Portal:Current events/2003 December 15
December 15, 2003 (Monday)
- Wesley Clark concludes his first day of closed-door testimony against Slobodan Milošević at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia. [1]
- US Secretary of State Colin Powell successfully undergoes two hours of prostate cancer surgery at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, DC. [2]
- Capture of Saddam Hussein:
- US President George W. Bush promises a "fair trial" for Saddam, refusing demands to hand him over to an international court. [3]
- U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan says, about Saddam, "... as secretary-general ... I am not going to now turn around and support a death penalty". [4]
- The results of parliamentary elections in the self-proclaimed Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus are announced: pro-European Union parties won a narrow victory over the ruling nationalist coalition, with the opposition Republican Turkish Party becoming the largest party. However, the republic's complicated electoral system means that the two sides will each have 25 seats in the 50-seat assembly. [5]
- Safeway, a British grocery store chain, is the subject of a £3bn ($5.2bn USD) takeover bid from rival supermarket chain Morrisons. [6]
- Two toddlers are badly burnt when a car crashes into a Sydney child care centre.
- Liberian Crisis: the United Nations announces the suspension of its disarmament campaign for a month. [7]