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 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.
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 220996011-1 is prime. At 6320430 decimaldigits, it is easily the largest known prime number. 220996011-1 is the 40th known Mersenne prime and the 6th Mersenne prime discovered by GIMPS.