Thai health officials confirmed that avian flu has probably begun to spread from person to person. Influenza experts were begging drug companies to begin manufacturing enough vaccine to prevent a pandemic but the companies were complaining that production is too expensive and that they will lose money if a pandemic does not occur. Patent issues were also cited.New York TimesEmory University Hospital in Atlanta, Georgia, began notifying more than 500 patients that they might have been exposed to sporadic Creutzfeldt-Jakobdisease because of inadequate sterilization procedures.Associated PressTony Blair underwent heart surgery, andNew York TimesMerck & Co. withdrew its arthritis drug Vioxx …

A burning plain. The United Nations Security Council passed another resolution asking the Sudanese government to prevent its proxies from slaughtering people in Darfur (China, Algeria, Pakistan, and Russia abstained). The resolution, which for the first time formally invokes the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, says that the council will “consider” sanctions if the genocide continues.New York TimesChaos continued to rule Iraq; there were many attacks by insurgents, including several large suicide bombings, hostages were beheaded, and many civilians, including women and children, were killed in American airstrikes.New York TimesIraqi prime minister Iyad …

Runaway Raft on the Tigris. President Bush unveiled his new “five-point plan” for Iraq during a speech at the Army War College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, and offered to destroy the Abu Ghraib prison if Iraqis want him to; the president also promised to give Iraq a modern prison system.New York TimesThe Bureau of Justice Statistics announced that 1 in 75 American men were in prison or jail last year, and itAssociated Presswas reported that interrogators from Guant�namo Bay, Cuba, went to Iraq last fall and trained military intelligence teams at Abu Ghraib prison.New York TimesIyad Alawi, a doctor who has …

President George W. Bush held a prime-time press conference and refused several times to apologize or accept responsibility for his government’s failure to prevent the September 11 attacks; theNew York Timespresident defended his decision to conquer Iraq and said that the Iraqis were “deceptive at hiding things. We knew they were hiding things. A country that hides things is a country that is afraid of getting caught. And that was part of our calculation.”New York TimesBush also said that “freedom is the Almighty’s gift to every man and woman in this world. And as the greatest power on the face …

Caught in the Web. National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice testified publicly and under oath before the commission investigating September 11; Rice acknowledged that President Bush had received a classified CIA briefing on August 6, 2001, entitled “Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States,” though she characterized the report as “historical information based on old reporting.” She also acknowledged that the report mentioned the existence of Al Qaeda sleeper cells in the United States but “there was no recommendation that we do something about this.” Rice also admitted that Richard Clarke, whose book on the Bush Administration’s antiterrorism failures …

A Small Family. Killing Ground. Four American mercenaries employed by Blackwater Security Consulting were pulled from their vehicles in Fallujah, Iraq, hacked to death, burned, and dragged through the streets; the remains of two were then hung from a bridge over the Euphrates River along with a sign that said “Fallujah is the cemetery for Americans.”BBC“Despite an uptick in local engagements,” said General Mark Kimmit at a press briefing a few hours later, “the overall area of operations remains relatively stable with negligible impact on the coalition’s ability to continue progress in governance, economic development, and restoration of essential services.”New …

Millions of people around the world demonstrated against George W. Bush’s coming war on Iraq. More than a million people rallied in London, and 500,000 gathered at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin. There were protests in Amsterdam, Brussels, Barcelona, Melbourne, Paris, Rome, Seoul, Tokyo, and at least 600 other cities. In New York, where the authorities refused to permit a peace march, at least half a million people attempted to assemble at a park near the United Nations; police blocked streets and prevented many of the demonstrators from reaching the rallying point. In Colorado Springs, police fired tear gas into …

The Taliban surrendered Kandahar, the last Afghan city under its control, to a loose confederation of warlords, who immediately began fighting among themselves and looting stores. Afghan refugees, particularly children, were dying in great numbers; Uzbekistan finally agreed to allow humanitarian aid to cross its border at the “Friendship Bridge.” The CIA asked Pakistan for help in finding Osama bin Laden, whose mother told a Saudi newspaper that she was disappointed in her son. Mullah Omar was still at large. The White House issued a holiday terror-strike warning. Attorney General John Ashcroft testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee, which had …