December 2003

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A timeline of events in the news for December, 2003.

See also: 2004 Canadian Federal Election 2004 Taiwan Presidential Election 2004 U.S. Presidential Election Bloody Sunday Inquiry Search for Beagle 2 Kyoto Protocol Liberian Crisis Same-sex Marriage SCO v. IBM Israeli-Palestinian Conflict Road Map to Peace North Korean Crisis War on Terrorism Afghanistan timeline December 2003 Occupation of Iraq Iraq Timeline

December 31, 2003

• In Taiwan, President Chen Shui-bian signs a law that allows referendums to be held. The People's Republic of China condemns this.
• Occupation of Iraq: A car bomb detonates outside an upmarket Baghdad restaurant much favoured by foreign journalists, killing five New Year revellers.
• The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences mails nomination ballots in which it qualifies 254 films released in 2003 as eligible for Oscar consideration.

December 30, 2003

• The European Union is investigating a series of parcel bombs targeting the European Central Bank in Frankfurt and Europol headquarters at The Hague. Investigators state that it is too early to draw any connections between these bombs and the letter bomb sent two days ago to the Bologna home of Romano Prodi, the head of the European Commission.
• The U.S. Food and Drug Administration announces a ban on the sale of dietary supplement ephedra, citing "an unreasonable risk of illness or injury" from the use of the drug.
• U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft recuses himself and his office from the CIA leak scandal, in which the identity of Valerie Plame, a CIA operative, was leaked by Washington insiders. Democratic political leaders had been calling for Ashcroft's recusal.
• The man who was convicted of breaking into mainland China cable television networks and broadcasting footage of the banned Falun Gong reportedly dies in prison. Falun Gong and the Hong Kong-based Information Centre for Human Rights and Democracy claim he was beaten.

December 29, 2003

• Papal Nuncio to Burundi, Irish-born Archbishop 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.
• 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.
• 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.

December 28, 2003

• Serbian parliamentary election, 2003: Serbia holds a parliamentary election. The Serbian Radical Party wins 81 seats in the 250-seat parliament.
• Guatemala election, 2003. Óscar Berger wins the second round of the presidential election with a 54% share of the vote.

December 27, 2003

• 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.
• The U.S. Department of Agriculture announces that it believes the BSE infected cow detected in Washington State was imported from Canada in 2001. The location of the other 73 cows imported with it is unknown.
• Romano Prodi, the President of the European Commission, survives a letter bomb attack.
• 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.

December 26, 2003

• 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.
• The death toll in the Chinese gas-leak rises to 191.
• Fearing the state's BSE outbreak may extend beyond a single farm, the U.S. Department of Agriculture quarantines a second cattle farm in Washington State.

December 25, 2003

• Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf survives a suicide bomber attack on his motorcade, the second attempt to assassinate him in two weeks.
• 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 Bank radio telescope. No signal is detected.
• Israeli-Palestinian Conflict:
  • An Israeli helicopter gunship attacks a car in Gaza City, killing Islamic Jihad commander Mekled Hameid and two fellow militants, together with two bystanders.
  • A suicide-bomber strikes a bus stop Tel Aviv, killing four civilians and himself.
  • Israel announces closure of the West Bank and Gaza.
• A UK lab confirms the presence of BSE in samples taken from a cow in Washington State . 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.
• A Boeing 727 of United Transit Airlines originating in the Guinean capital, Conakry, stopping in Freetown, Sierra Leone, and bound for Beirut, clips a building during takeoff and crashes into the Atlantic Ocean off Benin. Over 100 people die, most of them Lebanese.

December 24, 2003

• An explosion occurs at Baghdad's Sheraton hotel, probably caused by a rocket-propelled grenade.
• Following the detection of BSE in a Washington State cow, several countries (including Japan, Russia, Singapore, Taiwan, and Hong Kong) announce a ban on the importation of U.S. beef.
• Three Air France flights from Paris to Los Angeles are canceled due to security concerns expressed by the US embassy in France.
• 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.

December 23, 2003

• The Supreme Court of Canada announces (in a 6-3 decision) that the criminalization of marijuana was not unconstitutional.
• 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.
• California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger declares a state of emergency in San Luis Obispo County, following an earthquake in that county on the previous day.
• Beltway sniper attacks: A Virginia jury recommends a life sentence without possibility of parole for Lee Boyd Malvo, who was earlier convicted of capital murder, among other charges, in connection with the shootings. Malvo had faced the possibility of execution.

