NEWS December 2000
On 15 December, the final reactor at the chernobyl plant in Ukraine was shut down, over 14 years after the disaster at the plant and almost a year after the country’s government had promised it would be closed. Reactor number three was the only one of the site’s four reactors which had operated without major incident, but it was not close to meeting international safety standards and had experienced several malfunctions. New reactors in Rovno and Khmelnytskyi were completed in 2004 to compensate for the plant’s closure.
Singer Kirsty Maccoll was killed at the age of 41 on 18 December. While on holiday with her family in Cozumel, Mexico, a powerboat entered a restricted diving area and struck Maccoll, who managed to push her teenage son out of the path of the boat. José Cen Yam, an employee of the multimillionaire owner of the boat, was found guilty of culpable homicide.
The controversial Millennium Dome in London closed to the public on 31 December. Though 87% of visitors reported being satisfied with their trip, the exhibition attracted just 6.5 million visitors – fewer than the initial forecast of 12 million visitors. The shortfall caused a £204 million hole in the Dome’s budget that had to be plugged with lottery funds. The structure would not reopen on a full-time basis until 2007.