January 2004

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2004 : January - February - March - April - May - June - July - August - September - October - November - December-


Ongoing events
2004 Canadian Federal Election
  Conservative leadership race
2004 Taiwan Presidential Election
2004 U.S. Presidential Election
  Democratic Presidential Primary
Bloody Sunday Inquiry
Exploration of Mars
  Mars Exploration Rovers
  Mars Express Orbiter
Bird flu
Hutton Inquiry
Israeli-Palestinian conflict
  Road Map to Peace
Kyoto Protocol
North Korean Crisis
Same-sex Marriage
SCO v. IBM
War on Terrorism
  Afghanistan timeline January 2004
Occupation of Iraq
Iraqi Insurgency
  Iraq Timeline


January 31, 2004

January 30, 2004

January 29, 2004

  • A 60-ton sperm whale carcass explodes in downtown Tainan, Taiwan, causing traffic chaos and showering vehicles and pedestrians with blood and entrails. [18]
  • A report submitted today to the State of Maryland states that the electronic voting machines made by Diebold "have such poor computer security and physical security that an election could be disrupted or even stolen by corrupt insiders or determined outsiders". The machines have been purchased by a number of states in the United States. [19] This is the third report to state that the machines do not meet the security requirements of an election. Previous reports are available online: [20], [21].
  • Hutton Inquiry: The BBC Director-General, Greg Dyke, resigns in the continuing fall-out from the report. Mr Dyke is the second high-ranking BBC official to resign. Mark Byford is appointed Acting Director-General. [22] The UK media in general condemns the report as a whitewash. [23]
  • The Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades of Fatah claim responsibility for a suicide bombing aboard a city bus, in which Ali Yusuf Jaara, a member of the Palestinian police force, kills 10 Israelis and wounds more than 50, outside the Prime Minister's residence in Jerusalem. Simultaneously with the bombing, Shaul Mofaz, Israeli Defense Minister, is meeting with American envoys Wolfe and Sauterfield, who have requested an easing-up of conditions for the Palestinians. The explosion also coincides with a German-brokered prisoner swap between Israel and the Lebanese guerrilla group Hezbollah. [24] [25] [26]

January 28, 2004

January 27, 2004

January 26, 2004

January 25, 2004

January 24, 2004

January 23, 2004

  • David Kay steps down from Iraq Survey Group. George Tenet names former UN weapons inspector Charles Duelfer to succeed Kay. [67]
  • The International Monetary Fund has joined the World Bank in forgiving US$4 billion of the $6.5bn debt owed by Nicaragua, sharply reducing the nation's overall debt payments. [68]
  • The European Space Agency's Mars Express orbiter directly detects water ice in the southern polar region of the planet Mars. [69] [70]
  • NASA's Spirit rover communicated with Earth in a signal detected by NASA's Deep Space Network antenna complex near Madrid, Spain, at 12:34 Universal Time (4:34 am PST) this morning. The transmissions came during a communication window about 90 minutes after Spirit woke up for the morning on Mars. The signal lasted for 10 minutes at a data rate of 10 bits per second. Mission controllers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., plan to send commands to Spirit seeking additional data from the spacecraft during the subsequent few hours. [71] The flight team for NASA's Spirit received data from the rover in another communication session that began at 13:26 Universal Time (5:26 am PST) and lasted 20 minutes at a data rate of 120 bits per second. [72]
  • A Thai man suspected of having bird flu died, according to the Public Health Ministry. [73]
  • At least 51 people, including a bridegroom, were killed on Friday when a fire ripped through a makeshift wedding hall in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu during a marriage ceremony.[74]
  • An explosion has killed two people at Zhengzhou railway station, one of the People's Republic of China's biggest transport hubs.[75]

