Timeline of 2003 July - September
Return to home
2003 Jul 1, The
US planned to suspend $48 million in aid to some 35 countries for
failing to meet this day's deadline for exempting Americans from
prosecution before the new UN int'l. war crimes tribunal.
(SFC, 7/2/03, p.A9)
2003 Jul 1, Bishop Sean O'Malley
was named by Pope John Paul II the new archbishop of Boston, succeeding
Cardinal Bernard Law, who'd resigned in the wake of a clerical sex
abuse scandal.
(AP, 7/1/04)
2003 Jul 1, In Missouri an
employee shot and killed three co-workers and wounded four others at
the Modine Manufacturing plant on the outskirts of Jefferson City, then
drove into town and killed himself in a confrontation with police.
(AP, 7/2/03)
2003 Jul 1, Herbie Mann (73), jazz
flutist, died in Pecos, NM. He was born Apr 16, 1930, as Herbert Jay
Solomon in Brooklyn, NY.
(SFC, 7/3/03, p.A2)
2003 Jul 1, In Iraq US troops
killed 4 people who failed to stop at checkpoints.
(WSJ, 7/2/03, p.A1)(SFC, 7/2/03, p.A14)
2003 Jul 1, At a summit, Israeli
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Palestinian PM Mahmoud Abbas
rededicated themselves to peace efforts and spoke of a shared future
for their peoples.
(AP, 7/1/04)
2003 Jul 1, In Hong Kong the
"Article 23" measures targeting crimes against the state drew hundreds
of thousands of people into the streets in a protest that overshadowed
the 6th anniversary of the handover of the territory from Britain to
China.
(AP, 7/1/03)(WSJ, 7/2/03, p.A8)
2003 Jul 1, Roman Abramovich,
Russian billionaire and governor of Chukotka, bought England’s Chelsea
football club in a deal worth £140m ($233m).
(WSJ, 1/10/07,
p.A14)(http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/3036838.stm)
2003 Jul 2, The US was reported to
be sending nearly 250,000 metric tons of wheat to Ethiopia to help ease
the country's hunger crisis.
(AP, 7/2/03)
2003 Jul 2, The film "Ken Parks"
by Larry Clark and Edward Lachman received an illegal public screening
in Balmain, a suburb of Sydney, Australia. The film was about the
dysfunctional lives of skateboarders in the suburbs of Visalia, Ca.,
and was banned due to its explicit sex and violence.
(SFC, 7/7/03, p.D2)
2003 Jul 2, Vancouver, Canada, was
awarded the 2010 Winter Olympics.
(AP, 7/2/04)
2003 Jul 2, In southern India a
train engine and two coaches fell off a bridge and landed on a fish
market and parked taxis, killing at least 18.
(AP, 7/2/03)
2003 Jul 2, A group of 650 Kenyan
women won the right to sue the British Ministry of Defense for rapes by
British soldiers that took place over a 26 year period beginning in
1977.
(SFC, 7/3/03, p.A14)
2003 Jul 2, Palestinian police
moved into the West Bank town of Bethlehem, the second area handed over
by Israel under a U.S.-backed Mideast peace plan.
(AP, 7/2/03)
2003 Jul 2, Russian authorities
detained Platon Lebedev, a close partner of Russia's richest man,
Mikhail Khodorkovsky, on suspicion of defrauding the state of $283
million in the 1994 privatization of the Apatit fertilizer company.
(AP, 7/3/03)
2003 Jul 2, The WHO said Toronto
was no longer SARS infected, leaving Taiwan as the only place in the
world where the disease was not yet fully under control.
(AP, 7/2/03)
2003 Jul 3, The US jobless rate
was reported to have surged to a nine-year high in June as employers
cut 30,000 workers from their payrolls.
(AP, 7/3/03)
2003 Jul 3, Astronomers said they
have found a Jupiter-like body circling a distant star, dubbed HD 70642
some 94 light years from Earth, in a planetary system like ours. The
finding was presented at a conference at the Paris Astrophysics
Institute.
(AP, 7/4/03)
2003 Jul 3, The US military
commander in Europe was ordered to begin planning for possible American
intervention in Liberia.
(AP, 7/3/03)
2003 Jul 3, London's Trafalgar
Square reopened to the public after a $42 million facelift.
(AP, 7/3/03)
2003 Jul 3, Tens of thousands of
South Korean auto and metal workers staged a half-day walkout to demand
a 40-hour workweek and better working conditions. Most people worked
half a day on Saturdays.
(AP, 7/3/03)
2003 Jul 3, Indonesia's military
said it killed 15 insurgents in new fighting in Aceh province, and the
rebels said they have detained two local journalists.
(AP, 7/3/03)
2003 Jul 3, The US government put
a $25 million bounty on Saddam Hussein and $15 million on his sons. US
troops killed 11 Iraqis who ambushed a convoy outside Baghdad.
(AP, 7/3/03)(AP, 7/4/03)
2003 Jul 3, Yuri Shchekochikhin
(b.1950), a deputy editor for Russia’s Novaya Gazeta and member of
parliament, died of a mysterious allergic reaction. He had long
campaigned against Boris Yeltsin's war in Chechnya. Friends and
relatives were convinced that he was poisoned.
(WSJ, 12/8/06, p.A12)
2003 Jul 3, In Suweir, Saudi
Arabia, Turki Nasser al-Dandani, the top suspect wanted in the May 12
Riyadh suicide bombing, was killed along with three other militants in
a gunbattle when police raided their hideout.
(AP, 7/3/03)
2003 Jul 3, Slovakia's parliament
approved an amendment to make abortion legal until the 24th week of
pregnancy.
(AP, 7/3/03)
2003 Jul 4, President Bush visited
Dayton, Ohio, to praise the work of U.S. troops and celebrate the 100th
anniversary of flight in the hometown of the Wright brothers.
(AP, 7/4/04)
2003 Jul 4, Los Angeles Lakers
guard Kobe Bryant was arrested on suspicion of sexual assault after a
woman accused him of sexual misconduct at a hotel near Vail, Colo.
(AP, 7/4/04)
2003 Jul 4, US forces raided a
Turkish special forces office in northern Iraq and detained 11 soldiers
on reports that Turks were plotting to kill the governor of the
oil-rich city of Kirkuk.
(AP, 7/5/03)
2003 Jul 4, Barry White (58), a
singer and songwriter whose rich bass crooning stirred romance in the
hearts of a generation of fans, died in Los Angeles. His songs included
"Can't Get Enough of Your Love, Babe" (1974).
(SFC, 7/5/03, p.A20)
2003 Jul 4, Manuel Gehring (44)
shot and killed his 2 children, Philip (11) and Sarah (14), following a
dispute with his wife in Concord, NH. He was later arrested in Gilroy,
Ca. He confessed to police that he shot and killed his 2 children in
New Hampshire and buried them in the Midwest. In 2005 authorities found
the bodies of the 2 children buried off I-80 in Ohio. Gehring committed
suicide in his jail cell on February 19, 2004 at the Merrimack County
Jail in Boscawen, New Hampshire.
(SFC, 8/1/03, p.A3)(SSFC, 12/4/05,
p.A22)(http://tinyurl.com/62dfka)
2003 Jul 4, A voice purported to
be Saddam Hussein's, aired on the Arab television station Al-Jazeera,
said he is in Iraq directing attacks on American forces and called on
Iraqis to help the resistance against the US-led occupation.
(AP, 7/4/03)(SFC, 7/5/03, p.A1)
2003 Jul 4, In Algeria suspected
Islamic militants killed Lawmaker Rabah Radja and three other people at
a roadblock east of the capital.
(AP, 7/5/03)
2003 Jul 4, Landslides in central
China caused by torrential rains killed 21 people as river waters ran
at their highest level in more than a decade.
(AP, 7/6/03)
2003 Jul 4, A coal mine explosion
in northeastern China killed 22 people and injured 6 others.
(AP, 7/6/03)
2003 Jul 4, Tung Chee-hwa, Hong
Kong's leader, withdrew parts of an anti-subversion bill that triggered
massive street protests.
(AP, 7/5/03)
2003 Jul 4, Ivory Coast's
government and rebel officials declared an official end to the civil
war, 9 months after fighting erupted following a failed attempt to oust
Pres. Laurent Gbagbo.
(AP, 7/4/03)
2003 Jul 4, In Indian-controlled
Kashmir suspected Islamic guerrillas tossed a grenade and opened fire
at a meeting between a minister and health officials, killing 2 people
and wounding 28.
(AP, 7/5/03)
2003 Jul 4, Liberia's President
Charles Taylor, under US pressure to quit, said he had agreed to step
down. A senior Nigerian official said Taylor had accepted an offer of
asylum.
(AP, 7/4/03)
2003 Jul 4, In Mexico gunmen in
Las Choapas, Veracruz, killed a man believed to be a migrant trafficker
and then fatally shot four bystanders, including a 12-year-old boy,
apparently to avoid leaving witnesses.
