Unix Timestamp: 1040860800
Thursday, December 26. 2002, 12:00:00 AM UTC

War on Terrorism: A Washington Post article es numerous anonymous CIA agents who confirm that the Central Intelligence Agency of the United States uses so-called stress and duress interrogation techniques, which are claimed by human rights activists to be acts of torture. The anonymous agents defend the practice as necessary in light of the September 11 terrorist attacks publicly, US government officials deny the charges, while declining to address specifics. Privately, however, one official justified human rights violations as being a necessary part of the job. //www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A37943-2002Dec25.html

North Korea is reactivating a plutonium producing nuclear power plant north of Pyongyang after removing United Nations seals on the reactor and degrading the capability of surveillance cameras. This same reactor is thought by U.S. officials as the source for plutonium for two previously produced atomic bombs. North Korea has been named by the George W. Bush Administration as part of the so-called axis of evil.//apnews.excite.com/article/20021227/D7O5SKEG0.html

Israeli-Palestinian conflict: Israel announces it will begin with temporarily providing social services such as education, healthcare, and licenses in the West Bank. The Israeli government claims the move is necessary to provide badly needed services to the Palestinian people in light of the Palestinian Authority's inability to do so. Palestinian officials claim the move is an attempt to undermine the legitimacy of the Palestinian Authority and tantamount to the reinstatement of the Israeli occupation that existed before the 1993 Oslo Accords.