January 22, 2004

January 21, 2004

January 20, 2004

  • 2004 Canadian Federal Election: Belinda Stronach officially announces her run for leadership of the Conservative Party of Canada. [84]
  • Martha Stewart pleads not guilty to five criminal counts that include conspiracy, obstruction of justice and securities fraud stemming from a sale of ImClone stock in 2001. Conviction on any of the charges against her could put Ms. Stewart in federal prison. The five counts carry a total prison term of 30 years and a $1.25 million fine.[85]
  • Colonel Rashid Abu Shbak of the Palestinian Authority, said that information was still coming in and the investigating team had been upgraded, but he had no new leads on who was behind the bombing attack of an American diplomatic convoy on October 15, 2002. Three people died in the attack. U.S. officials have been stopped from going to Gaza since the attack. No decision has been made yet on when they might be allowed to return. Col. Shbak blamed Israel for the lack of progress in the investigation.[86]

January 19, 2004

January 18, 2004

January 17, 2004

  • Planned NASA servicing missions for the Hubble Space Telescope are cancelled. Safety concerns are cited as the main reason behind the decision. [101][102]
  • Human cloning: Fertility expert Dr. Panos Zavos claims to have successfully transplanted a two week old embryo into a 35 year old woman. He said he had not done the act anywhere where "the spirit of the law" was against such a procedure. [103]
  • George Papandreou of Greece promised that he will suggest to sign a mutual agreement with Turkey for lowering their defense military expenses. [104] (Greek).
  • Protesters call for resignation of German Federal Police chief Ulrich Kersten: about 6,000 people demonstrates against moving Germany's Federal Police (BKA) headquarters from Wiesbaden to Berlin. [105]

January 16, 2004

January 15, 2004

January 14, 2004

January 13, 2004

January 12, 2004

January 11, 2004

  • Exploration of Mars: NASA's Spirit rover now has its arm and all six of its wheels free, and only a single cable must be cut before it can turn and roll off its lander onto the soil of Mars. As that milestone is completed, scientists are taking opportunities to take extra pictures and gather other data.[162]
  • Occupation of Iraq:
    • U.S. military records show that attacks against coalition soldiers have decreased by 22% in the four weeks following the capture of Saddam Hussein. [163]
    • More protests in Amarah take place. Demonstrators, many of them related to the victims of January 10, requested compensation. No significant violence reported. [164]


January 10, 2004

January 9, 2004

January 8, 2004

January 7, 2004

January 6, 2004

  • The Daily Mirror, a British tabloid, publishes the blacked out portion of a letter wherein Diana, Princess of Wales alleged that someone was trying to kill her. The relevant portion reads: "[M]y husband is planning 'an accident' in my car, brake failure & serious head injury in order to make the path clear for him to marry." The part "my husband" (referring to Charles, Prince of Wales) had been previously blacked out, and the word "him" replaced with "Charles" in transcripts of the letter released by Diana's butler, Paul Burrell. [210] The revelation comes on the same day the inquest into the death of Diana and her lover Dodi Al-Fayed is officially opened. [211]
  • Pakistan is cited as the source of nuclear weapon technology supplied to Libya, Iran and North Korea. The components intercepted at sea by Italy en-route to Libya were fabricated in Malaysia. There is no evidence that the Pakistani government of President Pervez Musharraf knew about the transfer of technology of Libya. [212] [213]
  • Pakistan and India have agreed to a new round of talks to settle the Kashmir dispute. The talks will be begin February 2004. [214]
  • Exploration of Mars: The first color images have been released from the Spirit rover on Mars. They are the highest resolution images ever taken on the surface of another planet. It has also been announced by NASA that they plan to name the rover's landing site on Mars "Columbia Memorial Station" in honor of the crew of STS-107.[215][216][217][218]

January 5, 2004

  • 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 [226] and [227] (Greek)
  • A potential local root vulnerability [228] 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; distributors are expected to offer the patches soon, for the benefit of those users who do not compile their own kernels.

January 4, 2004

January 3, 2004

January 2, 2004

January 1, 2004

Events by month

2005: January February March April May June July August September
2004: January February March April May June July August September October November December
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
2001: January February March April May June July August September October November December
2000: January February March April May June July August September October November December

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