Portal:Current events/October 2003

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May 27, 2003

Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon states that the "occupation" of Palestinian territories is "a terrible thing for Israel and for the Palestinians" and "can't continue endlessly." [1]

May 26, 2003

A Ukrainian YAk-42 plane crashes in northeast Turkey, near the city of Trabzon, killing all aboard. The plane carried 12 crew-members and 62 Spanish soldiers returning from a six-month peacekeeping mission in Afghanistan. [2]
A draft of the proposed European constitution is unveiled. [3]
In the city of Munich (Germany), the SPD and Greens, who have a city hall majority, decide in separate meetings to migrate 14,000 city-owned Microsoft Windows NT PC workstations to the SuSE Linux operating system. In spite of personal meetings with Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and substantial rebates offered on a Microsoft solution, Munich now becomes the largest German city to migrate all of its client PCs to Linux. As an office suite, OpenOffice.org will be used. [4]
Peter Hollingworth resigns as Governor-General of Australia.

May 25, 2003

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon wins cabinet approval for a peace plan that includes the creation of a Palestinian state by 2005.
Gus Van Sant is awarded the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival for his film Elephant

May 24, 2003

Former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani marries his girlfriend Judith Nathan
Police in Lafayette Parish, Louisiana release information on a new suspect in the Baton Rouge Serial Killer case. [5]

May 23, 2003

U.S. Congress passes a $350 billion tax cut plan. The plan is less than half the size of President Bush's original proposal. Vice President Dick Cheney casts the deciding vote, breaking the 50-50 tie in the Senate [6]
The Euro breaks through its 1999 launch exchange rate of USD 1.1747 for the first time. [7]

May 22, 2003

U.S. occupation of Iraq: Senators grill Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz on the status of the U.S. occupation of Iraq.
U.S. occupation of Iraq: The United Nations Security Council votes to lift its sanctions on Iraq and to give the United States and United Kingdom control over the country indefinitely until a democratic government is formed.
U.S. General Tommy Franks, who commanded American-led forces in the recent conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq, announces his retirement.
Canadian two-time Olympic gold medallist speed skater Catriona Le May Doan announces her retirement.
The WNBA's 2003 season begins.

May 21, 2003

An earthquake in northern Algeria measures 6.7 on the Richter scale; at least 1,600 are feared dead and 7,000 injured.
An explosion occurs inside the Yale University's Sterling Law School Building in New Haven, Connecticut, damaging two rooms. Investigators from the Joint Terrorism Task Force respond. No injuries reported. Authorities strongly believe the explosion was caused by a pipe bomb.
In Britain, the convicted child-killer Mary Bell, now living under a new name and assumed identity, wins her High Court battle for anonymity.

May 20, 2003

Christine Todd-Whitman announces that on June 27 she will resign her position as Administrator of the United States Environmental Protection Agency [8] [9]
The Chelsea Flower Show opens
A case of BSE ("mad cow disease") in a single cow in Alberta is confirmed by Canadian federal and provincial officials. The animal had been destroyed and declared unfit for consumption prior to being diagnosed. The US issues a temporary ban on all Canadian beef. This is the first North American case of BSE since one in 1993 involving an animal born in Britain.
DARPA's Congressional report announces that the controversial Total Information Awareness program will be known as the Terrorist Information Awareness program from now on, to emphasize that its purpose is to compile data on terrorists, and not to compile dossiers on US citizens. [10]

May 19, 2003

White House spokesman Ari Fleischer announces he will resign from his job in the summer, citing his desire to see his new wife more and to work in the private sector as reasons for his decision.

May 18, 2003

The Guardian reporter Andrew Meldrum, the last foreign journalist in Zimbabwe, is forcibly deported after covering the country for the last 23 years.
In Belgium federal elections take place. The main winners are the social-democratic cartel SP.a-Spirit and the extreme right wing Vlaams Blok. The biggest losses are for the green party Agalev.
A nationwide referendum on record nine issues takes place in Switzerland. Abolishment of nuclear power is rejected. Reduction and modernization of army is approved. It ends requirement of nuclear bunker in every home and famous bicycle brigade. [11], [12], [13]
Indonesian president Megawati Sukarnoputri declares martial law in the breakaway republic of Aceh.
In Slovakia, voters approve a referendum on joining the European Union. The referendum is only advisory, the decision is in the hands of the national legislature, but it is expected to be approved.

