December 2, 2003

December 2, 2003

• Venezuelan opposition leaders claim to have gathered enough petition signatures to force a referendum to recall President Hugo Chávez; in response, the government alleges the four-day signature drive was tainted by "massive fraud".
• The second trial of DeCSS releaser Jon Johansen begins.
• The US dollar continues to decline, hitting a new low of 1.2 against the euro; the dollar is suffering from deteriorating support against the background of a large current account deficit and fears of growing protectionism.
• Andrei Illarionov, economic advisor to President Vladimir Putin, indicates Russia will not ratify the Kyoto Protocol in its current form, a decision that would kill the accord. Some observers speculate that this is purely domestic posturing for forthcoming elections.
• Mark Latham is elected to succeed Simon Crean as the new leader of the opposition Australian Labor Party, defeating former leader Kim Beazley by 47 votes to 45. In 2004 Latham will face Liberal Prime Minister John Howard at a general election.
• The Israeli government has called on U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell not to meet with former ministers of Israel and the Palestinian Authority who have drawn up the unofficial Geneva plan.
• US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld wins the annual "Foot in Mouth Prize" awarded by the UK's Plain English Campaign for the most nonsensical remark made by a public figure. Among the runners-up are Arnold Schwarzenegger and Chris Patten.
• Hospitals around Paris struggle to cope with an outbreak of influenza and gastro-enteritis.
• The European Union threatens retaliatory sanctions unless the United States lifts its threat of restrictions on imports of steel; the US measures have been declared illegal by the WTO.
• Pirate copies of a pre-alpha version of Microsoft's Windows "Longhorn" operating system go on sale in Malaysia more than a year ahead of its expected release date.
• GIMPS has confirmed that 2^20996011-1 is prime. At 6320430 decimal digits, it is easily the largest known prime number. 2^20996011-1 is the 40th known Mersenne prime and the 6th Mersenne prime discovered by GIMPS.
• The Pentagon announces that U.S.-born illegal combatant and Taliban fighter Yaser Esam Hamdi will be allowed access to a lawyer after having been denied such counsel for two years.