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An explosion holed a French supertanker, the 158,000-ton Limburg, off Yemen, igniting its oil; the incident was thought to be an attack by al-Qa’eda. Al-Jazeera, the Qatar-based television station, played a tape that a known source said was from Osama bin Laden; ‘The youths of God are preparing things that would fill your hearts with terror and target your economic lifeline,’ it said. Richard Reid, from Brixton, south London, pleaded guilty before the district court in Boston, Massachusetts, to having tried at the end of last year to blow up a transatlantic flight, with explosives packed into his shoes; he said he was a follower of Osama bin Laden. Pakistan tested its Hatf IV missile, also known as the Shaheen 1, capable of carrying nuclear warheads far into India. Pakistan also held elections, although the constitution has already been adjusted by General Pervaiz Musharraf to give him control over future governments. Israel killed 15 and wounded 100 in a raid on the Gaza Strip; it said most of the dead were armed men. The United States State Department said it was ‘deeply troubled’ by raids on Palestinian areas that killed civilians. In Ivory Coast, rebels continued to hold the centre of Bouake. A Russian was arrested at a Siberian customs post trying to smuggle 27 tons of enriched uranium out of the country. The Pope canonised Josemaria Escriva, the founder of Opus Dei. Prince Claus of the Netherlands, the consort of Queen Beatrix, died, aged 76. Professor Robert Horvitz, an American, Dr Sydney Brenner and Sir John Sulston, both British, shared the Nobel prize for medicine for their work on the genetic make-up of Caenorhabditis elegans, a nematode worm.
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