class="external">[1\n*
Human cloning: Fertility expert Dr.
Panos Zavos claims to have successfully transplanted a two week old embryo into a 35 year old woman. He said he had not done the act anywhere where "the spirit of the law" was against such a procedure.
[1]\n*
George Papandreou of
Greece promised that he will suggest to sign a mutual agreement with
Turkey for lowering their defense
military expenses.
[1] (Greek).\n*Protesters call for resignation of German Federal Police chief Ulrich Kersten: about 6,000 people demonstrates against moving Germany's Federal Police (BKA) headquarters from
Wiesbaden to
Berlin.
[1]
January 16, 2004
\n*Chen Shui-bian makes a televised address reiterating the
Four Noes and One Without pledge and announcing the two questions for a referendum to coincide with the
ROC presidential election, 2004 on
March 20.
class="external">[1\n*U.S. President
George W. Bush appoints
Charles Pickering to the
U.S. federal appeals court. His nomination was filibustered in the
U.S. Senate, so President Bush made a
recess appointment.
[1]\n*
Earthquake in Iran: Iran updates the death toll from the
Bam earthquake to 41,000 people. The final figure could be as high as 45,000.
[1]\n*The
People's Republic of China arrests a top
Hong Kong official into custody over suspicion of espionage for
United Kingdom.
[1]\n*
Nunavut general election, 2004: Premier
Paul Okalik of
Nunavut,
Canada, requests a dissolution of the territory's legislature and an election call for
February 16.
[1]\n*On or around this date, the
United States national debt passes
US$77 trillion.
January 15, 2004
\n*The United Nations sides with the
United States on voting in
Iraq.
Secretary-General Kofi Annan and other UN officials call direct elections in advance of July
2004 impractical, due to continuing disorder in Iraq and other factors.
[1]\n*30,000
Shiite protesters in
Basra call for immediate country-wide elections in
Iraq, a move that would give them more power than the UN-backed plan for regional caucuses mandated by the US-led coalition
[1]\n*
South Korea's foreign minister Yoon Young-kwan resigns after a controversy in which his ministry was accused of diverging from the government's policy of increased independence from the
United States.
[1]\n*The
European Union asks the
World Trade Organization for authorization to impose
trade sanctions against the
United States in response to the U.S.'s anti-
dumping scheme, which has been ruled illegal by the WTO.
[1]\n*
Canadian federal election, 2004: Former
Ontario Health Minister
Tony Clement declares his candidacy for the leadership of the
Conservative Party of Canada. Also confirmed is the candidacy of auto parts magnate
Belinda Stronach, who will announce her entry into the leadership race next week.
[1] has indicted three
Germans, all former members of an
SS Panzergrenadier Division, on charges of massacring 560 people in
1944 in the Italian village of
Sant'Anna di Stazzema. The three Germans, Gerhard Sommer, 83; Alfred Schonenberg, 83; and Ludwig Sonntag, 80, are currently living in Germany. It is not clear whether Italy will request the three men?s
extradition from Germany.
[1]\n*
U.S. presidential election, 2004:
Carol Moseley Braun drops out of the race and endorses Dr.
Howard Dean,confirming rumors circulating the night before as she taped an appearance on
The Daily Show.
[1]\n*The date for the publication of the
Hutton Inquiry's report into the death of
British weapons scientist Dr
David Kelly is announced as
January 28,
2004.
[1]\n*The creditors of ailing
Finnish low-cost carrier Flying Finn have threatened to confiscate the airline's planes.
[1]\n*
Exploration of Mars: The
Spirit Rover has rolled off its lander to start its exploration. The first journey was only three metres. It took the rover about 78 seconds, ending with the back of the rover being 0.7 metres from the lander.
[1]\n* The
World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) announces the release of the Composite Capability/Preference Profiles (CC/PP 1.0). W3C's new standard profiling language CC/PP provides a standardized format of the description of information that will allow
Web-enabled devices to effectively communicate their capabilities to the desired
server and aids in delivering Web content to broad range of devices.\n*
José Bono, a prominent
Socialist Spanish politician, is recorded calling
Tony Blair "a complete dickhead" (
un gilipollas integral).
[1], like
Tintin, turns 75 this month.
[1]
January 14, 2004
\n* J.P. Morgan Chase strikes a $58 billion merger deal to buy
Bank One to create the second-largest
bank in the United States.\n*
Iraq and weapons of mass destruction: Tests performed by American and Danish military experts indicate no chemical agents are present in the "suspicious"
mortar shells discovered in Iraq on
January 9th.
