December 3, 2003

December 3, 2003

• Deng Pufang, Sérgio Vieira de Mello, the Plaza de Mayo Grandmothers and others are announced as the winners of the UN human rights prizes, which are awarded every 5 years.
• Up to 50 employees of Australia's national postal service have been caught sending pornographic emails, including some involving children in sex acts, according to an investigation published by the Sydney-based Daily Telegraph. Two have been sacked, at least four have resigned, and dozens have been suspended pending further investigations.
• In Kassel, Germany, the trial of Armin Meiwes begins. He is charged with killing and eating Bernd-Jürgen Brandes who was one of 200 people who replied to an Internet advertisement for "a well-built male prepared to be slaughtered and then consumed". The whole episode was videotaped. The case is legally difficult as cannibalism is not explicitly prohibited by the German penal code, and the defence argues that as the victim was willing, no murder took place.
• The Russian government backtracks on statements made the previous day on the Kyoto Protocol, saying it is still considering ratification.
• Two media figures are sentenced to life imprisonment by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda for fueling the 1994 Rwanda genocide; a third receives a 35-year prison term.
• Politics of Canada: Natural Resources Minister Herb Dhaliwal, Canada's first Indo-Canadian cabinet minister, announces he is leaving politics. Dhaliwal intends to quit his ministerial post when incoming Prime Minister Paul Martin swears in a new cabinet on December 12, and has indicated he will not seek re-election in the anticipated 2004 election.
• In Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire, police fire tear gas at hundreds of protesters who want France to withdraw its 3,800 peacekeepers so that the Christian and animist government of President Laurent Gbagbo in the south can march against Muslim rebel-held areas in the north.
• The Parliament of New Zealand voted 68-52 to pass the Smokefree Environments Amendment Bill, introducing a progressive ban on smoking in all workplaces including offices, clubs, pubs, restaurants, airports, schools etc.