November 23, 2003

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[edit] November 23, 2003

• A BBC Correspondent programme, based on computer-generated images, suggests that the Warren Commission's controversial magic bullet theory, in which is was claimed that the same bullet hit President John F. Kennedy and Governor John Connally during Kennedy's assassination in 1963, was correct. Using state of the art computer generated images based on the Zapruder film, the programme concludes that a lone gunman could have shot Kennedy. ABC News and Court TV arrived at a similar conclusion [1]
• Beleaguered Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze resigns. Elections will be in 45 days, but until then, Nino Burdzhanadze will be the acting president. [2] [3]
• Nationalist party HDZ appears set to beat the ruling centre-left coalition in Croatia's general election. [4] [5]
• EADS, the largest European aircraft company, is doing preliminary work on a hypersonic passenger aircraft that would take the place of the recently-retired Concorde; the planning includes collaboration with Japanese firms and METI. [6] However, its subsidiary Airbus' A380 'super-jumbo' sub-sonic vehicle is the product expected to become the dominant commercial aircraft in the near-future. [7]
• The New York Times reports that the FBI is actively monitoring and gathering intelligence on anti-war protest movements' activities, ostensibly to detect possible terrorist activity. Opponents such as the ACLU criticize the practice as regressionary to the days of J. Edgar Hoover's intense monitoring of private organizations for potential Communist links. [8] [9]
• The People's Republic of China plans to start tests of a SARS vaccine on humans by the end of December; trials with monkeys show that the vaccine was effective. [10]
• 10,000 trade unionists, environmentalists, and farmworkers march in Miami to protest against the Free Trade Area of the Americas expansion meeting. Other street protests erupt into violent confronations with police several times throughout the day. Protester sources indicate upwards of 250 protesters incarcerated, along with reports of physical and sexual assault while in custody. [11] [12] [13] [14] [15] Other demonstrations take place in cities throughout the Americas.
• Occupation of Iraq:
  • Three US troops are killed in Iraq, two of them in a civilian vehicle in Mosul and the third in a roadside bombing in Baquba. A mob desecrates the bodies of the Mosul victims and loots their gear. [16] [17]
  • A female acting ambassador to the USA is chosen by Iraq's Governing Council: Rend al-Rahim Francke, an Iraqi/American educated in Britain, France and Lebanon. [18]
• A US military helicopter crashes near Bagram, Afghanistan, killing five soldiers and wounding seven. [19]
• Indian newspapers reported on the results of an in-depth 2002 survey of 57,321 Pakistanis in 89 districts of Pakistan. Although the survey was primarily concerned with the performance of local governments, the newspapers mischaracterized its results as the "utter dissatisfaction" of Pakistanis with the government of Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf. [20]

[21] [22]