[1]\n* Self-confessed killer of Swedish FM
Anna Lindh, 25 year old
Mijailo Mijailovic, says during cross-examination in a
Stockholm court that he
heard voices in his head commanding him to attack Lindh when he encountered her in a Stockholm shopping mall 10 September last year. Lindh died the next day from the many stab wounds she received.
[1]\n*
Federal Reserve Bank Chairman
Alan Greenspan said, "It's just a matter of time before we begin to see employment start to pick up quite significantly, as it always has in the past." Greenspan is also not worried about the fall of the dollar or the half trillion dollar U.S. trade deficit.
[1]\n*
Israeli-Palestinian conflict:\n** Reem Raiyshi, a
Palestinian suicide bomber, kills four border guards at the Erez checkpoint. She is the first
female suicide bomber used by
Hamas. Four months ago
Israel targeted Hamas leadership, including
Ahmed Yassin, as a result Hamas halted all suicide bombing for four months.
[1]\n** Jack Kelley,
USA TODAY foreign correspondent and a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize just two years ago, was forced to resign after the newspaper determined he repeatedly misled editors during an internal investigation into stories he wrote. Among the stories that are being investigated is one published Sept. 4, 2001, contains an account of an attack on Palestinians by 13 Jewish settlers in the West Bank. Mark Memmott, the reporter asked to investigate Kelley, said he could not find anyone with first-hand knowledge of the attack.
[1]\n* A secondary school student in the Netherlands kills a teacher in his school cafeteria.
[1]\n*
Greek electronic game ban: Greek police raid Internet cafés in
Larissa. 80 computers are taken by the police as evidence and 3 Internet café owners are arrested.
[1] (in Greek).\n*
Education in Greece: 114 University professors sign a document against
George Papandreou's positions on private universities and their recognition (
anagnorisi).
[1] (Greek)\n*
Jacques Delors referred to
Prime Minister of
Greece Costas Simitis, Prime Minister of
Luxembourg Jean-Claude Juncker, and former Prime Minister of
Belgium Jean Luc Dehaene as the top three candidates for the position of the President of the
European Commission.
[1]\n* A 45-year old Sudanese man travelling from
Washington Dulles International Airport to aiport
Dubai is arrested enroute at London's
Heathrow Airport on suspicion of carrying 5 bullets in his coat pocket.
class="external">[1\n* U.S. President
George W. Bush, in a speech at
NASA headquarters, announces a plan to develop a new space vehicle to return humans to the
moon by the year
2015 and proposes the retirement of the
space shuttle fleet by 2010 along with a $1 billion funding increase for NASA.
[1] [1]\n*
Enron Corporation: Former
CFO Andrew Fastow and his wife Lea Fastow, former Assistant Treasurer, accept a
plea agreement. Andrew Fastow will serve a ten-year prison sentence and forfeit $23.8 million. Lea Fastow will serve a five-month prison sentence and a year of supervised release, including five months of house arrest. Both will provide testimony against other Enron corporate officers.
[1] and
Greece: 22 Turkish military aircrafts entered into the Greek
Athens FIR. 5 of these aircrafts were loaded with ammunition. Greek aircrafts intercepted them. Source:
Athens News Agency and
in.gr.
[1] (Greek)
January 13, 2004
\n* Israeli-Palestinian Conflict:
Tom Hurndall, a
British peace activist with the
International Solidarity Movement, dies after being shot in the head by an Israeli soldier on
April 11 2003. The Israeli government say that they may consider bringing
manslaughter charges against the soldier; the man's family claim that he should be tried for
murder.
[1]\n*
Education in Greece: Debate over the private universities issue and
George Papandreou, junior's suggestions (see January 9) between
New Democracy and
Panhellenic Socialist Movement.
[1] (Greek)\n*The Constitutional Court of
Italy strikes down a law enacted to give Prime Minister
Silvio Berlusconi immunity from
prosecution while in office.
[1]\n*
British serial killer Dr
Harold Shipman is found dead in his cell.
[1]\n*The Bichard Inquiry into events preceding the
Soham murders formally opens
[1] [1]\n*
Occupation of Iraq: A
United States Army AH-64 Apache attack helicopter is shot down near the central Iraqi town of Habbaniya, but is able to land without casualties.
