December 6, 2002 (Friday)
- The Chechen separatist Akhmed Zakayev has returned to London, where he is expected to seek asylum. He was arrested but released soon afterwards on bail paid by Vanessa Redgrave.
- Israeli–Palestinian conflict: Israeli troops backed by tanks and helicopter gunships swept into the Bureij refugee camp in the Gaza Strip on Friday, provoking a gunbattle and killing 10 people, Palestinian witnesses and medics said.
- Venezuela's oil exports ground to a halt, negotiations stalled and protesters faced off on the streets as prospects dimmed for a peaceful resolution to a strike designed to unseat President Hugo Chávez.
- In continuing legal action against Exxon over the Exxon Valdez oil spill in 1989, punitive damages against the company have been reduced from USD$5 billion to $4 billion. The company is expected to appeal.
- Archeologists digging near the Gulf Coast of Mexico have discovered an inscribed seal and fragments of a plaque which contain writing, pushing back the date for the first appearance of writing in Mesoamerica to about 650 BC. It also suggests that the Olmec culture developed writing, not the Zapotecs.
- Pi has been calculated to 1.24 trillion digits. Professor Yasumasa Kanada and nine other researchers at the Information Technology Center at the University of Tokyo have set the new world record.