The United Nations sides with the United States on voting in Iraq. Secretary-GeneralKofi Annan and other UN officials call direct elections in advance of July 2004 impractical, due to continuing disorder in Iraq and other factors.[1]
30,000 Shiite protesters in Basra call for immediate country-wide elections in Iraq, a move that would give them more power than the UN-backed plan for regional caucuses mandated by the US-led coalition[2]
South Korea's foreign minister Yoon Young-kwan resigns after a controversy in which his ministry was accused of diverging from the government's policy of increased independence from the United States.[3]
The date for the publication of the Hutton Inquiry's report into the death of British weapons scientist Dr David Kelly is announced as January 28, 2004.[8]
Exploration of Mars: The Spirit Rover has rolled off its lander to start its exploration. The first journey was only three metres. It took the rover about 78 seconds, ending with the back of the rover being 0.7 metres from the lander.[10]
The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) announces the release of the Composite Capability/Preference Profiles (CC/PP 1.0). W3C's new standard profiling language CC/PP provides a standardized format of the description of information that will allow Web-enabled devices to effectively communicate their capabilities to the desired server and aids in delivering Web content to broad range of devices.