(AP, 7/5/03)
2003 Jul 4, In Quetta, Pakistan, 3
assassins attacked a Shiite Muslim mosque and killed 44 worshippers
during prayers. Angry Shiites rioted in the streets burning cars and
tires.
(SFC, 7/5/03, p.A1)(AP, 7/6/03)(SSFC, 7/6/03, p.A6)
2003 Jul 4, The 180-nation world
Radio Communication Conference in Geneva planned to approve an
expansion of the band for wireless local area networks (Wi-Fi) by 455
megahertz.
(WSJ, 7/3/03, p.B4)
2003 Jul 5, Serena Williams beat
sister Venus for her 2nd straight Wimbledon title.
(AP, 7/5/04)
2003 Jul 5, Caribbean leaders
agreed to establish a commission like the European Union to oversee
their 15-member, single market economy, allowing the free movement of
goods, services and professional workers.
(AP, 7/6/03)
2003 Jul 5, In Ramadi, Iraq, an
explosion struck a ceremony for Iraqi policemen graduating from US
training, killing at least seven recruits and wounding dozens. In
Baghdad a British TV journalist was shot dead near the national museum.
(AP, 7/5/03)(WSJ, 7/7/03, p.A1)
2003 Jul 5, In Kuwait Islamists
and supporters of the royal-led Cabinet kept their grip the all-male
parliament in elections, while liberals urging voting rights for women
suffered major losses.
(AP, 7/6/03)
2003 Jul 5, Police in Namibia
reported the recent death of N!xau, the diminutive bushman catapulted
to international stardom in the film "The Gods Must Be Crazy" — he was
thought to be about 59 years old.
(AP, 7/5/04)
2003 Jul 5, In Russia 2 women
suicide bombers blew themselves up at a giant rock festival in suburban
Moscow, leaving 14 victims killed.
(AP, 7/6/08)
2003 Jul 5, Delegates at a Somali
peace conference agreed to create a federal government.
(AP, 7/6/03)
2003 Jul 5, The WHO removed Taiwan
from its list of SARS-infected areas and declared a provisional victory
over the epidemic, which had killed 812 people over 5 continents. The
economic losses from SARS was later estimated at about $200 billion.
SARS was later classified as one of a number of zoonoses, i.e. diseases
that come from animals.
(SSFC, 7/6/03, p.A3)(Econ, 11/19/05, p.84)
2003 Jul 6, Roger Federer became
the first Swiss man to win a Grand Slam title, defeating Mark
Philippoussis 7-6 (5), 6-2, 7-6 (3) in the Wimbledon final.
(AP, 7/6/04)
2003 Jul 6, Joseph Wilson, former
American ambassador, criticized the Bush administration for the way it
used intelligence to justify the war in Iraq. He alleged that Pres.
Bush had falsely accused Iraq of trying to buy uranium from Niger. Two
White House officials soon called at least 6 Washington journalists and
told them that Wilson’s wife, Valerie Plame, was an undercover CIA
agent who had worked in Niger. A State Dept. memo was soon sent to
Colin Powell on how Wilson got sent to Niger and the role of his wife.
(Econ, 8/21/04, p.28)(SFC, 7/16/05, p.A4)
2003 Jul 6, Dennis Schmitt and 5
companions stepped on a 120-foot-long pile of dirt at 83°42’
latitude, Earth’s farthest north piece of known land. The Arctic site
was 432 miles from the North Pole and under the jurisdiction of
Greenland. In 2004 Danish authorities discounted the find in favor of a
larger island called Kaffklubben.
(SFC, 6/17/04, p.B1)(SFC, 6/18/04, p.B10)
2003 Jul 6, Buddy Ebsen (95),
Hollywood actor who achieved stardom and riches in the television
series "The Beverly Hillbillies" and "Barnaby Jones," died.
(AP, 7/7/03)
2003 Jul 6, Kathleen Raine (95), a
poet and scholar whose verse explored the realms of nature and the
spirit, died in London. "Stone and Flower" (1943), illustrated by
Barbara Hepworth, was her first published collection, followed by
"Living in Time" (1946) and "The Pythoness" (1949).
(AP, 7/10/03)
2003 Jul 6, Corsicans voted in a
historic referendum to give local officials more say in running the
Mediterranean island, an attempt to end years of attacks by separatists
fighting French rule.
(AP, 7/6/03)
2003 Jul 6, In Liberia Pres.
Charles Taylor announced that he would leave the country and accept
refuge in Nigeria.
(SFC, 7/7/03, p.A1)
2003 Jul 6, Mexican voters issued
a severe judgment on Pres. Vicente Fox's first three years in office,
electing another divided Congress in which his party will have fewer
seats and increasing the power of the former ruling party and the
leftist opposition.
(AP, 7/7/03)
2003 Jul 6, The annual Wife
Carrying World Championship took place in Sonkajarvi, Finland. An
Estonian team was again favored to win.
(WSJ, 7/2/03, p.A1)
2003 Jul 7, Hilary Lunke won the
U.S. Women's Open.
(AP, 7/7/04)
2003 Jul 7, Pres. Bush departed
for a 5-country African tour. In 2007 Ari Fleischer, former White House
press secretary, said he had lunch with Scooter Libby on this day and
was told by Libby that Ambassador Wilson had been sent to Africa by his
wife, Valerie Plame, who worked for the CIA. Wilson had criticized the
Bush administration the previous day for the way it used intelligence
to justify the war in Iraq.
(SFC, 7/7/03, p.A8)(SFC, 1/30/07, p.A3)
2003 Jul 7, A federal judge
approved a settlement fining WorldCom $750 million for its $11-billion
accounting scandal.
(AP, 7/7/04)
2003 Jul 7, A chunk of foam
insulation fired at shuttle wing parts blew open a gaping 16-inch hole,
yielding what one member of the Columbia investigation team said was
the "smoking gun" proving what brought down the spaceship on Feb 1.
(AP, 7/7/04)
2003 Jul 7, The CDC confirmed the
year's 1st case of West Nile Virus, which killed 284 in the US in 2002.
(SFC, 7/8/03, p.A6)
2003 Jul 7, NASA's 2nd Mars
lander, named Opportunity, was launched.
(SFC, 7/8/03, p.A1)
2003 Jul 7, In Corsica explosions
rocked vacation homes owned by mainland French in new nationalist
violence a day after Corsicans rejected a plan designed to set up a
single executive body to run Corsican affairs.
(AP, 7/7/03)
2003 Jul 7, In Indonesia
gunbattles between soldiers and rebels in Aceh province left 18
insurgents dead, and the bodies of five civilians were discovered in
the region.
(AP, 7/8/03)
2003 Jul 7, In northwestern
Tanzania a bus rolled several times after one of its front tires burst,
killing at least 19 people and injuring 23 others.
(AP, 7/8/03)
2003 Jul 8, Pres. Bush met with
Pres. Abdoulaye Wade in Senegal. Bush visited Senegal's notorious Goree
Island, for several centuries a processing station for African slaves
bound in chains for the Western Hemisphere.
(SFC, 7/7/03, p.A8)(AP, 7/8/03)
2003 Jul 8, Richard Armitage,
former Deputy Sec. of State, told Robert Novak about Valerie Plame.
This information was only made public in 2006 when Richard Armitage
said he had confessed this to the FBI on Oct 1, 2003.
(SFC, 8/29/06, p.A2)
2003 Jul 8, In Meridian, Miss.,
Doug Williams (48), a white factory worker known as a racist who talked
about murdering others opened fire with a shotgun and a rifle at a
Lockheed Martin plant, killing four blacks and one white before
committing suicide.
(AP, 7/8/03)(SFC, 7/9/03, p.A6)
2003 Jul 8, Joanie Harper (39),
her 3 children aged 2 months to 4 years, and her mother, were shot and
killed in Bakersfield, Ca. Husband Vincent E. Brothers (41), a
Bakersfield teacher and administrator, was arrested and released, but
remained a prime suspect. In May, 2007, Brothers was convicted. On Sep
27 he was sentenced to death for the murders.
(SFC, 7/9/03, p.A13)(SFC, 7/11/03, p.A17)(SFC,
9/28/07, p.B12)
2003 Jul 8, Lewis Coser (89),
leftist sociologist, died. His books included "American Communist
Party: A Critical History (1919-1957)" (1958), and "Men of Ideas: A
Sociologist's View" (1966).
(SSFC, 7/13/03, p.A27)
2003 Jul 8, In Bangladesh a ferry,
with an estimated 750 passengers, sank at the confluence of the Padma,
Meghna and Dakatia rivers about 40 miles south of the capital, Dhaka.
Some 220 survivors were counted.
(AP, 7/9/03)
2003 Jul 8, In Burundi Hutu rebels
fought their way into part of the capital, trading gun, mortar and
grenade fire with the Tutsi-dominated army. Thousands fled their homes.
(AP, 7/8/03)
2003 Jul 8, Antonis Samarakis
(84), Greek writer and children's rights activist, died. His books
included the novel "Mistake" (1965).