[1]\n*A
Yak-40 airliner en route from Termez in
Uzbekistan crashes near the capital
Tashkent, killing all 37 crew and passengers, including the
U.N's top official in the country, Richard Conroy.
[1]\n*
Robin Cook says that the
British Museum's
Parthenon Marbles must be returned to
Greece.
[1] (Greek),
[1] (English),
[1] (Background, English)
January 12, 2004
\n*The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office announces the
ten top United States patent recipients. For the 11th year in a row,
IBM tops the list; the next three in the list are headquartered in
Japan. Companies from the
Netherlands (
Philips) and Korea (
Samsung) also make appearances.
[1]\n*The
U.S. State Department concludes that the
Israeli attack on USS Liberty in
1967, although probably accidental, was an act of gross
negligence and that Israel should be held responsible.
[1] [1]\n*
Canadian federal election, 2004:
Stephen Harper announces his entry into the race to lead the new
Conservative Party of Canada. Earlier today,
Jim Prentice drops out of the leadership contest, citing a lack of funds.
[1]\n*
Israeli-Palestinian conflict: Over 100,000 people rally in
Tel Aviv to
protest Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's plans to withdraw from parts of
Gaza and the
West Bank, which would involve abandoning some
Israeli settlements in those areas.
[1]\n* The deadline for
SCO Group to present evidence "with specificity" in the
SCO v. IBM lawsuit expires\n* IBM and Intel Set Up $10m SCO Defense Fund.
[1]\n*Astronauts on board the
International Space Station think that a leak in a hose used to stop the fogging of an Earth observation window was causing the slow loss of pressure in the station. Although it would have taken a couple of months for the crew to be in any danger, some equipment on the station was only rated to just below the normal pressure. Although the cause appears to have been located, ground controllers are still getting the crew to close the station into three sections to allow them to get baseline pressure readings and to make sure that there are no more leaks.
[1]\n*
Computer Associates says may face SEC civil action: Software company Computer Associates International Inc, which is under investigation by federal regulators over its accounting practices, says it may face civil charges for improper accounting of revenue in fiscal 2000.
[1]'s provincial governors are threatening to resign unless a decision by the conservative
Guardian Council is reversed.
[1]\n*
Mars Exploration Rover Mission: The
Spirit's air bags that cushioned its landing on Mars have been obstructing the vehicle's path, and this complication has postponed its exit of the launch vehicle until Wednesday or Thursday.
[1]\n*The
World Wildlife Fund-
UK reports that the
orangutan is in danger of becoming
extinct within the next 20 years because of commercial
logging and clearance for
oil palm plantations.
[1] Ali Khamenei, religious leader of
Iran, announces that he will not intervene in a growing political confrontation between progressives and hardliners after the Guardian Council, which he controls, barred thousands of candidates from running in upcoming Parliamentary elections (including 80 current members of Parliament).
[1]
January 11, 2004
\n*Exploration of Mars:
NASA's
Spirit rover now has its arm and all six of its wheels free, and only a single cable must be cut before it can turn and roll off its lander onto the soil of Mars. As that milestone is completed, scientists are taking opportunities to take extra pictures and gather other data.
[1]\n*
Occupation of Iraq:\n**U.S. military records show that attacks against coalition soldiers have decreased by 22% in the four weeks following the
capture of Saddam Hussein.
[1]\n**More protests in Amarah take place. Demonstrators, many of them related to the victims of
January 10, requested compensation. No significant violence reported.
[1]
\n
January 10, 2004
\n*Occupation of Iraq: Protests in the city of Amarah because of
unemployment occur. Police officers and soldiers open fire on demonstrators. Five or six are killed and one or eleven wounded.
[1]\n* In publicity for a new book for which former
U.S Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill is the primary source,
60 Minutes reveals O'Neill's claims that the
Bush administration was making plans for an
invasion of Iraq within days of Bush's
inauguration. Bush officials note that
regime change in Iraq had been official U.S. policy since 1998, three years before Bush took office. O'Neill, fired for his opposition to
tax cuts, also characterized Bush as so disengaged in
cabinet meetings that he "was like a blind man in a roomful of deaf people". On the positive side, O'Neill also described Bush as such a good listener that he (O'Neill) was able to give a non-stop monologue for nearly an hour in a one-on-one meeting.
[1]\n*
SCO v. IBM:
SCO Group claims that it has has "low-level talks" with
Google about a possible license agreement related to
Linux.
