December 16, 2005

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[edit] 16 December 2005 (Friday)

• Bulgaria starts withdrawing its troops from Iraq. (Reuters)
• Extreme levels of radiation have been found at a chemical factory in Chechnya. (BBC)
• United States Government:
  • Senator John McCain persuades President George W. Bush to accept a ban on cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment of detainees. (AP)
  • The United States House of Representatives has requested that the Bush administration give Congress details on any secret detention facilities overseas. (AP)
  • The United States Senate rejects the extension of the PATRIOT Act. Critics had said it infringed on civil liberties and made the government too powerful. (AP).
  • United States President George W. Bush refuses to comment on whether the National Security Agency spied on American citizens without a legal warrant. (AP)
• Conflict in Iraq: Iraqi Police claim that they captured Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in 2004 and then released him by mistake. (BBC)
• Hamas, the main Palestinian opposition party make a large series of gains in the West Bank municipal elections. (BBC)
• At least 39 people, 33 of whom were patients, die after a fire breaks out in a hospital in the city of Liaoyuan, near Changchun in China's Jilin Province. The cause of the fire is unknown. (BBC)
• Israeli-Palestinian conflict: An Israeli settler dies following a drive-by shooting claimed by the al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades and Islamic Jihad. (Ynetnews) (RTÉ)
• Intellectual property dispute: a US federal judge upholds Pfizer's two main patents for Lipitor, which had been challenged by Ranbaxy Laboratories. The decision is the latest defeat for Ranbaxy, an Indian generic drugmaker, which has also lost in a UK court. (MSNBC)
• Denis Donaldson is expelled from Sinn Féin for being a British spy. He later confirms this in a statement. (BBC)