Portal:Current events/2004 January 28
January 28, 2004 (Wednesday)
- Milan Babic, the former leader of the breakaway Republic of Serbian Krajina (now re-incorporated into Croatia), pleads guilty to crimes against humanity at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia.
- David Kay testifies before a United States Senate committee stating that evidence of weapons of mass destruction was based on inaccurate intelligence. "I believe that the effort that has been directed to this point has been sufficiently intense that it is highly unlikely that there were large stockpiles of deployed, militarized chemical weapons there" and, even if Iraq did not have weapons stockpiles, this does not mean that nation was not dangerous. Kay urges for an inquiry into the intelligence failure and states that the United States needed better intelligence.
- The Hutton Inquiry report is released, stating the suicide of Iraqi weapons expert David Kelly did not involve "dishonourable conduct" on the part of the United Kingdom's government and exonerates Prime Minister Tony Blair of any wrongdoing in Kelly's death. The BBC receives harsh criticism for the allegations within Andrew Gilligan's report on weapons of mass destruction and the BBC's subsequent backing of the report. Gavyn Davies takes full responsibility for any wrongdoing and resigns as the Chairman of the Board of Governors of the BBC.
- The discovery of a new form of matter, Fermionic condensate, has been announced.
- The World Wide Web Consortium releases Document Object Model Level 3 Validation as a W3C Recommendation.
- San Jose, California, mayor Ron Gonzales suffers a mild stroke while giving the State of the City address. The mayor is expected to make a full recovery.
- A rare artefact from the 1800s used against witchcraft is found in the United Kingdom. Now displayed in a museum.