Portal:Current events/January 2004

Time: 09:40 UTC | Date: Monday, October 21, 2024

January 5, 2004

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]
Ulster Unionist Party defector Jeffrey Donaldson, MP, MLA and two other MLAs join Rev. Ian Paisley's Democratic Unionist Party, pushing the DUP's numbers in the Northern Ireland Assembly to 33. [2]
Jaap de Hoop Scheffer of the Netherlands became the new Secretary General of NATO, replacing Britain's Lord Robertson. [3]
The United States begins tracking foreign arrivals according to the new United States Visitor and Immigrant Status Indicator Technology (US-VISIT) program. [4]
Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf and Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee meet face-to-face to discuss improving relations between their two countries. [5]
Norwegian prosecutors announce that they have abandoned their attempts to prosecute Jon Johansen for his release of the DeCSS DVD decryption software. [6]
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 [7] and [8] (Greek)
A potential local root vulnerability [9] 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; distributers are expected to offer the patches soon, for the benefit of those users who do not compile their own kernels.

January 4, 2004

The Loya jirga adopts a new Constitution of Afghanistan [10]
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. Hindustan Times Arutz-7 (Compare conscientious objector)
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). [11][12][13]
Mikhail Saakashvili becomes the new president of the former Soviet Republic of Georgia, following the Presidential elections. He had been widely expected to win following the November 23, 2003 ousting of President Eduard Shevardnadze. [14]
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. [15]

January 3, 2004

A Boeing 737, flight FSH604, 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.[16][17][18]
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. [19]
Ricardo Palmera, better known as Simon Trinidad, one of top seven Colombian rebel group, FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) is arrested in Ecuador. [20]
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 [21][22][23][24]
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. [25][26]

January 2, 2004

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. [27]
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. [28][29][30]
U.S. Representative Ralph Hall from Texas files for reelection and switches parties from Democrat to Republican. [31]

January 1, 2004

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.
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. [32] 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. [33][34]
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. [35]
Montreal Dorval International Airport is renamed Montreal-Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport.
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. [36]
Comparing planned United States 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. [37]
No leap second 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. [38]
Haiti's bicentennial celebrations erupt in violence. [39]

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. [40]
Occupation of Iraq: A car bomb detonates outside an upmarket Baghdad restaurant much favoured by foreign journalists, killing five New Year revellers. [41]
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. [42]

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. [43]
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. [44]
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. [45]
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.[46]

Past events by month

2003: January February March April May June July August September October November December
2002: January February March April May June July August September October November December

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