(SFC, 8/11/03, p.A17)
2003 Jul 8, In Iraq Mizban Khadr
Hadi (No. 23), a high-ranking member of the Baath Party regional
command and Mahmud Diab al-Ahmed (No. 29), the former interior
minister, were taken into custody. The capture of Al-Ahmed was reported
in error. He surrendered Aug 8.
(AP, 7/9/03)(AP, 8/10/03)
2003 Jul 8, US military experts
arrived in Liberia to assess the need for help in the local civil war.
(AP, 7/8/03)
2003 Jul 8, Nigeria's main trade
unions accepted a government compromise on fuel prices and ended a
crippling eight-day strike.
(AP, 7/8/03)
2003 Jul 8, Palestinian PM Mahmoud
Abbas resigned from a top post in the Fatah movement.
(AP, 7/8/03)
2003 Jul 8, Ladan and Laleh Bijani
(29), Iranian twin sisters, joined at the head, died within 90 minutes
of each other as neurosurgeons in Singapore worked into a 3rd day to
separate them.
(AP, 7/7/03)(AP, 7/8/03)
2003 Jul 8, A Sudanese airliner
crashed minutes after its captain reported technical problems following
takeoff, killing 116 people. The only survivor was a 2-year-old boy.
(AP, 7/8/03)
2003 Jul 8, In Switzerland a
swerving car plowed through pedestrians on a downtown bridge in
Lausanne. Two people were killed, including a woman pushing her child
in a stroller.
(AP, 7/8/03)
2003 Jul 9, Pres. Bush met with
South African President Thabo Mbeki in Pretoria for discussions on
AIDS, the war on terror, trade issues and to seek common ground in
their attempts to deal with the political and economic crisis in
neighboring Zimbabwe. Pleading for patience, President Bush, continuing
his Africa tour, said the United States would "have to remain tough" in
Iraq despite attacks on U.S. soldiers. Bush said he was "absolutely
confident" in his actions despite the discovery that one claim he'd
made about Saddam Hussein's weapons pursuits was based on false
information.
(AP, 7/9/03)(SFC, 7/10/03, p.A3)(AP, 7/9/04)(AP,
7/9/08)
2003 Jul 9, US Defense Sec.
Rumsfeld increased the estimate of military costs in Iraq to $3.9
billion a month.
(SFC, 7/9/03, p.A1)
2003 Jul 9, The US cleared $20
million in direct aid to the Palestinians.
(WSJ, 7/10/03, p.A1)
2003 Jul 9, Karl Rove, senior
advisor to Pres. Bush, spoke with syndicated columnist Robert Novak
about diplomat Joseph Wilson and his wife Valerie Plame. About this
same time Rove also spoke with Matthew Cooper, Time’s White House
correspondent, and mentioned Wilson and Plame. In 2006 Novak
acknowledged that 3 administration sources, including Rove and CIA
spokesman Bill Harlow, had provided him information.
(SFC, 7/16/05, p.A4)(SFC, 12/12/05, p.A3)(SFC,
7/12/06, p.A3)
2003 Jul 9, Research was released
that said PBDEs (polybrominated diphenyl ethers), commonly used in
flame retardants, posed a health hazard.
(SFC, 7/9/03, p.A1)
2003 Jul 9, Winston Graham (93),
author of the hugely popular Poldark novels, died in Sussex, England.
His other novels included "Marnie" (1961).
(AP, 7/11/03)
2003 Jul 9, Canada became the 1st
country in the world to start selling marijuana to several hundred
seriously ill people but said the pot project could be halted at any
time.
(Reuters, 7/9/03)
2003 Jul 9, Haiti paid $32 million
in arrears to the Inter-American Development Bank, nearly wiping out
its foreign reserves in its effort to resume frozen international loans.
(AP, 7/10/03)
2003 Jul 9, It was reported that
occupation authorities had eliminated all import taxes in Iraq and
accelerated the closure of hundreds of local factories unable to
compete with foreign goods. At the same time hundreds of millions of
dollars was pumped in as cash payments to government workers. 2 U.S.
soldiers were killed and a third wounded in separate attacks on their
convoys near Mahmudiyah and Tikrit.
(SFC, 7/9/03, p.A1)(AP, 7/10/03)
2003 Jul 9, In northwestern
Somalia 3 days of fighting among hundreds of gunmen from rival
clan-based factions killed more than 40 people and wounded 90.
(AP, 7/10/03)
2003 Jul 10, Pres. Bush met with
Pres. Festus Mogae in Botswana. Bush said that AIDS is "the deadliest
enemy Africa has ever faced" and pledged to the nation with the world's
highest AIDS infection rate that it would have a strong partner in his
administration in fighting the disease.
(SFC, 7/10/03, p.A8)(AP, 7/10/08)
2003 Jul 10, The oldest planet
ever detected is nearly 13 billion years old and more than twice the
size of Jupiter, locked in orbit around a whirling pulsar and a white
dwarf located near the heart of a globular star cluster some 5,600
light-years from Earth in the constellation Scorpius.
(AP, 7/11/03)
2003 Jul 10, In Burundi recent
fighting left an estimated 170 people killed according to a UN
estimate. 6,000 to 7,000 others had been forced to flee their homes.
(AP, 7/12/03)
2003 Jul 10, Cuba signed an
operating agreement with the Port of Corpus Christi, an agreement that
could help erode the long-standing US embargo of the island.
(AP, 7/11/03)
2003 Jul 10, Lord Shawcross (101),
Britain's chief prosecutor at the Nazi war crimes trials in Nuremberg,
died in Cowbeech, England.
(AP, 7/10/04)
2003 Jul 10, Framers of the
European Union's first constitution finalized their draft charter but
failed to settle differences over how much power national governments
would cede to Brussels.
(AP, 7/10/03)
2003 Jul 10, Unemployment in
Germany was reported to be around 11% with social spending close to 30%
of the gross domestic product.
(WSJ, 7/10/03, p.A1)
2003 Jul 10, In Hong Kong a
double-decker bus collided with a truck and plunged off a bridge,
killing 21 people and injuring 20 more.
(AP, 7/10/03)
2003 Jul 10, In the southern
Philippines a bomb exploded in a crowded market, killing at least three
people and injuring 26 others, including many children.
(AP, 7/10/03)
2003 Jul 10, Spain's Pres. Aznar
began a visit to 3 US states, California, New Mexico and Texas, to
promote trade and cultural connections.
(SFC, 7/11/03, p.A1)
2003 Jul 10, Spain unveiled its
first mosque since 1492 when the Moors were expelled.
(AP, 7/11/03)
2003 Jul 10, In southeastern
Turkey suspected Kurdish rebels raided a village, killing four
villagers and injuring another.
(AP, 7/11/03)
2003 Jul 11, Pres. Bush met with
Pres. Yoweri Museveni in Uganda. Bush and his wife Laura praised
Uganda's aggressive prevention and treatment programs to combat HIV.
(SFC, 7/11/03, p.A8)(AP, 7/11/03)
2003 Jul 11, CIA Director George
Tenet took blame for Pres. Bush's State of the Union discredited claim
that uranium from Africa had been shipped to Iraq.
(SFC, 7/18/03, p.A14)
2003 Jul 11, Thousands marked the
anniversary of the 1995 massacre at Srebrenica in Bosnia, burying 282
newly identified victims.
(AP, 7/11/04)
2003 Jul 11, The Canadian
government gave Air Canada the right to operate scheduled passenger
flights to Cuba.
(Reuters, 7/11/03)
2003 Jul 11, In China a mudslide
left 50 people missing in Sichuan province.
(AP, 7/13/03)
2003 Jul 11, India and Pakistan
resumed bus service, a transportation link that was disrupted 18 months
earlier due to threats of war.
(AP, 7/11/03)
2003 Jul 11, In Iran Zahra Kazemi
(54), a Montreal-based journalist, died of brain hemorrhage from
inflicted blows. [see Jun 23] Iran later admitted that she was murdered
while under police custody. In 2004 a closed trial was held for a
secret agent charged with the murder. Mohammad Reza Aghdam Ahmadi
pleaded innocent on July 17 and the trial was abruptly ended the next
day. The Tehran court acquitted Ahmadi.
(AP, 7/13/03)(SFC, 7/17/03, p.A7)(WSJ, 7/31/03,
p.A1)(SFC, 7/19/04, p.A8)(AP, 7/25/04)
2003 Jul 11, Spain, a leading U.S.
ally during the war to oust Saddam Hussein, agreed to send 1,300
soldiers to Iraq.
(AP, 7/12/03)
2003 Jul 11, In western Sudan
about 30 rebels and an undisclosed number of government troops were
killed during fighting near the border with Chad.
(AP, 7/13/03)
2003 Jul 11, The World Trade
Organization ruled that heavy duties on steel imports imposed by the
United States violated global trade rules.
(AP, 7/11/04)
2003 Jul 12, Pres. Bush met with
Pres. Olusegun Obasanjo in Nigeria. They discussed the circumstances
under which Liberian President Charles Taylor will live in exile in
Nigeria, Wrapping up a five-day tour of Africa, President Bush said he
would not allow terrorists to use the continent as a base "to threaten
the world."
