Portal:Current events/2006 December 4

December 4, 2006 (Monday)

Baidu, the leading search engine in Chinese language, announces its plan to provide service in Japanese. (Reuters via The Washington Post Archived 2012-10-25 at the Wayback Machine)
NASA announces plans to build a base on either the north pole or south pole of the Moon. (Reuters) (Money Times)^{[permanent dead link]}
John R. Bolton will resign as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations when his recess appointment expires in January 2007. (The Times)
It is now widely expected that Kazakhstan will head the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe in 2009 despite strong opposition from the United States. Kazakh President Nazarbayev is visiting Brussels, Belgium, which supports Kazakhstan's bid, and he recently visited London, meeting with Prime Minister Tony Blair, whose government also supports Kazakhstan. (RFE/RL)
President of the Philippines Gloria Arroyo declares a "state of national calamity" following the death and destruction caused by Typhoon Durian. (The Australian)^{[permanent dead link]}
A US Marine is jailed for raping a woman at Subic Bay after joint exercises with the Philippines. Three other Marines were acquitted in a case which caused anti-American protests. (INQ7 Philippines)
Kevin Rudd is elected as the new leader of the Federal Australian Labor Party with the caucus electing him by 49 votes to 39 votes for Kim Beazley. Julia Gillard is the new deputy leader. (The Age)
Fijian troops take over the headquarters of the armed police division, occupy the main police station in Suva, and surround a police academy in an escalation of the 2006 Fijian coup d'état plot. (The NZ Herald)
The Government of Iran blocks Wikipedia, IMDb and nytimes.com, among many sites both commercial and informative. (The Guardian)