November 17, 2003

=November 17, 2003=

*Lord Black of Crossharbour is pushed to resign as chief executive of his media empire, which may be sold. [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/low/business/3276319.stm]
*Arnold Schwarzenegger is sworn in as Governor of California. [http://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/11/17/elec04.schwarzenegger/index.html]
*Occupation of Iraq:
** Izzat Ibrahim, a top general in the Iraqi army under Saddam Hussein, is directly implicated in recent attacks on US troops; he is number six on the US list of most wanted Iraqis and the second-highest target still at large after the former president himself. [http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=1C2H1KCRLOWLGCRBAEZSFEY?type=worldNews&storyID=3837452]
** Italian official Marco Calamai resigns from the U.S.-led administration running Iraq, stating that "The provisional authority simply doesn't work". He says that the Iraqis are becoming angry and that the UN needs to step in. He accuses the US of underestimating the complexity of Iraq's social structure. [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3279019.stm]
* Tony Blair publicly defends his decision to invite President Bush to the UK on a state visit. [http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1087195,00.html]
*John Allen Muhammad is unanimously convicted of all four counts in the indictment against him, including two charges of capital murder, committed during the October 2002 sniper shootings in the Washington, DC metro area. The jury is currently deciding whether Muhammad will be sentenced to death or to life in prison. [http://www.guardian.co.uk/usguns/Story/0,2763,1087587,00.html]
* People living near remote submarine bases in the West Highlands of Scotland are to be issued with potassium iodate tablets in case of a nuclear accident. [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/3277007.stm]
* Coca eradication: The White House Drug Policy Office claims the area planted with coca in Peru and Bolivia combined fell by 35 km² in the year up to June, suggesting that the coca eradication program in neighboring Colombia was not driving production over the borders. But the US figures were very different from preliminary estimates in September by the head of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime in Colombia, which suggested output in Peru and Bolivia may have risen by as much 21 per cent this year. [http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,2730872a12,00.html]
*Chess grandmaster Gary Kasparov is level-pegging against X3D Fritz after 3 games played. [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/3276979.stm]
*The United States contract bridge team defeats the team from Italy to win the 2003 Bermuda Bowl in Monaco. After thirteen days and over 1000 hands of bridge, the US team wins by one point, after Italian Lorenzo Lauria plays the wrong card from the dummy to lose the last hand. [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2003/11/17/wbridg17.xml&sSheet=/portal/2003/11/17/ixportal.html]