(SFC, 7/7/03, p.A8)(AP, 7/12/04)
2003 Jul 12, Former White House
press secretary Ari Fleischer leaked the identity of a CIA operative
(Valerie Plame) to Washington Post reporter Walter Pincus during a
phone call. Pincus testified to this in 2007 as the first defense
witness in the CIA leak trial.
(AP, 2/12/07)
2003 Jul 12, The USS Ronald
Reagan, the first carrier named for a living president, was
commissioned in Norfolk, Va.
(AP, 7/12/04)
2003 Jul 12, Benny Carter (95),
jazz musician, composer and bandleader, died in Los Angeles. He was
know as "The King." His work included arrangements for the 1943 film
"Stormy Weather."
(SFC, 7/14/03, p.B4)(WSJ, 7/16/03, p.D8)
2003 Jul 12, In Belgium PM Guy
Verhofstadt took office as head of a new center-left government and
immediately agreed to replace a war crimes law that has soured
Belgium's relations with the United States.
(AP, 7/13/03)
2003 Jul 12, In Germany Techno
fans took part in the 15th Love Parade in Berlin. Hundreds of thousands
fans of techno music were expected to join the event.
(AP, 7/12/03)
2003 Jul 12, In southern Chechnya
rebels ambushed a Russian military vehicle and staged hit-and-run
attacks against federal positions, killing 16 soldiers and wounding 13.
(AP, 7/13/03)
2003 Jul 12, Western Sahara's
rebels unexpectedly accepted a peace plan for the mineral-rich region,
but Morocco remained opposed.
(AP, 7/12/03)
2003 Jul 13, In Ohio Benjamin
White (17) grabbed Casey Hilmer (13) as she was jogging in suburban
Indian Hills, dragged her to a wooded area and stabbed her in the face
and neck. In 2005 jurors decided that his parents must bear most of the
responsibility, as they awarded $10 million to the injured victim and
her family.
(AP, 8/21/05)
2003 Jul 13, Brenda Paz (17), a
federal witness, was found stabbed to death on the banks of Virginia’s
Shenandoah River. A federal jury convicted two members of the MS-13
street gang of her murder. MS-13 gang members wanted Paz dead for
cooperating with police and prosecutors in cases against MS-13 members
in Northern Virginia and Texas.
(Econ, 1/7/06, p.23)(http://tinyurl.com/8tlnm)
2003 Jul 13, Compay Segundo (95),
a once-forgotten Cuban musician who gained worldwide fame with the
"Buena Vista Social Club," died in Havana.
(AP, 7/14/03)
2003 Jul 13, In Iraq a 25-member
interim Iraqi Governing Council (IGC) of prominent Iraqis from diverse
political and religious backgrounds was named at an inaugural meeting,
the first national body since the fall of Saddam Hussein. The council
abolished a number of old holidays and established April 9, the fall of
Baghdad and Saddam's regime, as a new national holiday.
(AP, 7/13/03)(WSJ, 4/19/04, p.A14)
2003 Jul 13, In Kashmir a bus
skidded off a mountain road after hitting another vehicle and fell into
a river, killing at least 16 people and injuring 19.
(AP, 7/13/03)
2003 Jul 13, Kuwait's emir, Sheik
Jaber Al Ahmed Al Sabah (76), appointed his brother as prime minister,
separating the post from the crown prince for the first time in a move
seen as a step toward political reform.
(AP, 7/13/03)
2003 Jul 13, Hashim Salamat (61),
founder of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), died in the
Philippines. In the 1960s he was sent to Egypt where he obtained an
Islamic philosophy degree from Al Azhar college in 1967 and a masters
degree two years later.
(WSJ, 8/25/08,
p.A6)(www.newsflash.org/2003/05/ht/ht003629.htm)
2003 Jul 14, President Bush,
facing questions about his credibility, said the United States was
working overtime to prove Saddam Hussein was developing weapons of mass
destruction before the United States invaded Iraq.
(AP, 7/14/04)
2003 Jul 14, Columnist Robert
Novak identified Valerie Plame as a CIA officer. Joseph Wilson, former
American ambassador, had earlier alleged (July 6) that Pres. Bush had
falsely accused Iraq of trying to buy uranium from Niger. Two White
House officials soon called at least 6 Washington journalists and told
them that Wilson’s wife, Valerie Plame, was a undercover CIA agent who
had worked in Niger. In 2006 Richard Armitage, former Deputy Sec. of
State, said he had confessed to the FBI on Oct 1, 2003, that he told
Robert Novak about Valerie Plame during a July 8, 2003, meeting.
(Econ, 8/21/04, p.28)(SFC, 10/14/04, p.A4)(SFC,
7/16/05, p.A4)(SFC, 8/29/06, p.A2)
2003 Jul 14, In China Yang
Bin (40), a Chinese-born Dutch citizen, was convicted of fraud and
bribery and sentenced to 18 years in prison. The orchid-selling tycoon
was once ranked by Forbes magazine as China's second-richest
businessman.
(AP, 7/14/03)(SFC, 7/15/03, p.A11)
2003 Jul 14, In China a mountain
on a tributary of the Three Gorges gave way killing 13 farmers. A large
tongue of land was sheered into the water and a resulting wave crashed
over 20 boats killing 11 fisherman.
(WSJ, 8/29/07, p.A12)
2003 Jul 14, The Cyprus parliament
voted unanimously to approve the accession of the Mediterranean island
to the European Union.
(AP, 7/14/03)
2003 Jul 14, Iraq's new governing
council, in its first full day on the job, voted to send a delegation
to the U.N. Security Council and assert its right to represent Baghdad
on the world stage.
(AP, 7/14/04)
2003 Jul 14, It was reported that
Kim Jong Il of North Korea maintained an unpublicized trading network
and slush fund named Division 39 with a cash hoard as large as $5
billion. Its operations included counterfeiting, drug trafficking and
trade in illicit weapons systems.
(WSJ, 7/14/03, p.A1)
2003 Jul 14, In Manila Fathur
Rohman al-Ghozi, terror suspect, escaped from prison.
(Econ, 7/19/03, p.34)
2003 Jul 15, The American League
beat the National League in the All-Star Game 7-6.
(AP, 7/15/04)
2003 Jul 15, Scott McClellan
assumed his duties as White House press secretary.
(AP, 7/15/04)
2003 Jul 15, The Bush
administration reported that this year's deficit will reach $445
billion. The Bush administration dramatically raised its budget deficit
projections to $455 billion for the current fiscal year and $475
billion for the next, record levels fed by the limp economy, tax cuts
and the battle against terrorism.
(SFC, 7/16/03, p.A1)(AP, 7/15/04)
2003 Jul 15, Tex Schramm (83), who
turned the Dallas Cowboys into "America's Team," died in Dallas.
(AP, 7/15/04)
2003 Jul 15, Elisabeth Welch (99),
American-born singer, died in London.
(AP, 7/15/04)
2003 Jul 15, Roberto Bolano
(b.1953), Chilean author, died in Spain. His novel “2666” was published
posthumously in 2006. In 2007 his novel “The Savage Detectives” (1998)
was made available in English.
(www.absoluteastronomy.com/enc3/roberto_bola%C3%B1o)(SSFC, 4/1/07, p.M1)
2003 Jul 15, Four US crew members
were killed in a fiery crash of a Navy helicopter in Italy.
(AP, 7/16/03)
2003 Jul 15, Chad began pumping
oil to Cameroon, part of a project to help alleviate crushing poverty
in the two countries. The 4.2 billion project was funded by the World
Bank on the condition that the oil money be used for development. Pres.
Idris Deby later diverted the money to the general budget and for
weapons.
(AP, 7/16/03)(SFC, 12/21/07, p.A31)
2003 Jul 15, The Colombian
government and right-wing paramilitary fighters agreed to begin peace
talks.
(AP, 7/16/03)
2003 Jul 15, In India health
officials reported that mosquito-borne encephalitis had killed at least
110 children in Andhra Pradesh over the last 6 weeks.
(WSJ, 7/16/03, p.A1)
2003 Jul 15, Montserrat's governor
declared the Caribbean island a disaster zone, days after a volcanic
eruption spewed clouds of rock and ash over the British territory.
(AP, 7/16/03)
2003 Jul 15, Officials reported
that Syrian troops had begun dismantling bases in Lebanon.
(SFC, 7/16/03, p.A3)
2003 Jul 16, The Environmental
Protection Agency announced it was starting big-money, long-term
cleanups at 10 Superfund toxic waste sites and putting ten other sites
aside for later.
(AP, 7/16/04)
2003 Jul 16, New research
indicated that frequent masturbation, particularly in the 20s, helps
prevent prostate cancer later in life.
(AP, 7/16/03)
2003 Jul 16, In Santa Monica, Ca.,
10 people were killed and over 70 injured when a car driven by George
Russell Weller (87) plowed through a crowded street market in an
apparent accident. In 2006 a jury convicted Weller on 10 counts of
felony manslaughter. He was sentenced to 5 years probation due to his
failing health. Weller was also ordered to pay about $107,100 in fines
and restitution.
