White House photo. At least 162 people were killed in violence in Iraq,The New York Timeswhere 173 malnourished Sunni Arab prisoners, many of whom had been severely tortured, were found in the basement of an Iraqi Interior Ministry compound. “You know what happens in prison,” explained the Interior Ministry’s undersecretary for security. “Their skins,” said one witness, “got stuck to the floor.”Democracy Now!Common DreamsTwo Iraqi businessmen accused U.S. troops of caging them with lions in 2003. The men were also severely beaten after they were not able to tell Army interrogators where to find Saddam Hussein or weapons of mass …

In Amman, Jordan, 57 people were killed in explosions at three different hotels. “We thought it was fireworks for the wedding,” said Ahmed at the Radisson. An Iraqi woman named Sajida Rishawi later described how she, her husband, and two other Iraqis had entered Jordan on forged passports intending to blow up the hotels; while the other three suicide bombers succeeded, she explained, her exploding belt malfunctioned, so she ran.BBC NewsThe Los Angeles TimesKuwait�??s largest oil field began to run out of oil,AMEInfo.comand Saudi Arabia was told it could now join the World Trade Organization.BBC NewsAustralian authorities arrested 17 men …

Approximately eight million people turned out to vote in Iraq. International monitors gave the election their seal of approval, though all 129 of them stayed inside Baghdad’s Green Zone.The New York TimesSecurity measures included sealing the country’s borders, banning travel between provinces, prohibiting private vehicle traffic, and imposing curfews in cities.ReutersFake polling stations were set up with snipers positioned to guard the real ones, which were revealed 24 hours before opening. Many of the candidates kept their identities secret until election day, though two had made it known they were direct descendants of the Prophet Mohammed.The New York TimesIraqi insurgents, …

The World Health Organization warned that outbreaks of cholera and dysentery resulting from a lack of clean drinking water could easily double the number of people killed by the Indian Ocean tsunami.ReutersNearly 150,000 people were confirmed dead in the disaster and far more were badly injured. Estimates of the homeless ran to five million.Associated PressUnited Nations secretary general Kofi Annan cut his Christmas holiday short to meet with world leaders about providing relief and announced that he would fly to affected countries to help organize the effort from the ground.Agence France-PressePresident George W. Bush stayed on vacation down at the …

United States military personnel who worked at Camp Delta, the largest prison camp at Guant�namo Bay, Cuba, revealed that many prisoners there were tortured by being forced to endure strobe lights and cold temperatures and extremely loud recordings of Limp Bizkit.New York TimesMembers of an Army Reserve unit in Baghdad refused to deliver a fuel shipment because they said that it was a “suicide mission.”New York TimesA study found that Gulf War Syndrome was caused by toxic chemicals.New York TimesThe U.S. was bombing Falluja again, and twoNew York Timessuicide bombers penetrated the Green Zone in Baghdad and killed five people.Washington …

Caught in the Web. Evidence continued to emerge that high-level officials in the Bush Administration approved the torture of prisoners in Iraq and elsewhere; althoughThe HillAttorney General John Ashcroft denied that the president authorized the use of torture on suspected terrorists, he refused to give Congress several memorandums by Justice Department lawyers laying out ways that interrogators could evade anti-torture laws.New York TimesSuch documents were being leaked, however; in one report on interrogation methods, administration lawyers argued last year that President Bush is not bound by laws and treaties that ban torture; the report concluded that “in order to respect …

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 …

The British government declined to prosecute Katharine Gun, the linguist who leaked a United States National Security Agency memo asking British intelligence to spy on United Nations diplomats before the invasion of Iraq; there was speculation that the government was trying to avoid another embarrassing debate about the legality of the war.New York TimesClare Short, a Labor member of parliament who resigned from the Blair cabinet over Iraq, charged that British agents had spied on United Nations secretary general Kofi Annan just before the invasion of Iraq, and said that she had seen transcripts of Annan’s conversations.IndependentAnnan was said to …

An American cattleman. In response to the mad-cow crisis, the United States Department of Agriculture banned the human consumption of cow brains, skulls, spinal cords, vertebral columns, eyes, and nerve tissue from cows older than 30 months. Downer cows may no longer be eaten by humans, though they will be boiled down and fed to chickens and pigs, and younger cow brains may still be eaten.Forbes, New York TimesThe American Meat Institutecriticized the new rules, andNew York Timestrade officials were trying to persuade about 30 countries that have banned American beef that there’s nothing to worry about.Associated PressUSDA officials said …

U.S. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz decreed that Canada, Germany, France, Russia, and other nations that opposed the conquest of Iraq will be ineligible for $18.6 billion in reconstruction contracts. The announcement was greeted with astonishment by the blacklisted countries; Russia said that it would now refuse to consider restructuring Iraq’s $8 billion debt, and Canada said the decision would probably rule out further reconstruction aid.Boston GlobeGerman Chancellor Gerhard Schröder said the blacklist might violate international law. “International law?” the president responded. “I better call my lawyer.”Washington PostA suicide car bomber blew up outside an Iraqi police station, killing at …

