President George W. Bush attended the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Forum in Sydney, where he gave a speech referring to APEC as OPEC and thanking Australian Prime Minister John Howard for sending Austrian troops to Iraq. 1A B-52 bomber plane flew across the United States, mistakenly loaded with nuclear-armed missiles,2 and “bio-warfare” chemicals found at a United Nations office in New York turned out to be cleaning supplies.3
Police in Germany claimed to have foiled a massive terror plot that would have targeted U.S. facilities in the country,4 and Al Qaeda claimed responsibility for two suicide bombs that killed at least 50 people in Algeria.5
AIDS victims were being buried alive in Papua New Guinea. “If someone comes back to the village and they have HIV/AIDS,” an Australian reporter claimed, “the people blame this on witchcraft.”6
Muslim students in northeastern India were studying in the local graveyard to improve their test scores,7 and two women accused of casting spells on a South African school were burned to death by students on the school's football field.8
Archbishop Desmond Tutu became the patron of South Africa's Barbecue Day. “This,” he said, “is something that can unite us.”9
Frances Fragos Townsend, the top homeland security adviser to President Bush, said that a new videotape released by Osama bin Laden showed that the Al Qaeda leader was “virtually impotent.”1
Viagra turned 15,2 a convicted California voyeur sued police to get back his porn collection,3 and the U.S. Justice Department said that Internet providers should be allowed to charge more for certain types of traffic such as movie and television downloads.4
Facebook accounted for 1 percent of all Internet traffic,5 and police were cracking down on Craigslist hookers. “Technology has worked its way into every profession,” said a Long Island detective, “including the oldest.”6
A judge in England called for all U.K. residents and visitors to be placed in the national DNA database,7 and an Alabama judge was accused of removing inmates from their cells so that he might take them to the storage closet in his office and paddle them.8
A corrupt official in China was caught plagiarizing his trial apology from another corrupt official.9
A routine X-ray of a Chinese woman's body uncovered 26 sewing needles, presumably placed there during her infancy by her grandparents, who were disappointed that she was not a boy.10
The Friends of Jesus went to Kenya's High Court in a bid to clear the Messiah of the blasphemy charge that resulted in his crucifixion.11
Israel announced that it would grant citizenship to hundreds of refugees from Darfur,12 and scientists blamed the recent massive honey bee die-offs on an Israeli virus.13
Spokesmen for Larry Craig said that the senator, caught flirting in a men's room, would resign, then that he wouldn't, and then that he would. His former chief of staff claimed that Craig had been planning to quit anyway.1
Representative Jim Sensenbrenner (R., Wis.), heir to the Kimberley-Clark fortune, won the lottery for the third time,2 and all the inmates in an English prison were to be given 2 pounds spending money for good behavior during a prison-officer strike.3
The first Starbucks opened in Russia,. 4 and Sarajevo artists erected a 10-foot statue of a can of meat that represented food donated from abroad during the war. “That stuff was so bad,” said one retiree, “that if your cat ate it, his fur would fall off.”5
Ethiopian authorities planned to use strychnine-laced meat to kill tens of thousands of stray dogs in Addis Ababa before the Coptic New Year.6
Nepal's state-run airline, after experiencing technical problems with one of its planes, sacrificed two goats to appease the Hindu sky god.7
A San Diego woman was reportedly considering a lawsuit against Southwest Airlines after she was asked to leave one of their flights because attendants deemed her skirt and sweater too revealing.8
Tenor Luciano Pavarotti died, as did writer Madeleine L'Engle,9 10 and scientists in Liverpool found that rock stars are twice as likely to die prematurely as ordinary people.11
The United Kingdom's Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority agreed to allow the creation of human-animal hybrid embryos for research.12
The British government complained that the Taliban was using weapons that had been made in China,. 13 and Mattel recalled 11 more Chinese-produced lead-laced toys.14
Psychiatrists announced that diagnoses of bipolar disorder in U.S. children have increased by 4,000 percent over the last 10 years.15
A high school student in New Hampshire asked John McCain if the senator was too old to be president. “Thanks for the question, you little jerk,” McCain replied. “You're drafted!”16
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