December 22, 2003

• After getting FCC approval on December 19, News Corporation Ltd. completed a US$7.6 billion cash and stock deal to buy control of Hughes Electronics and its DirecTV satellite television division from General Motors.
• The People's Republic of China plans to peg its currency, the yuan, to a basket of ten currencies instead of only the U.S. dollar, according to its state press.
• Parmalat is likely to declare "controlled administration" as Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said the government would intervene and "above all save the industrial part of the company and jobs".
• Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher is assaulted by Palestinians during prayer at the al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem. Mr. Maher was taken to an Israeli hospital for observation as a result of the incident after being treated at the scene by the Magen David Adom. After several hours care in the hospital, he was escorted to his airplane by an Israeli cardiologist and paramedic.
• A list of people who have declined a British honour was leaked to The Sunday Times. The list includes David Bowie, David Hockney, Aldous Huxley, Nigella Lawson, and Harold Pinter. , ,
• 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.
• SCO v. IBM:
  • SCO claims in a press release to be sending DMCA notication letters alleging copyright infringement
  • Linus Torvalds says, in a post to the Linux kernel mailing list, "... I think we can totally _demolish_ the SCO claim that these 65 files were somehow "copied". They clearly are not."
  • Novell has also registered their claim to the copyright of original UNIX source code, effectively challenging SCO's registration of the same code
• An earthquake strikes near San Simeon, California, at 19:15 UTC (11:15 PST). The quake registers a 6.5 magnitude on the Richter Magnitude Scale, and causes two deaths from the collapse of a building in the town of Paso Robles. ,
• The Philippines declares a calamity in a southern province after floods killed up to 209 people.

December 21, 2003

• "The American Soldier" is named as TIME magazine's "Person of the Year". The periodical's editors chose the anonymous soldier to represent the 1.4 million men and women serving in the United States Armed Forces.
• Citing increased "chatter" regarding potential terrorist attacks over the holiday period, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security raises its terrorism alert level from "elevated" (yellow) to "high" (orange).
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.

December 20, 2003

• The Holy See announces plans to beatify the last Austro-Hungarian emperor Karl. Karl, who was overthrown in 1918 and died in exile in 1922, is expected to be beatified, a step to sainthood, in the next year. Karl's widow, Zita of Bourbon-Parma died in 1989. His son, former Crown Prince Otto von Habsburg was until recently a German MEP.
• 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.
• Celebrations marking the Bicentennial of the Louisiana Purchase culminate in New Orleans, Louisiana.
• 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.
• 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.
• Spanish Prime Minister José María Aznar pays a surprise visit to Spanish troops in Iraq.
• Massive landslides in The Philippines caused by heavy rain result in the deaths of up to 90 people.
• A Malaysian opposition website is shut down by its British web-hosting company amid claims of "political censorship" from the opposition.
• 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.
• Eleven people, mainly young people from Germany, die in a bus crash in Belgium.
• In Comoros, leaders signed an agreement clearing the way for legislative elections in April.

December 19, 2003

• 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.
• Libyan leader Moammar al-Qadhafi acknowledges that his country was pursuing a development program for weapons of mass destruction but now agrees to its dismantling.
• A revised plan is unveiled for the new Freedom Tower which will be erected on the site of the World Trade Center in New York City. At a symbolic height of 1,776 feet (541 m) (1776 is significant as the year of the United States Declaration of Independence) the projected edifice will be among the tallest buildings in the world.
• Occupation of Iraq:
  • U.S.-appointed civil administrator of Iraq, L. Paul Bremer reveals that he survived an attack on his convoy on December 6.
  • Prime Minister of Japan Junichiro 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• In a major blow to the recording industry's efforts to stamp out online file sharing, a United States federal appeals court invalidates subpoenas issued against Verizon to identify individual P2P users.
• 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.
• Police seal off the printing plant and offices of Zimbabwe's last remaining independent daily newspaper, Same-sex marriage in Canada: an Ontario court rules that Canadians whose same-sex partners died after 1985 are entitled to survivors' benefits. It is believed to be the first class-action lawsuit awarding compensation to gays and lesbians anywhere in the world.
• The University of Delaware's Blue Hens shut out Colgate University to win the NCAA Division I-AA football national championship.

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December 18, 2003

• NASA announces that the new name for the "Space Infrared Telescope Facility" will be the Spitzer Space Telescope (after the late Dr. Lyman Spitzer, Jr.). This coincides with the release of the telescope's first images, which show the glowing stars of the Elephant's Trunk nebula, the dusty arms of the Messier 81 spiral galaxy, a disc of planet-forming debris, and organic material 3.25 billion light years away.
• Legal status of suspected terrorists:
  • A committee of the UK Parliament recommends that the power to hold terrorist suspects without trial be repealed.
  • A United States federal appeals court rules that José Padilla, accused by the U.S. Government of taking part in a terrorist "dirty bomb" plot with possible links to al-Qaida, cannot be designated an enemy combatant and must be released from military custody within 30 days. The Bush administration announces that it will seek a stay of the Padilla decision.
  • A United States federal appeals court rules that the "illegal combatants" being held at Camp X-Ray in Cuba should have access to lawyers and to US courts.
  • 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.
• Capture of Saddam Hussein: a Jordanian news source claims that Saddam Hussein was drugged and betrayed by his personal bodyguard, General Johann Mühlegg and Russian athlete Olga Danilova from all the cross-country skiing races they participated in during the 2002 Winter Olympic Games and thus withdraw their medals, due to doping by darbepoetin.
• Prosecutors in California charge singer Michael Jackson with seven counts of child molestation and schedule hearings for January 16, 2004.
• 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.
• 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.
• Sudanese authorities close the Khartoum office of the Arab satellite channel Al-Jazeera and detain its bureau chief for questioning.