(SFC, 7/18/03, p.A1)(SFC, 11/21/06, p.A3)(AP,
7/16/08)
2003 Jul 16, Celia Cruz (b.1925),
Cuban-born Latin music singer, died in Fort Lee, NJ. In 2004 Eduardo
Marceles authored “Azucar! The biography of Celia Cruz.” An
autobiography based on recorded material was also published as “Celia:
My Life,” by Celia Cruz and Christina Reymundo.”
(SFC, 7/17/03, p.A21)(SSFC, 8/15/04, p.M6)
2003 Jul 16, Carol Shields (68),
the Pulitzer-prize winning author who wrote "The Stone Diaries" (1995)
and more than 20 other books, died at her home in Victoria, British
Columbia.
(AP, 7/17/03)(SFC, 7/18/03, p.A29)
2003 Jul 16, Salvatore Mancuso,
head of the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, said the largest
paramilitary group agreed to lay down weapons because of the
government's success in retaking control of wide swaths of land from
leftist rebels.
(AP, 7/18/03)
2003 Jul 16, In northern India
more than 100 people were feared dead in flash floods caused by a heavy
rain in a remote hill area of Himachal Pradesh state.
(AP, 7/16/03)
2003 Jul 16, In Sao Tome, an
island nation off West Africa, Pres. Fradique de Menezes was ousted in
a coup led by army Maj. Fernando Pereira. The revolt changed control of
the impoverished country's new oil wealth.
(AP, 7/16/03)
2003 Jul 17, President Bush and
British Prime Minister Tony Blair forcefully defended their decision to
topple Saddam Hussein during a joint White House news conference. In a
speech to the U.S. Congress, Blair said even if they were proven wrong
about Iraq's weapons capabilities, "We will have destroyed a threat
that at its least is responsible for inhuman carnage and suffering."
(SFC, 7/18/03, p.A1)(AP, 7/17/04)
2003 Jul 17, Democrats Joe
Lieberman, Dick Gephardt and Dennis Kucinich apologized to the NAACP
for bypassing a presidential forum.
(AP, 7/17/04)
2003 Jul 17, The US combat death
toll in Iraq hit a milestone as the Pentagon acknowledged its
casualties from hostile fire reached 147, the same number of troops who
died at enemy hands in the first Gulf War. Gen. John Abizaid (b.1951),
recently named as head of US Central Command, said loyalists are
fighting an increasingly organized "guerrilla-type campaign."
(AP, 7/17/03)(WSJ, 9/2/06, p.A4)
2003 Jul 17, Afghan President
Hamid Karzai announced the creation of a 500-member grand council, or
loya jirga, to approve a new constitution for the country this year.
(AP, 7/17/03)
2003 Jul 17, The leaders of an
Australian Christian church voted to allow homosexuals to become
priests, drawing protest from within the congregation.
(AP, 7/17/03)
2003 Jul 17, In Rio de Janeiro,
Brazil, police killed 3 alleged gang members and pulled the
bullet-riddled bodies of 7 others from a sludge-filled river in 2
notorious shantytowns due to an escalating gang war over drug control
between The Red Command and Third Command.
(AP, 7/18/03)
2003 Jul 17, David Kelly (59), the
British Ministry of Defense adviser was reported missing. He was a
possible source for news that claimed the government had doctored
intelligence on Iraqi weapons to strengthen the case for war. His body
was found the next day. Weapons expert David Kelly apparently committed
suicide by slashing his left wrist.
(AP, 7/18/03)(AP, 7/19/03)
2003 Jul 17, Congo's main rebel
leaders were sworn as vice presidents in a new power-sharing
government, designed to end the country's nearly 5-year civil war. 4
vice presidents represented the ruling party, the opposition party and
2 rebel groups.
(AP, 7/17/03)(Econ, 8/9/03, p.39)
2003 Jul 17, A US company launched
Mexican sales of microchips that can be implanted under a person's skin
and used to confirm health history and identity.
(AP, 7/17/03)
2003 Jul 17, In Mexico a landslide
triggered by heavy rains in the southern state of Oaxaca swept away two
houses and killed nine people, including five children.
(AP, 7/18/03)
2003 Jul 17, Philippine president
Gloria Macapagal Arroyo said that police corruption likely led to the
escape from prison of three terror suspects, including a top bomb
expert, and threatened to shake up the police force.
(AP, 7/17/03)
2003 Jul 17, In Russia's Dagestan
region a shrapnel-filled bomb exploded near a police station, killing
at least four people and injuring 18 others.
(AP, 7/17/03)
2003 Jul 17, Walter Zapp (97),
inventor of the Minox mini camera featured in spy movies, died, in
northern Switzerland. Zapp was born in 1905 in Riga, Latvia.
(AP, 7/28/03)
2003 Jul 18, The Bush
administration declassified an 8-page part of the October, 2002,
National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) dubbed key judgments in the wake
of criticism on intelligence used to justify the war in Iraq.
(WSJ, 2/10/06, p.A4)
2003 Jul 18, Basketball star Kobe
Bryant was charged with sexually assaulting a 19-year-old woman at a
Colorado spa; Bryant denied the charge, saying he was guilty only of
adultery. Prosecutors later dropped the case.
(AP, 7/18/08)
2003 Jul 18, Scientists reported
the discovery of a link between a seratonin-controlling gene and
depression.
(SFC, 7/18/03, p.A23)(WSJ, 7/18/03, p.A1)
2003 Jul 18, Eight Afghan soldiers
were killed when their vehicle was blown apart by a remote controlled
mine.
(AP, 7/18/03)
2003 Jul 18, The body of British
scientist David Kelly, a weapons expert at the center of a storm over
British intelligence on Iraq, was found a day after he'd committed
suicide.
(AP, 7/18/08)
2003 Jul 18, The Philippine
government announced a cease-fire deal with a Muslim rebel group.
(AP, 7/18/03)
2003 Jul 18, Zimbabwe government
inspectors and police ordered bakeries to pay fines Friday for
violating price controls.
(AP, 7/18/03)
2003 Jul 19, In Spinboldak,
Afghanistan, US forces, backed by helicopter gunships, killed up to 24
suspected Taliban insurgents after their convoy came under attack.
(AP, 7/21/03)
2003 Jul 19, The first Human
Tongue Transplant took place in Vienna, Austria. Tongue transplants had
been performed for years on animals, but this was the first attempt at
transplanting a human tongue. It was carried out at Memorial University
Hospital in Vienna, Austria during a 14-hour operation by Dr. Rolf
Ewers and eight surgeons. It was performed on an unidentified
42-year-old patient who was suffering from a malignant tumor affecting
his tongue and jaw. Doctors believed he would ultimately be able to
talk, have feeling and limited movement, but probably won’t regain the
sensation of taste.
(http://tinyurl.com/5ehhps)(http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn3964)
2003 Jul 19, In southern China a
bus plunged more than 300 feet off a cliff, killing 23 people.
(AP, 7/21/03)
2003 Jul 19, In Jakarta,
Indonesia, Budiarto Angsono, president of the PT Asaba computer firm,
along with his bodyguard, were murdered. Police said it was likely the
work of hitmen. Hiring a hitman to kill was said to cost about $2,300.
(AP, 7/26/03)
2003 Jul 19, In Kenya a
twin-engine plane carrying 12 American tourists and two South African
crew members en route to a game reserve crashed into Mount Kenya,
apparently killing everyone on board.
(AP, 7/20/03)
2003 Jul 20, President Bush
welcomed Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi to his Texas ranch for a
two-day visit.
(AP, 7/20/04)
2003 Jul 20, American generals
said a new Iraqi civil defense force would be created over the next 45
days with some 7,000 militia members. Gen. John Abizaid, the top
commander of coalition forces in Iraq, predicted that resistance to
U.S. forces in Iraq would grow in coming months as progress was made in
creating a new government to replace the dictatorial regime of Saddam
Hussein.
(SFC, 7/21/03, p.A1)(AP, 7/20/04)
2003 Jul 20, Two soldiers from the
101st Airborne Division were killed and another wounded when their
convoy came under rocket-propelled grenade and small arms fire in
northern Iraq.
(AP, 7/20/03)
2003 Jul 20, William Woolfolk
(86), writer for cartoon characters like Batman and Captain Marvel,
died. He coined one of Captain Marvel's signature lines: "Holy Moley,"
and authored the 1968 bestseller "The Beautiful Couple."
(SFC, 8/11/03, p.A16)
2003 Jul 20, Ben Curtis, an
unknown PGA Tour rookie in his first major championship, won the
British Open.
(AP, 7/20/04)
2003 Jul 20, In France 2
explosions rocked central Nice, slightly injuring at least 16 people
and damaging several government buildings.
(AP, 7/20/03)
2003 Jul 20, The Israeli and
Palestinian prime ministers held a two-hour meeting, kicking off 10
days of international diplomacy aimed at solidifying a fragile Mideast
cease-fire.
(AP, 7/20/03)
2003 Jul 20, In southern Japan
weekend mudslides destroyed more than a dozen homes, killing 16 people.
