Weekly Review

By Paul Ford

Runaway Raft on the Tigris.

In Iraq a suicide bomber killed 50 people and a car bomb killed 10 people. At least 15 U.S. troops were also killed. Hostage Jill Carroll was freed.^{1 2} U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice visited England but cancelled a visit to a mosque there in order to avoid protesters. Rice and British foreign minister Jack Straw then visited Iraq, where they told the Iraqi leadership that it must form a unified government immediately.^{3 4} It was reported that Al Qaeda member Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was forced to step down as the leader of a coalition of Iraqi militant groups; he was replaced by a native Iraqi.⁵ Iraq's ruling parties accused the United States of killing 37 unarmed civilians at a mosque. "There's been huge misinformation," said U.S. Lieutenant General Peter Chiarelli.⁶ A federal jury in Virginia determined that Zacarias Moussaoui was responsible for some of the deaths of September 11, 2001, and thus eligible for execution.⁷ In France 2.6 million people went on strike to protest changes in employment law,⁸ and Chinese Internet users were spending two billion hours online each week.⁹ Astronaut Marco Pontes became the first Brazilian in space.¹⁰ Palestine fired a larger-than-usual missile into an Israeli kibbutz, without any casualties,¹¹ and Canada cut off all relations with the Palestinian government.¹² Ariel Sharon was about to undergo head surgery.¹³

Earthquakes in western Iran damaged 330 villages and killed 70 people.¹⁴ At least 48 people drowned when a cruise boat capsized off the coast of Bahrain,¹⁵ and thunderstorms--along with at least 63 tornadoes--killed 27 people in Tennessee, Missouri, and Illinois.¹⁶ In Colorado a school banned flag-waving.¹⁷ Three quarters of Africa's farmland lacked the basic nutrients needed to grow crops. "We must," said Nigerian president Olusegun Obasanjo, "feed our soils."¹⁸ Britain assigned 4,000 officers to the new Serious Organised Crime Agency, an elite and secretive organization intended, according to a former detective, to "catch people in the highest echelon of organized crime."¹⁹ In Washington, D.C., President George W. Bush gave a speech about democracy. "One of the great things about America," he said, "one of the beauties of our country, is that when we see a young, innocent child blown up by an IED, we cry."²⁰ With watering eyes, Andy Card stood next to Bush and resigned as White House chief of staff. "You're a good man, Mr. President," Card said before being replaced by budget director Joshua Bolten.²¹ Scientists in Michigan determined that children behave better after their tonsils are removed.²² The U.S. Capitol building lost its power and was evacuated,²³ and the King of Tonga appointed Dr. Frederick Vaka'uta Sevele as prime minister, even though Sevele is not an aristocrat.²⁴ Caspar Weinberger died.²⁵ A Las Vegas ambulance company was using a special extra-large ambulance to deal with extremely obese patients; the company said that it had served 75 patients weighing over 600 pounds in the last 6 months.²⁶ It was revealed that lobbyist Jack Abramoff had once helped look for a child's missing hamster.²⁷

British scientists found that the air temperature in Antarctica was rising three times faster than in the rest of the world.²⁸ Former Liberian president Charles Taylor was caught attempting to flee Nigeria and was sent to Sierra Leone, where he pleaded not guilty to 11 counts of war crimes.²⁹ The First Secretary of Rwanda was briefly arrested in Uganda after he was caught sleeping with the wife of a Ugandan businessman. "This," said a Western diplomat, "will not help matters."³⁰ Doctors in North Carolina announced that they had successfully implanted lab-grown bladders into several patients,³¹ a Swedish study linked heavy cell-phone use to malignant brain tumors,³² and scientists successfully sent muon neutrinos from Illinois to Minnesota in order to prove that some neutrinos do transform, most likely to tau neutrinos.³³ Catholics commemorated the one-year anniversary of the death of Pope John Paul II.³⁴ In Valletta, Malta, a man described as a "dark-skinned foreigner" walked into the Church of Our Lady of Jesus during mass and destroyed a 200-year-old mother-of-pearl crucifix. "Christians," said the man, "do not live up to what they preach."³⁵ There was a total eclipse of the sun.³⁶