Portal:Current events/2004 February 13
February 13, 2004 (Friday)
- Mars Exploration Rover Mission: Mars surface temperatures appear to vary more frequently and dramatically than on Earth, preliminary data from NASA's Opportunity rover shows.
- Logging, conducted illegally, is destroying the equatorial rain forests of Indonesian Borneo.
- Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld announces alleged al-Qaida and Taliban fighters, who are being held at Guantanamo Bay detention camp, Cuba, may apply annually for release.
- Scientists announce the possible discovery of a 10 billion trillion trillion (1×1034) carat diamond, 2,500 miles (4,000 km) across and 50 light-years away from Earth in the core of the decayed star BPM 37093 in the constellation of Centaurus.
- Ivan Rybkin, a Russian presidential candidate and fierce critic of President Vladimir Putin, holds a press conference in London, stating that during his recent disappearance for several days he was drugged and made the subject of a compromising videotape.
- U.S. President George W. Bush opens his National Guard file for resolving questions about Vietnam era military service. Reportedly, released papers do not document Bush's Alabama service. Roswell businessman John Calhoun, 69, remembers Lt. George W. Bush worked weekends at an Air Force base in Montgomery.
- Democratic presidential nomination: Former Democratic candidate for the U.S. presidency Gen. Wesley K. Clark endorses current Democratic favorite Senator John Kerry.
- Greek and Turkish Cypriot leaders accept United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan's plan for ending the partition of the island of Cyprus. The two sides will work under a tight timetable to agree by March 22 on reunification language that can be put to simultaneous islandwide referendums on April 21. Unless reunification is achieved, only the Greek Cypriot government will be entitled to enter the European Union on May 1.
- Iran admits it possesses a design for a far more advanced high-speed centrifuge to enrich uranium than it previously revealed to the International Atomic Energy Agency after being confronted with evidence obtained from the secret network of nuclear suppliers surrounding Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan.
- The United States, in a major shift of policy on the Middle East, says it may support an Israeli proposal for a unilateral partial withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. Deputy Secretary of State Richard L. Armitage says that a pullout from Gaza would be "a step in the right direction." Administration official state "... negotiations were impossible because of Palestinian recalcitrance."
- Occupation of Iraq: South Korea's parliament on Friday approves sending 3,000 troops to Iraq, responding to a call from the United States for military help in restoring stability to Iraq.
- The European Union anti-fraud office (OLAF) is studying documents suggesting that Yasser Arafat and the Palestinian Authority diverted tens of millions of dollars in EU funds to organizations involved in terrorism. "... some of the money reportedly went to the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, which has been involved in terror strikes." Their final report is expected in two months.
- A United States National Guardsman stands accused of attempting to provide military data to Osama bin Laden's Al-Qaeda network.
- The former Chechen President Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev is killed in an apparent car bomb explosion in Doha, the capital of Qatar.