December 1, 2003

December 1, 2003

• Occupation of Iraq:
• The firefight in which more than 50 Iraqis are reported killed is now thought to have been an attempted currency heist.
• One GI is killed Monday in fighting west of Baghdad.
• World AIDS Day:
• US Health Secretary Tommy Thompson warns that the world is losing the war against AIDS. Thompson said, "We need America, the European Union and everybody. Nobody is going to be spared unless we all come together in the fight against this disease."
• UK Secretary of State for International Development Hilary Benn announces that the UK's funding for UNAids will rise to GBP £6 million in 2004; this figure compares to the UK's projected Iraq War-related costs of approximately GBP £3 billion.
• UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan reportedly tells the BBC that the world is losing the war against AIDS because governments remain indifferent to the threat.
• Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao marks World AIDS Day by visiting AIDS victims in a Beijing hospital.
• The UN's International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda hands down a life sentence to Juvenal Kajelijeli, a former mayor of Mukingo, for his role in the 1994 genocide in which more than 500,000 Rwandans were killed.
• King Harald V of Norway is announced to be suffering from cancer of the bladder; he will be operated on next Monday, December 8. During the King's illness and two to three month convalescence, Crown Prince Haakon will be acting regent.
• President Chen Shui-bian says that the hundreds of missiles the People's Republic of China has aimed at Taiwan justifies holding a referendum on independence. The referendum bill recently passed by the Legislative Yuan only allows votes on sovereignty if the country is attacked by a foreign power.
• Boeing Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Phil Condit resigns, a week after the aviation giant fires its Chief Financial Officer in an ethics scandal. The move comes as the company faces scrutiny by the Defense Department for a government plan to acquire Boeing 767 planes for use as refueling tankers and answers questions about the ousters of two executives for ethical misconduct during the period it was being negotiated. Former McDonnell Douglas CEO Harry Stonecipher will succeed Condit as CEO, while former Hewlett-Packard chairman and CEO Lewis Platt takes over as chairman.
• In Flandreau, South Dakota, jury selection begins in the manslaughter trial of former South Dakota Governor and current US Congressman Bill Janklow.
• The cross country cycling organization "LOCO" was founded in Shreveport / Bossier City.
• The Xbox Music Mixer was released.