December 25, 2003 (Thursday)
- Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf survives a suicide bomber attack on his motorcade, the second attempt to assassinate him in two weeks. [1]
- Following Beagle 2's expected landing, US probe Mars Odyssey (already in Martian orbit) listens for the lander's distinctive musical callsign. A further scan for the lander is conducted using the Jodrell Bank radio telescope. No signal is detected. [2][3]
- Israeli-Palestinian Conflict:
- An Israeli helicopter gunship attacks a car in Gaza City, killing Islamic Jihad commander Mekled Hameid and two fellow militants, together with two bystanders. [4]
- A suicide-bomber strikes a bus stop Tel Aviv, killing four civilians and himself. [5]
- Israel announces closure of the West Bank and Gaza. [6]
- A UK lab confirms the presence of BSE in samples taken from a cow in Washington [7]. Mexico joins the list of countries which have banned imports of US beef.
- Reports emerge of a major leak of natural gas in a gas field near the south-western Chinese city of Chongqing. Over 100 people are believed dead and up to 40,000 people have been evacuated from the area surrounding the leak. [8]
- A Boeing 727 of United Transit Airlines originating in the Guinean capital, Conakry, stopping in Freetown, Sierra Leone, and bound for Beirut, clips a building during takeoff and crashes into the Atlantic Ocean off Benin. Over 100 people die, most of them Lebanese. [9]