[1]\n*
Iraq and weapons of mass destruction: On
January 9,
2004,
Danish troops discovered decade-old
mortar rounds containing suspicious liquid buried in Southern
Iraq. Initial tests now indicate that the rounds contain the banned
chemical weapon blister gas. Final tests should be available in two days.
[1] [1]\n* A speed boat carrying
illegal immigrants from
Albania, bound for
Italy broke down and capsized. 11 people survived, while as many as 21 died due to drowning and exposure. Two have been arrested by Albanian authorities for
people smuggling, while other senior officials have been implicated in connection with the tragedy.
[1] [1] [1]
January 9, 2004
\n* Education in Greece:
George Papandreou, junior talks about the possibility to allow private universities in
Greece.
[1] (Greek)\n*
Turkey fully abolishes the
death penalty.
[1]\n*
USA lowers the
terrorism advisory level to yellow (elevated) from orange (high).
[1]\n*
Bangladesh bans books published by the
Ahmadiyya movement, an
Islamic sect.
[1]\n*
Exploration of Mars: Engineers at
JPL decide to turn the Mars
Spirit Rover around on its lander after it was found the airbags could not be retracted enough to allow it to move off in a forward direction. It is expected the rover will drive off sometime next week. The Rover has also stood up and deployed its front wheels.
[1] [1]\n*Two
volcanoes erupt: the Piton de la Fournaise on
Réunion Island, and the
Volcán de Fuego near
Antigua Guatemala,
Guatemala. The eruption in Guatemala is not thought to be serious enough to require evacuations.
[1]\n*In
Guatemala City, fifteen people die and twenty are hurt when a public bus collides with a crane.
[1] [1] \n*
Enron Corporation: Former Assistant Treasurer Lea Fastow and wife of
Andrew Fastow, failed to respond to a
plea agreement by the deadline. The offer would have allowed her to plead guilty in federal court to lesser charges and serve five months in return for her testimony. Her trial for conspiracy to commit wire fraud, money laundering, and tax evasion is scheduled to start
February 10.
[1]
January 8, 2004
\n* Levi Strauss & Co. shuts its last U.S.
jeans sewing plant in
San Antonio, Texas, ending all U.S. manufacturing as it shifts to a contract production model. The closure ends a "Made in the U.S.A." tradition dating back to the
1870s.
[1]\n*The
Queen Mary 2 is christened by
Queen Elizabeth II.
[1]\n* An
RTÉ Prime Time investigation accuses the
Garda Siochána, the
Republic of Ireland's police force, of violent abuse of people arrested. Irish
Minister of State Dick Roche accuses Gardaí of "torture" of one student beaten up in a
Dublin police station, while a former judge accuses police of committing
perjury in his courts. The Gardaí deny all allegations.
[1]
January 7, 2004
\n* In the United States, the
Bush administration proposes a major reform of immigration law, creating a temporary worker program and giving legal status to both illegal and foreign workers for renewable three-year periods.
class="external">[1\n* The Supreme Court of
Indonesia upholds the death sentence handed down to
Bali bomber Amrozi. The
12 October,
2002 attacks killed 202 mainly holiday makers on the resort island of
Bali.
class="external">[1
- Costas Simitis, the prime minister of Greece and president of the ruling Panhellenic Socialist Movement (PASOK), after informing the country's president Costis Stephanopoulos, announced his resignation. At the same time he announced national elections for March 7, 2004, when PASOK will have a new president, expected to be George Papandreou. PASOK will be challenged by the New Democracy opposition led by Costas Caramanlis. See [1], [1], [1], [1] (Greek) and [1], [1], [1], [1], [1] (English).\n*Exploration of Mars: Mars Express failed to hear any signal from the Beagle 2 spacecraft during its first pass over the landing site. This is major blow, but scientists have once again not given up all hope. They will attempt again tomorrow using a different communication mode. The Beagle 2 mission manager, Colin Pillinger, set February 7 as the day to abandon contact efforts. By that time Beagle 2 would have switched into an autotransmit mode after having not received any signal for over a month if it was still alive [1].\n* A report from the International Monetary Fund expresses alarm regarding mounting budget deficits in the United States due to recession, tax cuts, and spending for the war on terrorism. The report says that the unprecedented level of external debt incurred poses "significant risks" not just for the United States but for the rest of the world. However, many outside economists note that other countries are also running large deficits and that underlying economic conditions in the U.S. are still robust. [1] [1]
- U.S.-led occupation of Iraq: Mortar attacks by Anti-American insurgents wound 35 U.S. soldiers at a military camp west of Baghdad. Six mortar rounds exploded around 6:45 p.m. local time. [1]
January 6, 2004
- The man charged for the murder of Sweden's FM Anna Lindh on September 10, Mijailo Mijailovic, through his defence lawyer requests an interrogation to give critical details on the stabbing. Seemingly Mijailovic thereby confesses the assault.