At the request of the CIA, the Justice Department began investigating charges that the White House leaked the name of undercover CIA agent Valerie Plame to the press in retaliation for remarks by her husband, former ambassador Joseph Wilson, challenging President Bush’sclaim that Iraq tried to buy yellowcake uranium in Africa. An unnamed administration official told the Washington Post that two White House officials had revealed the agent’s identity to at least six journalists. “Clearly,” the official said, “it was meant purely and simply for revenge.” The White House denied that Karl Rove was responsible for the leak, which was …

CIA director George Tenet testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee and again took responsibility for President Bush’s false claim that Iraq tried to buy uranium from Niger, but he admitted that he didn’t know the claim, which he successfully removed from at least one of the president’s previous speeches, would be included in the State of the Union address.Tenet said that his staff should have told him about it.Washington PostIt later emerged that the White House and the CIA had negotiated over the line, which “the CIA knew to be incredible.” The White House, one senator said, wanted to know …

The White House admitted that President Bush’s claim in his last State of the Union address that Iraq had tried to buy uranium from Niger was based on “unsubstantiated” intelligence;CNNGeorge Tenet, the director of central intelligence, took the blame for the president’s discredited claim and said that “these 16 words should never have been included in the text written for the president.”BBCTom Daschle, the Senate minority leader, said that this matter “ought to be reviewed very carefully.”CNNHoward Dean, the former governor of Vermont and a Democratic presidential candidate, said that “this government either is inept or simply has not told …

Attorney General John Ashcroft approved a new emergency policy that will allow the government to monitor conversations between federal prisoners and their lawyers and to read such mail. The president of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers denounced the policy as “an abomination” that violates the Sixth Amendment right to an attorney. The government said it would no longer issue a running tally of the number of people arrested in its investigation of the September 11attacks. At last count, 1,182 people had been detained; the Justice Department has refused to say who is being held, under what charges, or …

The United States Commission on Civil Rights released its report on the Floridaelection, concluding that blacks were widely disenfranchised by the actions of state officials and calling for an investigation by the Justice Department. After the National Academy of Sciences, in a report requested by President Bush, confirmed that global warming is in fact real, the White House was forced to disappoint its stockholders in the petroleum industry and acknowledge that climate change is an “issue that nations do need to deal with�??all nations, industrialized nations, the United States, developing nations, as well.” President Bush went off to Europe, where …

President George W. Bush said that the United States would do “whatever it took” to defend Taiwan if it were attacked by China. Missouri’s House of Representatives passed a bill making it a crime for a politician to lie in a campaign advertisement. Al Gore, angry that Bill Clinton was selected to deliver the commencement address at Columbia University, tried to organize a petition drive among his students there to protest the decision. President Bush was apparently trying to kill the government’s lawsuit against the tobacco industry by underfunding the Justice Department’s tobacco litigation team. Former senator Bob Kerry admitted …

The United States withdrew from the Kyoto Protocol on global climate change; Christie Whitman, the administrator of the EPA, announced that “we have no interest in implementing that treaty.” President Bush told German chancellor Gerhard Schr�der that “We will not do anything that harms our economy, because first things first are the people who live in America.” North Korea’s dear leader Kim Jong Il sent a large floral wreath to the funeral of Chung Ju Yung, the founder of the Hyundai group, in a further display of goodwill toward the south by the ruler of the Hermit Kingdom. Israeli prime …

Data from the Galileo spacecraft yielded evidence that Europa, Jupiter’s second moon, may have salty liquid oceans beneath its icy shell, increasing the likelihood of finding life there. Austrian scientists discovered bacteria living among the clouds. The National Institutes of Health issued rules allowing researchers who receive federal funds to use human embryonic stem cells in their studies. Richard Hatch won the Survivor game show. Three men beat a Gypsy woman, a mother of eight, to death in Slovakia. Experts urged the United Nations to improve its peacekeeping department by adding an intelligence unit. Against the advice of senior Justice …

Republicans formally nominated George W. Bush as presidential candidate at their convention in Philadelphia; a display of dark-skinned speakers elicited much comment from journalists who noticed the contrast with rank-and-file Republicans on the convention floor. Former President Gerald Ford suffered a mild stroke. Ralph Nader, the Green Party candidate, made a brief appearance, much to the delight of bored journalists, before he was removed by Republican officials. It was the tenth anniversary of Iraq’sinvasion of Kuwait; Alaa Hussein Ali, who led Kuwait’s puppet government during the occupation, filed suit against Saddam Hussein for compelling him to collaborate with Iraqi forces. …

A Concorde airplane crashed in Paris; two amateur Hungarian photographers snapped a picture of the doomed plane with flames shooting from its engines, which were manufactured by Rolls Royce, just before it destroyed a small hotel near the airport. Investigators soon narrowed their suspicions to a fuel leak, saying that previously detected cracks in another Concorde were unrelated. Atmospheric scientists discovered that some 4,000 tons of a new synthetic greenhouse gas have been released into the atmosphere; the gas, which takes 1,000 years to degrade, may be a by-product of weapons production. A Russian spacecraft docked with the International Space …