Party led by Kim Beazley. Fall of Mazar-i-Sharif: American and Northern Alliance forces take Mazar-i-Sharif in the first major offensive of the War in Afghanistan. November 11 – Two French journalists, Pierre Billaud and Johanne Sutton, and a German colleague, Volker Handloik, are killed in Afghanistan during an attack on their convoy. November 12 American Airlines Flight 587 crashes in Queens, New York City, minutes after takeoff from John F. Kennedy International Airport, killing all 260 people on board. 2001 uprising in Herat: Northern Alliance forces take the city of Herat from the Taliban. November 14 Fall of Kabul: Northern Alliance forces take the Afghan capital Kabul. A 7.8-magnitude earthquake strikes China with an epicenter near Kokoxili, but it occurs in a sparsely populated mountainous region and there are no casualties. November 15 – Microsoft enters the gaming console market with the release of the Xbox, a sixth-generation gaming console, in the United States. November 18 – The Leonids meteor shower occurs in its heaviest concentration in decades as Earth passes through a debris cloud. November 23 – The Convention on Cybercrime, the first international treaty to address cybercrime, is signed in Budapest, Hungary. November 27 – A hydrogen atmosphere is discovered on the extrasolar planet HD 209458 b, nicknamed Osiris, by the Hubble Space Telescope. It is the first atmosphere detected on an extrasolar planet. December December – Dasht-i-Leili massacre: Hundreds of Taliban prisoners are killed by the forces of Abdul Rashid Dostum. December 1 The International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty produces a report on responsibility to protect. A series of bombings in Zion Square are carried out by Hamas. Ten people are killed and hundreds more are injured. December 2 Enron files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection five days after Dynegy cancels a US$8.4 billion buyout bid (to this point, the largest bankruptcy in U.S. history). Haifa bus 16 suicide bombing: A Hamas militant carries out a suicide bombing in Haifa, Israel, killing 15 people. December 3 – The Segway, a self-balancing personal transporter invented by Dean Kamen, is unveiled after months of public speculation and media hype on the ABC News morning program Good Morning America. December 5 – 2001 Sayyd Alma Kalay airstrike: An American airstrike mistakenly targets a friendly position, killing 11 people in a friendly fire incident. December 6 – Fall of Kandahar: The Taliban surrenders in Kandahar, its final stronghold. December