Back to Iraq


Hans Blix, the UN's chief weapons inspector, and Mohamed El Baradei, chief of the International Atomic Energy Agency, led the weapons inspectors back to Iraq. An Iraqi spokesman said that a full report on its nuclear, chemical, biological and missile holdings would be submitted within 30 days. George Bush warned Saddam Hussein that if he claimed again to have no weapons of mass destruction he “will have entered his final stage with a lie.” American aircraft bombed an air-defence centre in the country's northern no-fly zone.

The American Senate endorsed the creation of a Department for Homeland Security, heralding the biggest reshape of federal government for 50 years. The department will have a budget of $37 billion, and combine 22 security agencies, though not the CIA or the FBI.

See article: The biggest new department in Washington

At least 11 Israelis, some of them schoolchildren, were killed in a Palestinian suicide bombing in Jerusalem. A few days earlier, Palestinian gunmen belonging to Islamic Jihad ambushed Israeli soldiers and guards who had been escorting settlers to prayers in Hebron, killing 12 of them. Ariel Sharon spoke of implementing his plans for a “contiguity corridor” between the settlers and Hebron's holy sites. Five Palestinians were killed in a raid on Tulkarm.

See article: Israel and the Palestinians

Hu Jintao became the leader of the Chinese Communist Party, and thus the head of government. But Jiang Zemin, the outgoing leader, got many of his allies promoted to the all-powerful Politburo Standing Committee. He also retained the chairmanship of the Central Military Commission, essentially the head of the armed forces.

See article: China's new leadership

In Kuwait, two American soldiers were shot and wounded by a Kuwaiti policeman.

See article: Anti-terrorism in the Gulf

South Korean warships fired warning shots at a North Korean patrol boat in disputed sea areas. The incident was seen as reflecting tensions between the two countries since the disclosure that the North has secretly been operating a nuclear-weapons programme.

See article: Dealing with North Korea's new nuclear challenge

Indonesian police said they had arrested Imam Samudra, the man suspected of planning a bomb attack that killed 180 people in Bali last month.

See article: Investigating the Bali bombs

Pakistan swore in a new, civilian, prime minister: Zafarullah Khan Jamali. However, most power is expected to remain in the hands of the military president, General Pervez Musharraf.

See article: Pakistan's new government

Singapore is considering dropping its ban on chewing gum, the most famous of its moves to kept its streets clean. The gum may be put on sale in pharmacies to help people give up smoking.

Disaster at sea


A tanker broke up off the west coast of Spain, causing what many predicted would be the most damaging oil spill since the Exxon Valdez broke up off the coast of Alaska in 1989. Everyone blamed everyone else.

See article: The Prestige oil spill

At a meeting in Prague, the Czech capital, NATO governments invited seven countries—Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia—to join their alliance.

See article: If NATO had a crystal ball...

The foreign ministers of the European Union's 15 member states said that ten countries, mostly from Central Europe, should join the club in May 2004.

Giulio Andreotti, seven times prime minister of Italy, was sentenced by an appeals court to 24 years in prison for complicity in the murder of a journalist in 1979. But he was unlikely to go behind bars.

See article: A shocking court verdict in Italy

France's mainstream parties of the right teamed up as a broad new party named the Union for a Popular Movement (UMP), presided over by Alain Juppé, a former prime minister.

See article: France's right finds a new name

Abdullah Gul became prime minister of Turkey's new, Islamist-tinted government, but the leader of his party, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who had previously been banned from parliament for allegedly seeking to stir up religious hatred, will pull the strings.

See article: Turkey's hopeful new government

Sweden's prime minister, Goran Persson, said he would hold a referendum on whether his country should join the euro—a course he favours. The vote may be next year.

Keep talking

Amram Mitzna, the mayor of Haifa and a political outsider, was elected the new leader of Israel's Labour Party. Calling for renewed talks with the Palestinians, the former general has promised to try to reinvigorate the party rather than rejoin a rightist coalition led by the Likud Party.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's supreme leader, ordered a review of the death sentence passed on Hashem Aghajari, a liberal academic accused of blasphemy. In response to the students, who had demonstrated against this sentence, hardline militiamen, known as Basijis, held their own protest, raising the danger of street confrontations.

In Mozambique, the trial began of the alleged assassins of Carlos Cardoso, an investigative journalist who probed a bank scandal. The president of Mozambique's son, Nyimpine Chissano, was alleged to have been involved.

See article: Corruption in Mozambique

Somalia's peace talks got bogged down. Rival warlords from 22 factions took three days to agree on the first three words of a ceasefire pact: “We, the undersigned”.

The president of Equatorial Guinea, the world's fastest-growing economy last year thanks to an oil boom, said he had no intention of revealing how the money was spent.

Police force


Venezuela's populist president, Hugo Chavez, seized control of the Caracas police force, but was resisted by many officers and by thousands of protesters. The move was thought to be intended to disrupt the peace talks, brokered by the Organisation of American States, between the government and opposition.

See article: Venezuela's political chaos

Larry Campbell, a former Mountie representing the centre-left Coalition of Progressive Electors, was elected with 59% of the vote as the new mayor of Vancouver, ending a 16-year spell of conservative government.

See article: Vancouver's new mayor

Asia's richest woman, Nina Wang, stood to lose much of her estimated $2.4 billion fortune, after a judge ruled that her late husband's will was forged. Ms Wang's lawyers promised to appeal.