(AP, 7/22/03)
2003 Jul 20, In Liberia rebels
advanced deeper into the war-ravaged capital, trading mortar, grenade
and machine-gun fire with government troops.
(AP, 7/20/03)
2003 Jul 20, In Puerto Rico Jose
Antonio Rivera Robles, was beaten to death at a gas station after he
reportedly stole a police car. In 2009 a jury in US federal court
convicted four Puerto Rican police officers in the beating death. Two
other officers previously pleaded guilty to felony federal civil rights
charges in the case.
(AP,
8/13/09)(www.usdoj.gov/opa/pr/2009/August/09-crt-803.html)
2003 Jul 21, President Bush said
he was working to persuade more nations to help in Iraq.
(AP, 7/21/04)
2003 Jul 21, Carlton Dotson Jr.,
the roommate of missing Baylor basketball player Patrick Dennehy, was
arrested and charged with Dennehy's murder.
(AP, 7/21/04)
2003 Jul 21, About 1,000 soldiers
of Afghanistan's new national army launched their first major
operation, sweeping for insurgents in the east of the country.
(AP, 7/24/03)
2003 Jul 21, In southwest Cameroon
water-logged hillsides gave way after a week of heavy rain, killing at
least 21 people.
(AP, 7/24/03)
2003 Jul 21, In southwest China a
magnitude-6.2 earthquake toppled thousands of mud-brick houses in a
mountainous area, killing at least 16 people and injuring more than 300
others.
(AP, 7/22/03)
2003 Jul 21, In Haiti a high
tension wire snapped and fell, electrocuting 15 people who were
gathered to watch the final match of a basketball game in Petit-Goave.
All 15 died.
(AP, 7/22/03)
2003 Jul 21, In Liberia mortar
shells hit the heavily fortified U.S. Embassy in the Monrovia, injuring
at least three people. Fighting in the Liberian capital of Monrovia
left over 600 dead.
(AP, 7/21/03)(AP, 7/22/03)
2003 Jul 21, In Peru 8 mountain
climbers were missing after an avalanche on Alpamayo mountain. Four
Germans, two Israelis, one Venezuelan and one Peruvian were believed to
have been buried.
(AP, 7/23/03)
2003 Jul 21, In Sao Tome military
coup leaders freed seven government ministers detained in last week's
bloodless rebellion and resumed talks with international mediators on
restoring civilian rule.
(AP, 7/21/03)
2003 Jul 21, Monsoon rains were
reported to have killed at least 579 people in South Asia. India
reported a total of 263 deaths, Bangladesh 169, Pakistan 78, and Nepal
69.
(AP, 7/21/03)
2003 Jul 21, The Saudi government
announced that police arrested 16 al-Qaida-linked terror suspects over
the last 4 days and used tractors to dig up an underground arsenal: 20
tons of bomb-making chemicals, detonators, rocket-propelled grenades
and rifles.
(AP, 7/22/03)
2003 Jul 22, Months after her
prisoner-of-war ordeal, Pvt. 1st Class Jessica Lynch returned home to a
hero's welcome in Elizabeth, W.Va.
(AP, 7/22/04)
2003 Jul 22, Saddam Hussein's sons
Odai and Qusai were killed in a fiery battle at a Mosul mansion. Sheik
Nawaf al-Zaydan Muhhamad informed US troops of their presence in his
home and became $30 million richer.
(AP, 7/23/03)(AP, 7/24/03)
2003 Jul 22, Italy's state TV
chief said she will resign as soon as Premier Silvio Berlusconi's
governing coalition passes a law opponents say will grant the business
mogul even greater control over Italian media.
(AP, 7/23/03)
2003 Jul 22, In Paris an
electrical fire broke out near the top of the Eiffel Tower, forcing
thousands of alarmed visitors to evacuate.
(AP, 7/23/03)
2003 Jul 22, In Indian-held
Kashmir 3 suspected Islamic guerrillas attacked an army camp, killing
at least 8 soldiers and wounding more than a dozen others before being
slain.
(AP, 7/22/03)
2003 Jul 23, California's 1st
statewide recall for Gov. Davis qualified for ballot, which was soon
scheduled for Oct 7.
(SFC, 7/24/03, p.A1)(SFC, 7/25/03, p.A1)
2003 Jul 23, Massachusetts'
attorney general issued a report saying clergy members and others in
the Boston Archdiocese probably sexually abused more than 1,000 people
over a period of six decades.
(AP, 7/23/04)
2003 Jul 23, New York City
Councilman James Davis (41) was shot to death by political rival
Othniel Askew (31) at City Hall; a police officer shot and killed Askew.
(AP, 7/24/08)
2003 Jul 23, A new audiotape,
purported to be of toppled dictator Saddam Hussein, was broadcast by an
Arab satellite station. It called on former soldiers to rise up against
the American occupation.
(AP, 7/23/03)
2003 Jul 23, In "Operation Helpem
Fren" an Australian-led peacekeeping force poured into the Solomon
Islands to keep the island chain from slipping deeper into anarchy.
(AP, 7/24/03)(Econ, 8/9/03, p.34)
2003 Jul 23, Iran acknowledged
that it was holding senior al Qaeda figures, but would not identify
them.
(WSJ, 7/24/03, p.A1)
2003 Jul 23, In Peru 5 masked
gunmen attacked a Canadian mining camp in the Andes, killing a Peruvian
geologist, wounding another and stealing equipment.
(AP, 7/24/03)
2003 Jul 23, In Sao Tome rebel
leaders ended a weeklong bloodless coup after the president signed an
accord promising to replace the government and give them amnesty.
(AP, 7/24/03)
2003 Jul 23, In Uganda 2 passenger
boats capsized in strong winds and rough waters on Lake Albert, and
more than 20 people were believed to have drowned.
(AP, 7/24/03)
2003 Jul 24, The House and Senate
intelligence committees issued their final report on the attacks of
Sept. 11, 2001, citing countless blunders, oversights and
miscalculations that prevented authorities from stopping the attackers.
(AP, 7/24/04)
2003 Jul 24, In northern Iraq 3 US
soldiers died in the 2nd fatal attack on troops from the 101st
Airborne Division since they tracked down and killed Saddam Hussein's
sons Uday and Qusai.
(Reuters, 7/24/03)
2003 Jul 24, Two hand grenades
exploded outside a UN police station in northern Kosovo, killing one
person and injuring four others.
(AP, 7/24/03)
2003 Jul 24, Colin McMillan, an
oilman awaiting confirmation as US Navy secretary, was found dead at
his 55,000-acre ranch in New Mexico. His death was ruled a suicide.
(SFC, 7/26/03, p.A3)
2003 Jul 24, Eleven aid workers
believed abducted by Rwandan and Burundian rebels in a restive eastern
province of war-ravaged Congo were killed.
(AP, 8/7/03)
2003 Jul 24, French lawmakers
overwhelmingly passed a pension reform bill despite weeks of protests
by people angry about having to work longer to get full retirement
benefits.
(AP, 7/24/03)
2003 Jul 24, French lawmakers
overwhelmingly passed a pension reform bill despite weeks of protests
by people angry about having to work longer to get full retirement
benefits. PM Rafarrin managed to push through a pension reform against
union resistance with the support of CFDP, the French Defense and
Protection Company.
(AP, 7/24/03)(Econ, 4/8/06, p.49)
2003 Jul 24, In Guatemala
protesters demanding that former dictator Rios Montt be allowed to run
for president touched off a wave of violence that paralyzed the capital.
(AP, 7/25/03)
2003 Jul 24, In Monrovia, Liberia,
the bloodiest mortar attack in days killed at least 12 men, women and
children.
(AP, 7/25/03)
2003 Jul 25, Pres. Bush ordered a
naval amphibious force from the Mediterranean to position itself off
the coast of Liberia.
(SFC, 7/26/03, p.A1)
2003 Jul 25, Palestinian PM
Mahmoud Abbas met with Pres. George Bush in Washington DC. Abbas
thanked Bush for his efforts in pursuit of a peaceful Middle East and
for a recent grant of $20 million in direct aid to the Palestinian
Authority.
(AP, 7/26/03)
2003 Jul 25, John Schlesinger
(b.1926), film director, died. His films included "Midnight Cowboy"
(1969) and "Sunday Bloody Sunday" (1971).
(SFC, 7/26/03, p.A22)
2003 Jul 25, In northeastern Congo
thousands of tribal fighters attacked three villages with mortars,
rocket-propelled grenades and assault rifles, killing as many as 150
people.
(AP, 7/29/03)
2003 Jul 25, In Haiti gunmen
ambushed a delegation from the Interior Ministry on a central highway,
killing 4 and seriously wounding one.
(AP, 7/25/03)
2003 Jul 25, An Israeli soldier
fired a tank-mounted machine gun at a pickup truck carrying a
Palestinian family, killing a 4-year-old Palestinian boy and wounding
two other children.
(AP, 7/25/03)
2003 Jul 25, Japanese lawmakers
voted to send military forces to Iraq to help with reconstruction.