- The Daily Mirror, a British tabloid, publishes the blacked out portion of a letter wherein Diana, Princess of Wales alleged that someone was trying to kill her. The relevant portion reads: "[M]y husband is planning 'an accident' in my car, brake failure & serious head injury in order to make the path clear for him to marry." The part "my husband" (referring to Charles, Prince of Wales) had been previously blacked out, and the word "him" replaced with "Charles" in transcripts of the letter released by Diana's butler, Paul Burrell. [1] The revelation comes on the same day the inquest into the death of Diana and her lover Dodi Al-Fayed is officially opened. [1]\n* Pakistan is cited as the source of nuclear weapon technology supplied to Libya, Iran and North Korea. The components intercepted at sea by Italy en-route to Libya were fabricated in Malaysia. There is no evidence that the Pakistani government of President Pervez Musharraf knew about the transfer of technology of Libya. [1] [1]
- Pakistan and India have agreed to a new round of talks to settle the Kashmir dispute. The talks will be begin February 2004. [1]\n*Exploration of Mars: The first color images have been released from the Spirit rover on Mars. They are the highest resolution images ever taken on the surface of another planet. It has also been announced by NASA that they plan to name the rover's landing site on Mars "Columbia Memorial Station" in honor of the crew of STS-107.class="external">[2
class="external">[1
January 5, 2004
\n* A British and a
German Member of the European Parliament both receive letter bombs in the post. This follows an earlier letter bomb sent to the
President of the European Commission,
Romano Prodi.
[1]\n*
Ulster Unionist Party defector
Jeffrey Donaldson and two other MLAs join Rev.
Ian Paisley's
Democratic Unionist Party, pushing the DUP's numbers in the
Northern Ireland Assembly to 33.
[1]\n*
Jaap de Hoop Scheffer of the
Netherlands became the new Secretary General of
NATO, replacing Britain's
Lord Robertson.
[1]\n* The
United States begins tracking foreign arrivals according to the new
United States Visitor and Immigrant Status Indicator Technology (US-VISIT) program.
[1]\n*
Pakistan President
Pervez Musharraf and
Indian Prime Minister
Atal Bihari Vajpayee meet face-to-face to discuss improving relations between their two countries.
[1]\n*
South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC), which comprises
India,
Pakistan,
Sri Lanka,
Nepal,
Bangladesh,
Bhutan and the
Maldives, signs the
South Asia Free Trade Agreement, a draft agreement to eliminate
tariffs by 2016.
[1]\n*
Norwegian prosecutors announce that they have abandoned their attempts to prosecute
Jon Johansen for his release of the
DeCSS DVD decryption software.
[1]
- Panhellenic Socialist Movement, the ruling political party of Greece, is about to change leadership. The official report is expected to be published on January 7, 2004. It is expected by many that the new leader will be George Papandreou, junior. See [1] and [1] (Greek)\n* A potential local root vulnerability [1] has been found in Linux 2.2, 2.4, and 2.6, and Linux Kernel developers have corrected the issue in 2.4 and 2.6; distributors are expected to offer the patches soon, for the benefit of those users who do not compile their own kernels.
January 4, 2004
\n* The Loya jirga adopts a new
Constitution of Afghanistan [1]\n* A
military court in
Israel sentences five Israelis to one year in
jail for
refusing to serve in the military because of Israel's occupation of the
West Bank and
Gaza Strip.
[1] [1] (Compare
conscientious objector)\n*
Exploration of Mars:
American Mars probe "
Spirit" mission is successful and is sending back images. Spirit is alive after rolling to a stop on the surface of Mars; confirmed by
NASA's
Deep Space Network (9:00 pm PST).
[2]class="external">[1\n*
Mikhail Saakashvili becomes president-elect of the
Republic of Georgia, following the Presidential elections. He had been widely expected to win following the
November 23,
2003 ousting of President
Eduard Shevardnadze.