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December 17, 2003

• Linux kernel 2.6.0 is released by Linus Torvalds.
• Capture of Saddam Hussein:
  • 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.
  • United States Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld confirms that Saddam Hussein will not be treated as a prisoner of war subject to the Geneva Conventions.
• 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.)
• 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.
• Terrorism:
  • The head of the Greek terrorist group November 17 and their chief hitman are jailed for life, along with four other members of the organisation.
  • Thomas Kean, chairman of the independent commission investigating the September 11, 2001 terrorist 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.
• Ian Huntley and Maxine Carr are convicted for their roles in the August 2002 murders of 10-year-old Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman in the English village of Soham.
• Taiwan reports the first confirmed SARS case in 5 months, a medical researcher who had studied the virus.
• The United States National 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.
• The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, the final part of Peter Jackson's film adaptation of J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, goes on broad public release in the United States and much of Europe. Industry pundits predict that it could become only the second film after Titanic to earn over US$1 billion at the box office.
• Republic of Congo: A gunbattle breaks out in Brazzaville.
• Health: The UK government says that a case of variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease may have occurred through blood transfusion.
• Former Governor of Illinois George 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.
• Governor of Connecticut John 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.
• Islam in France: the hidjab issue: President of France Jacques Chirac announces that he will support a ban on the wearing of Muslim headscarves, Jewish yarmulkes and large Christian crosses in schools and government offices. If passed, the law will come into effect in September 2004. Muslim clerics counter that the ban is an attack on their religion.
• Space exploration:
  • Space tourism magnates celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Wright Brothers' first flight by demonstrating SpaceShipOne, a privately-funded passenger-ferrying suborbital space plane, flying at supersonic speeds to an altitude of 68,000 feet.
  • Space Adventures announces the availability of two more tickets to fly to the International Space Station at a cost of US$20 million each.

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December 16, 2003

• Space Adventures, a space tourist company, announces that two American customers have paid to board a Soyuz spacecraft on its journey to the International Space Station and back in 2004 and 2005.
• Capture of Saddam Hussein:
  • Congressman Jim McDermott suggests that George W. Bush timed the capture of Saddam Hussein for political gain.
  • 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.
  • 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".
• Occupation of Iraq:
  • United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan, speaking in a UN Security Council debate, urges member states to define a clearer role for the UN in Iraq.
• Prosecutors in Santa Barbara, California, announce that they will file charges against the singer Michael Jackson on December 18 or 19.
• A major expansion of British airports is announced by the UK government, with Stansted, Heathrow and Birmingham set to gain extra runways.
• An advisory committee to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration recommends that the morning-after pill (for emergency contraception) be made available without a prescription.
• Somalia: 31 people die in the course of fighting between rival militias.

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December 15, 2003

• Wesley Clark concludes his first day of closed-door testimony against Slobodan Milošević at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia.
• US Secretary of State Colin Powell successfully undergoes two hours of prostate cancer surgery at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, DC.
• Capture of Saddam Hussein:
  • US President George W. Bush promises a "fair trial" for Saddam, refusing demands to hand him over to an international court.
  • U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan says, about Saddam, "... as secretary-general ... I am not going to now turn around and support a death penalty".
• 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.
• Safeway, a British grocery store chain, is the subject of a £3bn ($5.2bn USD) takeover bid from rival supermarket chain Morrisons.
• United Nations announces the suspension of its disarmament campaign for a month.

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December 14, 2003

• Occupation of Iraq:
  • 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.
  • 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."
  • 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".
  • A car bomb explodes at a police station in Khaldiyah, 60 km west of Baghdad, killing at least 17 and wounding 30.
• Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf narrowly escapes a bombing. "The president's motorcade passed a minute before the blast", according to officials.
• In an interview with The Washington Post newspaper, a 78-year-old African-American Los Angeles woman claims to be the illegitimate daughter of the late U.S. Senator Strom Thurmond.
• The famous Italian opera house La Fenice in Venice reopens after being destroyed by fire in 1996. It was rebuilt at the cost of €90mn.
• Jason White, quarterback of the University of Oklahoma Sooners, wins the Heisman Trophy, awarded to the best player in college football.

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December 13, 2003

• 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. ,
• At the EU summit, EU Commissioner Chris Patten describes the United States' method of awarding contracts for the rebuilding of Iraq as politically maladroit.
• The European Union fails to reach agreement on a new constitution.
• Operatic singer (tenor) Luciano Pavarotti marries his partner and producer Nicoletta Mantovani at a ceremony in Northern Italy.
• California legislators approve Arnold Schwarzenegger's $15 billion bond issue.
• Chad's government signs a cease-fire with the rebel Movement for Democracy and Justice in Chad in Burkina Faso.

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December 12, 2003

• A plot by militants linked to Al Qaeda to blow up the United Kingdom embassy in Yemen is foiled.
• Germany announces plans to commemorate