(SFC, 7/26/03, p.A3)
2003 Jul 25, In eastern Pakistan
police commandos stormed a jail after five prisoners took nine visiting
judges and 50 female detainees hostage, officials said. The raid ended
the drama, but left three of the justices dead.
(AP, 7/25/03)
2003 Jul 25, In Spain 2 top
members of the outlawed Basque separatist group ETA were sentenced to
790 years in prison for a 1987 bombing that killed 21 people and
injured 45.
(AP, 7/26/03)
2003 Jul 26, Backers of a drive to
oust California Governor Gray Davis held a boisterous celebration at
the state Capitol in Sacramento, more than two months before the Oct. 7
recall election.
(AP, 7/26/04)
2003 Jul 26, John Higham (82),
historian, died. His books included "Hanging Together: Unity and
Diversity in American Culture."
(SSFC, 12/28/03, p.E9)
2003 Jul 26, Harold C. Schonberg
(87), New York Times music critic, died in New York.
(AP, 7/26/04)
2003 Jul 26, Cuba celebrated the
50th anniversary of the start of Fidel Castro's revolution against
Fulgencio Batista.
(AP, 7/26/04)
2003 Jul 26, In Haiti a
4-day Voodoo religion pilgrimage, ended. It began with rituals to Ogou,
the god of war, and ended with rites to the goddess of love, Erzuli.
This year's crowd of more than 10,000 was half the turnout of last year.
(AP, 7/28/03)
2003 Jul 26, In Iraq a grenade
attack killed 3 US soldiers and wounded four while they guarded a
children's hospital in Baqouba.
(AP, 7/26/03)
2003 Jul 26, Jiri Horak (79), the
first leader of the Czech Social Democratic Party (1990-1992) after the
fall of communism, died in Florida.
(AP, 7/26/03)
2003 Jul 26, Across northern Japan
3 powerful earthquakes knocked out power grids, collapsed buildings and
set off mudslides. At least 268 people were hurt.
(AP, 7/26/03)
2003 Jul 26, In Liberia a mortar
attack into a church harboring thousands of refugees, killed at least
15 and wounded about 55 others.
(AP, 7/26/03)
2003 Jul 27, Bob Hope (b.1903),
master of the one-liner and favorite comedian of servicemen and
presidents alike, died at his home in Toluca Lake, Ca. He was born
Leslie Townes Hope on May 29, 1903, in Eltham, England, the 5th of 7
sons of a British stonemason and a Welsh singer of light opera.
(AP, 7/28/03)
2003 Jul 27, In Bermuda Premier
Jennifer Smith stepped down after retaining her seat by just eight
votes and watching her governing party narrowly win elections in the
British territory. Members of the center-left Progressive Labor
Party endorsed Alex Scott (63) to replace her.
(AP, 7/28/03)
2003 Jul 27, Lance Armstrong rode
to his 5th straight Tour de France victory in a ceremonial final stage
in Paris.
(SSFC, 7/27/03, p.A1)
2003 Jul 27, Cambodia held
elections for seats in the123-member national Assembly in the third
democratic election in a decade.
(AP, 7/27/03)(SSFC, 7/27/03, p.A9)
2003 Jul 27, The Israeli Cabinet
voted to release up to 540 jailed Palestinians.
(SFC, 7/28/03, p.A1)
2003 Jul 27, In Manila some 300
mutinous Philippine troops, who seized a downtown residential shopping
complex, surrendered. This ended a 19-hour standoff with government
forces without a shot fired. Pres. Arroyo declared a state of
rebellion, which lasted to Aug 11. In 2008 Arroyo pardoned 9 military
officers who apologized after being convicted of the coup.
(AP, 7/27/03)(WSJ, 8/12/03, p.A1)(AP, 5/12/08)
2003 Jul 28, J.P. Morgan Chase
& Co. agreed to pay $305 million to settle actions related to loans
and trades made with Enron Corp. and Dynegy Inc.
(WSJ, 7/28/03, p.A1)
2003 Jul 28, Aaron Bell, jazz
bassist with Duke Ellington, died in NYC.
(EntW, 12/03, p.94)
2003 Jul 28, Bangladesh became the
second nation to ban the current issue of Newsweek's international
edition over an article on new interpretations of Islam's holy book.
(AP, 7/28/03)
2003 Jul 28, In Cambodia PM Hun
Sen's party claimed victory in general elections, saying it expects to
win around 73 of the 123 seats in the National Assembly. Hun Sen's
party swept to victory, but apparently fell short of the two-thirds
majority needed to govern outright.
(AP, 7/28/03)(AP, 7/29/03)
2003 Jul 28, In northern China a
blast ripped through a fireworks factory in Wangkou, killing 29 people
and injuring at least 141.
(AP, 7/29/03)
2003 Jul 28, In Liberia rebels
captured the second-largest city of Buchanan, depriving embattled
President Charles Taylor of his last significant port outside the
besieged capital.
(AP, 7/28/03)
2003 Jul 28, A mass grave was
discovered in the mountainous Russian republic of Kabardino-Balkaria, a
poor mountainous region close to Chechnya, with the remains of men,
women and children who died 10 to 20 years ago.
(AP, 7/29/03)
2003 Jul 28, In Saudi Arabia 6
suspected militants were killed in a firefight with Saudi police, who
raided a farm where they were hiding out. Two police also were killed.
(AP, 7/28/03)
2003 Jul 29, Boston's Bill Mueller
became the first player in major league history to hit grand slams from
both sides of the plate in a game and connected for three homers in a
14-7 win at Texas.
(AP, 7/29/04)
2003 Jul 29, President Bush
refused to release a congressional report on possible links between
Saudi Arabian officials and the Sept. 11 hijackers, saying disclosure
"would help the enemy" by revealing intelligence sources and methods.
(AP, 7/29/04)
2003 Jul 29, American soldiers in
Tikrit overpowered and arrested a bodyguard who rarely left Saddam
Hussein's side.
(AP, 7/29/03)
2003 Jul 29, A heat wave and a
drought gauged a multibillion-dollar hole into Europe's economy,
crippling shipping, shriveling crops and driving up the cost of
electricity.
(AP, 7/29/03)
2003 Jul 29, Forest fires swept
through parts of the ritzy French Riviera for a second day, devastating
scenic woods and forcing thousands to be evacuated. At least four
people have been killed.
(AP, 7/29/03)
2003 Jul 29, In Ivory Coast
thousands of college students rioted in Abidjan, demanding compensation
for a lost school year canceled by Ivory Coast's civil war.
(AP, 7/29/03)
2003 Jul 29, In Liberia Pres.
Charles Taylor's forces launched what they called a major counterattack
on the key port of Buchanan, battling to take back Liberia's
second-largest city a day after it fell to insurgents.
(AP, 7/29/03)
2003 Jul 29, A land mine
explosion shattered a military convoy near the border with rebel
Chechnya, killing five Russian soldiers.
(AP, 7/30/03)
2003 Jul 29, Foday Sankoh (65), an
indicted Sierra Leone war criminal whose rebel forces were notorious
for hacking off the limbs, lips and ears of civilians, died in UN
custody at a Freetown hospital.
(AP, 7/30/03)
2003 Jul 30, President Bush took
personal responsibility for the first time for using disputed
intelligence in his State of the Union address, but predicted he would
be vindicated for going to war against Iraq.
(AP, 7/30/04)
2003 Jul 30, Textile manufacturer
Pillowtex filed for bankruptcy saying it will close 16 plants and sell
its assets. 4,300 people in the Kannopolis, NC, area lost their jobs.
(WSJ, 1/2/04, p.R10)(Econ, 4/23/05, p.30)
2003 Jul 30, Sam Phillips
(b.1923), founder of Sun Records (1952), died in Memphis. Phillips
produced Elvis Presley's 1st record.
(SFC, 8/1/03, p.A19)
2003 Jul 30, In Cambodia
opposition parties said they would only form a coalition government if
PM Hun Sen stepped down.
(SFC, 8/1/03, p.A3)
2003 Jul 30, In Paris, France, 2
men from Belarus were arrested for running Regpay, an Internet-based
child porn trade. A 3rd partner was arrested 2 days later in Spain.
Agents later arrested 330 Regpay subscribers in the US.
(WSJ, 1/17/06, p.A6)
2003 Jul 30, Guatemala's highest
court cleared the way for former dictator Efrain Rios Montt to run for
president.
(AP, 7/30/03)
2003 Jul 30, In India Lal Bihari,
president of the Association of the Living Dead, estimated 35,000
people in Uttar Pradesh state have been wrongly certified as dead. "We
have knocked on doors of government officials and police. No one is
ready to recognize us as living persons because revenue records declare
us dead."
(AP, 8/1/03)
2003 Jul 30, Iraq's U.S.-picked
interim government named its first president: Ibrahim al-Jaafari, a
Shiite Muslim from the Daawa party banned by Saddam Hussein.
(AP, 7/30/04)(WSJ, 4/28/05, p.A1)
2003 Jul 30, The last Volkswagen
Beetle was produced in Mexico. Some 21,529,464 Bugs were built there
over 68 years.
