December 25, 2003

=December 25, 2003=

* Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf survives a suicide bomber attack on his motorcade, the second attempt to assassinate him in two weeks. [http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/26/international/asia/26STAN.html]
* Following Beagle 2's expected landing, US probe Mars Odyssey (already in Martian orbit) listens for the lander's distinctive musical callsign. A further scan for the lander is conducted using the Jodrell Bank radio telescope. No signal is detected. [http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99994518] [http://edition.cnn.com/2003/TECH/space/12/25/mars.beagle.nosignal/index.html]
* Israeli-Palestinian Conflict:
** An Israeli helicopter gunship attacks a car in Gaza City, killing Islamic Jihad commander Mekled Hameid and two fellow militants, together with two bystanders. [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/3348535.stm]
** A suicide-bomber strikes a bus stop Tel Aviv, killing four civilians and himself. [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/3348159.stm]
** Israel announces closure of the West Bank and Gaza. [http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/26/international/middleeast/26MIDE.html?hp]
* A UK lab confirms the presence of BSE in samples taken from a cow in Washington [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/3348969.stm] . Mexico joins the list of countries which have banned imports of US beef.
* Reports emerge of a major leak of natural gas in a gas field near the south-western Chinese city of Chongqing. Over 100 people are believed dead and up to 40,000 people have been evacuated from the area surrounding the leak. [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/3347769.stm]
* A Boeing 727 of United Transit Airlines originating in the Guinean capital, Conakry, stopping in Freetown, Sierra Leone, and bound for Beirut, clips a building during takeoff and crashes into the Atlantic Ocean off Benin. Over 100 people die, most of them Lebanese. [http://www.herald.ns.ca/stories/2003/12/26/fWorld119.raw.html]