December 2003
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A timeline of events in the news for December, 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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:
- 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.
- Linux kernel 2.6.0 is released by Linus Torvalds.
- Capture of Saddam Hussein:
- 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:
- 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.