May 17, 2003

Football (soccer): Arsenal beat Southampton 1 - 0 in the final of the FA Cup held in Wales at Cardiff's Millennium Stadium. The final is the first in the history of the event to be played under cover.
Horse-racing: Funny Cide, the winner of the Kentucky Derby, wins the Preakness Stakes by 9 3/4 lengths.
Flooding begins in Sri Lanka; it will leave 500 missing and 350,000 homeless.

May 16, 2003

U.S. occupation of Iraq: United States and British officials announce a change of policy concerning the redevelopment of Iraq. The establishment of an Iraq-led national assembly will be put off indefinitely, and Allied commanders will remain in charge, reportedly because no new government would have the necessary amount of real power.
Terrorist incidents: A series of explosions occurs in Casablanca. At least 41 people are believed to be dead including 12 suicide bombers. 100 are reported injured. [14]
Astronomy: A total lunar eclipse is visible from Europe, the Americas and most of Africa from 01:46 to 05:34 GMT Nasa 1, Nasa 2.
The Guardian reports that the Republican Party of Texas had the help of the United States Department of Homeland Security to track down several Democratic Party state legislators who had fled the state to prevent the state's House of Representatives from meeting with a quorum.[15]
Three time defending NBA champions Los Angeles Lakers get eliminated from the 2002-2003 playoffs, losing 110-82 to the San Antonio Spurs in Los Angeles in Game 6 of their series.

May 15, 2003

The journal Nature reports that all species of large fish in the world's oceans have been so thoroughly overfished that just 10% of the population that there was in 1950 remains. The scientists who authored the report conclude that the world's oceans are no longer even close to their natural state. Sharks, Atlantic cod, and Pacific sardines are tapped as particularly imperilled with extinction. The scientists recommend drastic measures to reduce ocean fishing. Nature, Environment News, BBC
The United States Senate approves a tax-cut bill designed to cut revenues by a total of $350 billion over ten years. The Senate takes a compromise position on the controversial issue of taxing stock dividends; the dividend tax is temporarily reduced, then eliminated, and reinstated for 2007. The bill will now go to a conference committee to resolve differences with a $550 billion tax cut passed by the House on May 10.
China announces a new series of measures to combat SARS. Foreign adoptions of Chinese babies are now suspended. The penalties for knowingly spreading the disease have been increased, and now include execution.
United States federal prosecutors indict Jamal Ahmed Ali al-Badawi and Fahd al-Quso, in absentia, in connection with the USS Cole bombing in Yemen on October 12, 2000.

May 14, 2003

DARPA's Information Processing Technology Office solicits bids for the LifeLog project, an extremely ambitious effort to create a massive searchable computer database, "an ontology-based (sub)system that captures, stores, and makes accessible the flow of one person's experience in and interactions with the world ... The objective ... is to be able to trace the 'threads' of an individual's life in terms of events, states, and relationships". [16], [17]
Apparently noticing the incongruity of their selling a Linux distribution while suing IBM for stealing their intellectual property and giving it to the developers of that operating system, the SCO Group (formerly Caldera) announces they will no longer distribute Linux. According to their press release, "SCO will continue to support existing SCO Linux and Caldera OpenLinux customers and hold them harmless from any SCO intellectual property issues regarding SCO Linux and Caldera OpenLinux products."
Carlos Menem quits the Argentinian presidential race; fellow Peronist Nestor Kirchner is consequently expected to win.
The bodies of 17 Hispanics, suspected Mexican illegal immigrants, were found by police in Victoria, Texas. One more person, a man, died in a hospital, raising the death total to 18. 13 of the bodies were found inside a locked truck, and four of them outside it. A man was later arrested in Houston on suspicion of being the smuggler who led the 18 persons to their deaths.

