January 23, 2004

JANUARY 23 , 2004

David Kay steps down from Iraq Survey Group . George Tenet names former UN weapons inspector Charles Duelfer to succeed Kay. {Link without Title}

The International Monetary Fund has joined the World Bank in forgiving US$4 billion of the $6.5bn debt owed by Nicaragua , sharply reducing the nation's overall debt payments. {Link without Title}

The European Space Agency 's Mars Express orbiter directly detects water Ice in the southern polar region of the planet Mars . [http://edition.cnn.com/2004/TECH/space/01/23/mars.water.ice/

NASA 's Spirit rover communicated with Earth in a signal detected by NASA's Deep Space Network antenna complex near Madrid, Spain , at 12:34 Universal Time (4:34 am PST) this morning. The transmissions came during a communication window about 90 minutes after Spirit woke up for the morning on Mars. The signal lasted for 10 minutes at a data rate of 10 bits per second. Mission controllers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., plan to send commands to Spirit seeking additional data from the spacecraft during the subsequent few hours. The flight team for NASA's Spirit received data from the rover in another communication session that began at 13:26 Universal Time (5:26 am PST) and lasted 20 minutes at a data rate of 120 bits per second. [http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/newsroom/pressreleases/20040123b.html

A Thai man suspected of having Bird Flu died, according to the Public Health Ministry. {Link without Title}

At least 51 people, including a Bridegroom , were killed on Friday when a fire ripped through a makeshift wedding hall in the southern India n state of Tamil Nadu during a marriage ceremony. {Link without Title}

An explosion has killed two people at Zhengzhou railway station, one of the People's Republic Of China 's biggest transport hubs. {Link without Title}

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