Weekly Review

Israel raided the Rafah refugee camp in the Gaza Strip and left 1,240 Palestinians homeless after demolishing up to 120 houses; Israeli officials said they had destroyed three tunnels used to smuggle weapons from Egypt. Eight Palestinians were killed in the operation, including two children.¹ Ahmed Qurei, the new Palestinian prime minister, threatened to resign after Yasir Arafat refused to give him control over the Palestinian security forces.² Tensions were beginning to surface publicly between Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Condoleezza Rice, the national security adviser, over the creation of Rice's Iraq Stability Group, which will oversee the chaos in Iraq. Rumsfeld was irritated that he was not told about the new group, and there were rumors, which the White House denied, that Rumsfeld has fallen out of the president's favor.³ President Bush gave a speech before a military crowd in New Hampshire and said that the situation in Iraq is "a lot better than you probably think." On that day in Iraq, a car bomb attack killed eight policemen, a Spanish diplomat was assassinated, and a U.S. soldier was murdered.⁴ Congress was working to cut "gold plated" items from the administration's request for the reconstruction of Iraq; among the items at issue were 40 new $50,000 garbage trucks and $9 million for a new postal zone system.⁵ The FBI doubled the number of agents assigned to investigate the White House,⁶ and President Bush decided to get tough on Cuba.⁷ Chile's congress was debating whether to give workers the legal right to take a siesta.⁸ Fighting was heavy in Afghanistan.⁹ Pat Robertson said that the State Department should be blown up with a nuclear bomb.¹⁰ Four white Texans were arrested for beating a retarded black man unconscious,¹¹ and Rush Limbaugh, who was forced to resign from ESPN after he made unkind comments about a black football player, admitted to being a drug addict.¹² Australian researchers found that the brain really does experience pain when your heart is breaking.¹³

Federal prosecutors indicted Greenpeace, under an obscure 1872 law designed to prevent "sailor mongers" from preying on returning seamen, for authorizing a protest in which two activists boarded a cargo ship and unfurled a banner. "Never before," said the director of Greenpeace USA, "has our government criminally prosecuted an entire organization for the free speech activities of its supporters."¹⁴ Russia's man in Chechnya won an overwhelming victory in the presidential election.¹⁵ President Vladimir Putin rejected any comparisons between his regime and the Soviet Union: "To talk about a return to the Soviet times in connection with [Russian security officials] would be like talking about the times of McCarthy, referring to the ministry of homeland security in the United States."¹⁶ An FBI bug was found in the Philadelphia mayor's office.¹⁷ Transparency International released its annual corruption survey; Bangladesh was rated most corrupt, just beating out Nigeria and Haiti. Finland, Iceland, and Denmark were the least corrupt.¹⁸ A bomb killed six people in Bogotá, Colombia.¹⁹ Senator Judd Gregg's wife, Cathy, was abducted by robbers at knifepoint from her home in McLean, Virginia, but was soon released.²⁰ A man in Pennsylvania charged with killing five people escaped from jail by climbing 60 feet down a rope made from bedsheets.²¹ International aid workers continued to flee Iraq.²²

A Princeton graduate student was in trouble for pointing out on his website that the copy-protection software on a new music CD could be defeated simply by pressing the shift key when one inserts the disc. SunnComm Technologies Inc. claimed that the student had violated criminal provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and threatened to sue him.²³ Shirin Ebadi, an Iranian lawyer and human rights activist, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.²⁴ A Muslim girl in Oklahoma was suspended from school after she refused to take off her head scarf.²⁵ American soldiers bulldozed ancient groves of date, orange, and lemon trees in central Iraq because, the soldiers said, the farmers know who is in the resistance but refuse to tell.²⁶ A shoplifter in Amsterdam was kicked to death by supermarket employees.²⁷ A lightning bolt killed 20 pregnant cows in Florida.²⁸ Wesley Clark said he believes that humans will someday exceed the speed of light.²⁹ Arnold Schwarzenegger was elected governor of California and told his son that being governor will be a lot like making a movie.³⁰ Sting was made a commander of the British Empire, and Roger Moore, a former James Bond, was made a knight.³¹ A new French organization called Villages of Lyric or Burlesque Names met for the first time; the members include the villages of Beaufou (Beautiful Mad), Saligos (Filthy Pig), and Cocumont (Cuckold Hill).³² The United States and Vietnam agreed to open direct commercial flights between the countries for the first time since the Vietnam War.³³ Ladybird Johnson had a bad fall.³⁴ Physicists were arguing over whether the universe is shaped like a soccer ball.³⁵ Japan was investigating an orgy in China involving 400 Japanese tourists and 500 Chinese prostitutes.³⁶ A penis-snatcher was beaten to death in Gambia,³⁷ and a monkey moved a robot with its mind.³⁸

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