May 13, 2003

The Bureau of Engraving and Printing of the Treasury Department of the United States releases a new 20 dollar note, aimed at defeating the technological advances of counterfeiters. The note is expected to begin circulating in the fall of 2003; which is 5 years since the last $20 note was released in 1998. New designs for the $50 and $100 notes will follow in 2004 and 2005. The most distinctive change in the new currency design is in color. It is the first U.S. currency since 1905 to include colors other than green and black. Different colors for different denominations will make it easier to tell one note from another, and more difficult to counterfeit. The New Color of Money Web site (includes images)
Much of France comes to a standstill in a general strike of the public and private sectors. [18]
Russian officials identify Arab militant Abu Walib as the mastermind behind the May 12 bombing in Znamenskoye, Chechnya, and claim links between that incident and the bombings in Riyadh 14 hours later. [19]
A suicide bombing occurs at a religious festival in the town of Iliskhan-Yurt, in southeastern Chechnya. At least 14 people are killed by the bombing. The attack is apparently an attempt to assasinate Akhmad Kadryov, the Moscow-appointed chief administrator of Chechnya. Kadryov escaped injury. [20], [21]

May 12, 2003

Four simultaneous car bombs detonate in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia at various Western enclaves there, killing at least 35 people. U.S. and Saudi officials speculate that the bombs are the work of al Qaeda.
A truck bomb explodes at FSB headquarters in Znamenskoye, Chechnya, killing at least 41 and wounding some 200 more, in an apparent suicide attack. Official Russian sources blame the incident on Chechen seperatist rebels. [22], [23]
Rihab Rashid Taha, the alleged Iraqi biological weapons chief known as "Dr Germ", is taken into custody. She is not on the U.S. list of most wanted Iraqis because she has been out of power for several years. [24]
Clare Short resigns from the UK cabinet, saying that Tony Blair had reneged on promises about the role of the United Nations in the future of Iraq. Her successor as International Development Secretary, Baroness Amos, is the UK's first black woman cabinet minister.

May 11, 2003

Ponds on the north side of Catoctin Mountain, near Gambrill Park Road and Tower Road in Frederick, Maryland, are under investigation by the FBI, in connection with the 2001 anthrax attacks. FBI investigators found anthrax spores and other evidence in their search of ponds in the area during December and January, 2002. Divers retrieved a "clear box" with holes that could accommodate protective biological safety gloves, as well as vials wrapped in plastic from a pond in the Frederick Municipal Forest. A new theory has been developed suggesting how a criminal could have packed anthrax spores into envelopes without harming (him/her)self. Officials from Fort Detrick have stated that the water is safe because once in water anthrax spores cluster together and descend to the bottom. The water in the pond has been tested several times over the course of the investigation, and all indications are that the water is safe.
A number of newspapers have published the alleged identity of the British Force Research Unit's most senior informer within the Provisional IRA, code-named Stakeknife, who is thought to have been head of the Provisional IRA's internal security force, charged with routing out informers like himself. The person named has fled.
The Governor-General of Australia Peter Hollingworth has stood down from his post whilst investigations into his past are proceeding. Tasmanian Governor Sir Guy Green is appointed as Commonwealth Administrator.
The first confirmed SARS case is reported in Finland. A man who had been visiting Toronto is now being treated at Turku University Hospital.
Filip Vujanovic, a former Prime Minister who favors independence, was elected President of Montenegro. This was the third attempt at electing a President in five months; the first two votes did not attract enough voters to make the vote valid. This time the legislature had eliminated the turnout requirement.
Voters in Lithuania vote to join the European Union.
Rafael Palmeiro of the Texas Rangers hits the 500th home run of his career in a game against the Cleveland Indians.

May 10, 2003

May 9, 2003

As many as 129 are feared dead after a door opens on a plane flying from Kinshasa to Lubumbashi, Democratic Republic of the Congo. The victims were sucked from the plane, which returned to Kinshasa after the incident. Although the airline to which the plane belongs to is unknown, the plane involved in the tragedy has a logo of Ukrainian Cargo Airlines.
The United States Senate Armed Services Committee votes to lift a 10-year-old ban on the research and development of low-yield nuclear weapons as part of its 2004 defense-spending bill. The majority of the committee and the Bush administration argue that such weapons may in the future become necessary to deal with terrorist threats, and to effectively incinerate biological or chemical weapons installations. The move is criticized by Democrats who fear that it will increase the risks of nuclear proliferation and nuclear escalation in warfare. [25], [26]
The National Associaton of Evangelicals, a group of evangelical Christians, condemns Franklin Graham, Jerry Falwell, Jerry Vines, Pat Robertson and other evangelical ministers for anti-Islamic statements.
The United States House of Representatives approves a tax-cut measure for $550 billion over 10 years. This is $176 billion less than President George W. Bush originally proposed, but $200 billion more than the Senate's version of the same measure. One highly controversial aspect of the President's initial proposal that the House removed is the repeal of the tax on dividends paid by corporations to shareholders. There are also important differences between the House and Senate bills, and great difficulty is foreseen in reconciling them before they may be sent to the President for approval.