[1]\n*
Bolivian Gas War: In a televised speech,
Bolivian President
Carlos Mesa announces that a national referendum will be held on March 28 to resolve the issue of how Bolivia's large natural gas reserves will be exploited.
[1]\n*
Britney Spears abruptly marries a childhood friend,
Jason Allen Alexander, in a
Las Vegas wedding chapel at 5:30 A.M.; by afternoon, the couple have arranged an annulment, which is expected to be made official when the courts reopen on Monday.
[1]
January 3, 2004
\n* A Boeing 737,
Flight 604, flown by
Egyptian charter company
Flash Airlines headed for
Cairo crashes into the
Red Sea minutes after take-off from the holiday resort of
Sharm el-Sheikh in
Egypt. All 148 people on board are killed, of whom more than 120 were
French tourists. Though both
United Kingdom Prime Minister Tony Blair and Egyptian
President Hosni Mubarak were in the area, neither were involved in the incident, contrary to initial reports.
[2]class="external">[1\n* The
BBC cancels the appearance of
Coca Cola sponsorship credits in the music charts in its
BBC ONE Top of the Pops show, after criticism from politicians and health campaigners that it would be promoting
junk food and unhealthy drink products to teenagers.
[1]\n* Ricardo Palmera, better known as
Simon Trinidad, one of top seven
Colombian rebel group,
FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) is arrested in
Ecuador.
[1]\n*
Exploration of Mars: The first of the
Mars Exploration Rovers, Spirit, has successfully landed on the
Martian surface with a "very strong signal" being received from the lander. It was a tense few minutes as no signal was received from the lander during the minutes while it bounced over the surface. Mission Control is described as being a wild place with the mission scientists very happy. The first pictures are expected at the earliest around 0730 UTC
class="external">[2class="external">[1\n* The
People's Republic of China's fifth-largest
brokerage is seized by
China Securities Regulatory Commission and local authorities for "illegal and irregular management operations and disorderly management." The unusual move to clamp down China Southern Securities is a high-profile attempt to stem corruption in
Mainland China.
class="external">[1
January 2, 2004
\n* South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation, comprised of foreign ministers from seven south Asian countries (
Pakistan,
India,
Bangladesh,
Sri Lanka,
Nepal,
Maldives and
Bhutan) meeting in
Islamabad agree to create the South Asian Free Trade Area (SAFTA) by 2006.
[1]\n* It appears that
Stardust has successfully flown past
Comet Wild 2 collecting samples that it will return to Earth in two years time. This is the first sample return mission to a comet and the first time that samples have returned to Earth from any celestial body since
1974. The spacecraft also took detailed images of the comet's icy nucleus.
[2]class="external">[1\n*
U.S. Representative Ralph Hall from
Texas files for reelection and switches parties from
Democrat to
Republican.
[1]
January 1, 2004
\n* Ireland's
Roman Catholic and
Protestant boy scouts organisations merge after nearly a century of division, in spite of efforts by the Roman Catholic
bishops to block the merger. \n* State papers released under Britain's
Thirty Year Rule suggest that the
United States considered using force to seize oil fields in the Middle East during an oil
embargo by Arab states in 1973.
[1] State papers also released reveal that, contrary to what was believed at the time,
Princess Margaret of the United Kingdom would not have lost her title and
Civil List payments if she had married Group Captain Peter Townsend, a divorced
War hero in the
1950s.
class="external">[1\n* The
Republic of Ireland takes over the presidency of the
European Union, succeeding
Italy, whose presidency is widely criticised as having been a failure due to the collapse of efforts to adopt a European constitution.
[1]\n*
Montreal Dorval International Airport is renamed
Montreal-Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport.\n*A
British Airways flight from
London to
Washington, DC is canceled one day after the same flight is delayed for three hours on the
tarmac at
Dulles International Airport for security screening.
[1]\n*Comparing planned
United States finger-printing and photographic security controls on travelers from
Brazil and other nations to
Nazi actions, a Brazilian judge orders the
fingerprinting of all arriving United States citizens in response.
[1]\n*No
leap second is added this year. This is the fifth year in a row without a leap-second after 28 years of adding leap-seconds to compensate for the slowing of the Earth's rotation.
[1]'s bicentennial celebrations erupt in violence.
[1]
Past events by month
\n2003:
January February Ma