Unix Timestamp: 1069632000
Monday, November 24. 2003, 12:00:00 AM UTC

A fire in a student hostel at Moscow's Patrice Lumumba University kills 32 and injures about 150 people, all foreign students. The fire services blame an electrical fault. //news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/3232090.stm

HIV-positive muppet Kami is appointed UN mascot for juvenile AIDS victims. //story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=storycid=553ncid=751e=9u=/ap/20031124/ap_wo_en_he/un_gen_un_aids_puppet

Australian schoolboy Daniel Morcombe disappears from a bus stop on the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, Australia. It is one of the country's highest profile mysteries.

Boeingchairman and CEOPhil Condit resigns unexpectedly. He is replaced by Lewis Platt as non-executive chairman and Harry Stonecipher as president and CEO.

The High Court in Glasgow imposes a minimum sentence of 27 years for Al Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi, the Libyan convicted of bombing Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland.

Pro-democracy groups gain in the Hong Kong District Council elections, as the pro-Beijing Democratic Alliance for the Betterment of Hong Kong loses 21 of its previous 83 elected seats. DAB chairman Tsang Yok-sing offers to resign. //www.nytimes.com/2003/11/24/international/asia/24HONG.html?ex=1070254800en=e51df8e3b9b09716ei=5062partner=GOOGLE

Parliamentary elections are held in Russia.

A suicide bombing on a commuter train in southern Russia kills 44 people. President Vladimir Putin condemns the attack as a bid to destabilize the country 2 days before parliamentary elections.

The use of hand-held cell phones while driving is made illegal in the United Kingdom.

The High Court in Glasgow rules that Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, convicted in 1999 of the bombing of Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, in December 1988, must serve a minimum of 27 years before being considered for parole. //news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/3233156.stm

The eighteenth Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting opens in Abuja, Nigeria.

Radical Muslim cleric Sheik Nasser al-Fahd denounces suicide bombings, declaring on Saudi TV that blowing oneself up in such operations is not martyrdom it is suicide. Some consider this a response to pressure from the Saudi government to recant previous statements.//www.washtimes.com/world/20031123-111636-4783r.htm

A former ANC intelligence operative appears in a South African Court on Monday in connection with an alleged plot to oust or kill President Thabo Mbeki. //allafrica.com/stories/200311250399.html//www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?ao=24016