Portal:Current events/2004 February 5

February 5, 2004 (Thursday)

Saudi Arabia's religious authority endorses plan by King Fahd to modernize the holy sites of Mecca.
SCO v. IBM: SCO Group widens Unix and Linux lawsuit against IBM. They add a copyright infringement claim to case.
The United Nations releases a science and technology strategy report, "Inventing a Better Future: A Strategy for Building Worldwide Capacities in Science and Technology", produced by the InterAcademy Council (IAC).
Carmine Caridi is expelled from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (the "Academy" in the Academy Awards) by vote after having been found to have leaked hundreds of screeners over the past five years to Russell Sprague in Chicago.
Pakistani nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan publicly admits illegally transferring nuclear secrets to Iran, Libya and North Korea. Following a written apology from Khan, President Pervez Musharraf issues a formal pardon.
2003 invasion of Iraq: Responding to criticism that pre-war intelligence gathering was faulty, CIA director George Tenet states that analysts had never presented Saddam Hussein's Iraq as an "imminent threat" in the years immediately preceding the coalition invasion. Tenet states that an overall "objective assessment" for policymakers of a "brutal dictator who was continuing his efforts to deceive and build programs" that might "surprise" and "threaten" US interests was outlined in the 2002 National Intelligence Estimate.
U.S. Army Sergeant Jerry Onken of Onamia, Minnesota, is sentenced to five years in prison by a South Korean court for killing a Korean woman in a hit-and-run crash involving alcohol. The U.S. established a Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) with South Korea in 2001 that allowed such prosecutions, and this case marked the first time that an off-duty member of the U.S. military had been charged under that agreement.
The United States Department of Interior states that the survival of sea otters in southwest Alaska is threatened. The department proposes adding the sea otter, Enhydra lutris, to the government's endangered species list.
The coalition government of Latvia, headed by PM Einars Repše, resigns, but will continue to work until the president appoints a new cabinet.