May 8, 2003

30 German passengers and the driver of a tourist bus are killed by a train collision at a railroad crossing near Siofok, Hungary. 12 people are injured. Most of the passengers came from Lower Saxony or Schleswig-Holstein.
A vulnerability in the Microsoft Passport Internet authentication system is announced which allows an attacker to change a victim's password and thereby hijack their acount. This affects Hotmail and other Passport-enabled systems, allowing an attacker to use a victim's email account and obtain other personal data such as credit card numbers. [27], [28]
The Russian mathematician Dr Grigori Perelman claims to have resolved the Poincaré conjecture. [29]
In New York City, the World Boxing Council declares itself bankrupt, to avoid paying a former world champion 30 million dollars after the former boxer wins a lawsuit against the organization.
King Mohammed VI of Morocco releases 9459 prisoners from Morocco's prisons in celebration of the birth of his first son and heir, who was named Prince Hassan.

May 7, 2003

Nearly 40,000 manuscripts and 700 artifacts belonging to the National Museum of Iraq in Baghdad are recovered by U.S. Customs agents working with museum experts in Iraq. Some looters had returned items after promises of rewards and amnesty, and many items previously reported missing had actually been hidden in secret storage vaults at the museum prior to the outbreak of war.
The planet Mercury makes a rare five hour transit of the Sun, an event that occurs roughly 12 times per century.

May 6, 2003

Buckingham Palace announces that Prince Edward, Earl of Wessex and his wife, Sophie, Countess of Wessex are expecting their first child. The child is due to be born in December 2003. He or she will be the seventh grandchild of Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh.
United States signs a Free Trade Agreement with Singapore, the first with an Asian country.
Brian Duchow, a Milwaukee bus driver, is charged with child abuse of a passenger with Down syndrome, allegedly hitting him and threatening more abuse. The abuse was recorded on an audio tape using a recorder that the parents had put in the child's backpack. [30] [31] [32]

May 5, 2003

Boeing unveils a drawing of a proposed airplane of the future and launches a public contest to name the airplane.

May 4, 2003

Manchester United F.C. win the 2003 FA Premier league due to Arsenal F.C.s failure to beat Leeds United F.C.
At least 19 people are killed in a series of tornadoes in the states of Colorado, Kansas and Missouri.

May 3, 2003

New Hampshire's famous landmark rock formation, the Old Man of the Mountain, collapses overnight.
The gelding Funny Cide wins the Kentucky Derby.
Titular Archbishop of Glendalough and Vatican representative in the United Nations in Geneva, Archbishop Diarmuid Martin is named Coadjutor Archbishop of Dublin by Pope John Paul II. His appointment is announced to worshippers at St. Mary's Pro-Cathedral in Dublin by the Archbishop of Dublin Cardinal Desmond Connell. No date is given for Connell's retirement but Martin's appointment takes immediate effect.

May 2, 2003

U.S. economic indicators: The United States Bureau of Labor Statistics announces that the unemployment rate rose to 6% in April as employers cut 48,000 jobs, smaller than the consensus estimate of 75,000. This followed a revised decline of 124,000 jobs in March.

May 1, 2003

The Labour Party under the leadership of Rhodri Morgan win a landslide victory in the Welsh Assembly elections.
President Bush safely lands in an S-3B Viking jet on the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln returning from operations in Iraq while 100 miles off the coast of San Diego, California. It is the first time a sitting president has arrived on the deck of an aircraft carrier by plane. Bush makes a primetime address, surrounded by hundreds of sailors, in which he declares major combat operations in Iraq over.
A magnitude 6.4 earthquake hits Bingol, Turkey, killing at least 87 people and injuring 400.
United States Navy forces start moving out of Vieques. A big celebration erupts on Vieques' streets at 12:01 AM EST, to celebrate the military's move out of the island.
The British Columbia Supreme Court becomes the third provincial supreme court to rule that the Canadian government must legally recognize same-sex marriage.
The Canadian dollar exceeds 70 cents US for the first time in five years, reaching $0.7044 US.

Past months' events

2003: January February March April May
2002: January February March April May June July August September October November December

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