(WSJ, 7/31/03, p.A1)
2003 Jul 31, Two of ousted Iraqi
leader Saddam Hussein's daughters and their nine children were granted
refuge in Jordan.
(AP, 7/31/04)
2003 Jul 31, The Israeli
parliament voted to block Palestinians who marry Israelis from becoming
Israeli citizens of residents. The legislation was enacted for one
year. In 2006 the Supreme Court rejected petitions to overturn the law.
(SFC, 8/1/03, p.A20)(Econ, 5/20/06, p.47)
2003 Jul 31, In Nepal monsoon
rains triggered landslides, killing at least 48 villagers over the last
2 days, burying houses and blocking a key highway.
(AP, 7/31/03)
2003 Jul 31, The Vatican launched
a global campaign against gay marriages, warning Catholic politicians
that support of same-sex unions was "gravely immoral" and urging
non-Catholics to join the offensive.
(SFC, 8/1/03, p.A1)(AP, 7/31/04)
2003 Jul, Yahoo paid $1.6 billion
for Overture Services, a pioneer in the paid-search advertising
business. Overture was called GoTo.com and came out of a factory of
companies called Idealab, developed by Bill Gross in 1996.
(Econ, 5/15/04, e-com p.17)(Econ, 7/8/06, p.62)
2003 Jul, China's foreign reserves
reached a record $356 billion.
(Econ, 8/30/03, p.54)
2003 Aug 1, Australia’s island
state of Tasmania reported that a deadly facial cancer was killing
Tasmanian devils, a carnivorous marsupial the size of a small dog.
(www.abc.net.au/science/news/stories/s915506.htm)
2003 Aug 1, The Belgian Senate
gave final approval to a scaled-down war crimes law that the government
hopes will repair relations with Washington and preserve Belgium's role
as NATO headquarters.
(AP, 8/1/03)
2003 Aug 1, In Bolivia
police seized 2 tons of cocaine and arrested 20 people in what
officials called the country's biggest drug bust in nearly a decade.
(AP, 8/1/03)
2003 Aug 1, Marie Trintignant (41)
died after several days on a respirator in France. She was initially
hospitalized in the Lithuanian capital, Vilnius, on July 27 after
French rock star Bertrand Cantat (39) allegedly beat her at the hotel
where they were staying with her mother and one of her sons.
Trintignant, had been in Lithuania since June filming a joint
French-Lithuanian television movie, "Colette," about the French female
writer. Bertrand Cantat was later sentenced to 8 years in prison for
manslaughter. He was released for good behavior in October 2007 after
serving four years.
(AP,
8/5/03)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marie_Trintignant)
2003 Aug 1, In Israel Yehiya
Farhan and a 16-year-old girlfriend lured Dana Bennett (18) into their
vehicle. Farhan beat her to death and concealed the body in the
northern hills. Months earlier the couple had picked up Czech hitch
hiker Sylvia Molrova (27), killed her and dumped her body in a remote
spot. In 2009 Israeli detectives arrested Farhan. He was already in
custody on suspicion of raping an Australian tourist when a tip led
homicide detectives to him. In 2010 Farhan (34) was sentenced to 102
years in prison. Farhan's female accomplice helped police with their
investigation and was sentenced to a shorter prison term in a plea
bargain.
(www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3721705,00.html)(AP, 7/21/10)
2003 Aug 1, In Kenya a terrorist
suspect detonated a hand grenade as he was being arrested near
Mombasa's central police station, killing himself and a policeman.
(AP, 8/1/03)
2003 Aug 1, In Monrovia, Liberia,
shelling erupted after a one-day lull, killing at least 9 people. Top
West African officials flew into the capital to press the country's
president to cede power after peacekeepers arrive, but Charles Taylor
kept them waiting by reportedly heading to a southern war zone. Taylor
actually flew to Libya to gather arms and ammunition.
(AP, 8/1/03)(SFC, 8/8/03, p.A10)
2003 Aug 1, Mexican soldiers used
a bazooka to return fire against cars believed to be carrying drug
traffickers during a wild pre-dawn battle, killing three suspects.
(AP, 8/1/03)
2003 Aug 1, North Korea eased its
insistence on one-on-one talks with Washington and agreed to join
U.S.-proposed multilateral talks, where it will find little sympathy
for its suspected nuclear weapons programs.
(AP, 8/1/03)
2003 Aug 1, A suicide bomber
rammed a truck packed with explosives through the gates of a Russian
military hospital near Chechnya, destroying the building and killing at
least 50 people.
(AP, 8/3/03)
2003 Aug 1, In Rwanda the largest
trial so far seeking justice for the 1994 genocide ended. A tribunal
convicted 100 people of rape, torture, murder and crimes against
humanity.
(AP, 8/4/03)
2003 Aug 1, In Sao Tome PM Maria
das Neves resigned. Four other government ministers also have offered
to resign.
(AP, 8/1/03)
2003 Aug 1, The UN Security
Council approved sending a multinational force to Liberia.
(AP, 8/2/03)
2003 Aug 2, Gov. Davis signed a
nearly $100 million budget for California and blamed Republicans for
the budget's painful cuts.
(SSFC, 8/3/03, p.A1)
2003 Aug 2, Bolivian police seized
3 more tons of cocaine meant for shipment to Spain in the country's
biggest drug bust ever.
(AP, 8/3/03)
2003 Aug 2, Indonesia judges
sentenced US reporter William Nessen to 41 days for failing to inform
officials of an address change in Jakarta. Nessen had already been
jailed for 40 days following time spent with rebels in Aceh.
(SFCM, 11/2/03, p.15)
2003 Aug 2, A bomb exploded in a
car south of Beirut, killing at least two people in the vehicle and
wounding passers-by.
(AP, 8/2/03)
2003 Aug 2, Canadian military
personnel joined nearly 2,000 civilian firefighters battling the three
fires -- in Kamloops, Barriere and Falkland, British Columbia. An
estimated 8,500 people had already been evacuated as 16,500 acres
burned.
(Reuters, 8/2/03)
2003 Aug 2, Saddam Hussein's two
elder sons and a grandson were buried as martyrs near the deposed Iraqi
leader's hometown of Tikrit, where insurgents afterward attacked U.S.
troops with three remote-controlled bombs.
(AP, 8/2/04)
2003 Aug 2, In Liberia Pres.
Charles Taylor agreed to cede power on Aug. 11.
(AP, 8/2/03)
2003 Aug 3, The Episcopal Church's
House of Deputies further paved the way for the Rev. V. Gene Robinson
to become the church's first openly gay elected bishop, approving him
on a 2-1 vote.
(AP, 8/5/04)
2003 Aug 3, As of this day 249
U.S. soldiers have died since the beginning of military operations in
Iraq.
(AP, 8/4/03)
2003 Aug 3, Fires in Flathead Ct.,
Montana, covered over 23,000 acres and into the edge of Glacier
National Park. Tow other fires burned nearby.
(SSFC, 8/3/03, p.A13)
2003 Aug 3, Dr. Pater Safar (79),
regarded as the father of cardiopulmonary resuscitation (cpr), died in
Pittsburgh, Pa.
(SFC, 8/5/03, p.A1)
2003 Aug 3, In western India 3
buildings collapsed when a cooking gas cylinder exploded, killing at
least 43 people and injuring 39.
(AP, 8/4/03)
2003 Aug 3, In northern Pakistan
dynamite used for building a water channel blew up in a village,
killing at least 45 people and injuring 150 others.
(AP, 8/3/03)
2003 Aug 3, The worst wildfires in
20 years raged across central Portugal, killing at least nine people.
Portugal’s fires this year killed 18 people and destroyed 1.05 million
acres of forest.
(AP, 8/4/03)(Econ, 8/27/05, p.42)
2003 Aug 3, It was reported that
the economic crises in Zimbabwe has led to corpses being stacked up
because relatives could not afford burial costs.
(SSFC, 8/3/03, p.A16)
2003 Aug 4, California Governor
Gray Davis asked the state Supreme Court to delay his Oct. 7 recall
election until the following March. The recall went ahead as originally
scheduled.
(AP, 8/5/04)
2003 Aug 4, In northern
Afghanistan a soldier of warlord Abdul Rashid Dostum mishandled a
mortar and the shell exploded, killing 13 troops and injuring nine
others.
(AP, 8/5/03)
2003 Aug 4, Azerbaijan's
parliament named ailing President Geidar Aliev's son, Ilham Geidar Oglu
Aliev (b.1961), as PM.
(AP, 8/4/03)
2003 Aug 4, Brazilian novelist
Ruben Fonseca (b.1925) won Mexico's prestigious Juan Rulfo Prize for
literature.
(AP, 8/4/03)
2003 Aug 4, In China’s Qiqihar
city one person died and 43 people were injured after construction
workers broke open several barrels of World War II mustard gas
abandoned by Japanese troops. In 2010 a Tokyo court rejected
compensation claims by a group of Chinese plaintiffs, who demanded the
Japanese government pay 1.43 billion yen ($16 million) in damages.
(www.chinadaily.com.cn/en/doc/2003-08/12/content_254104.htm)(AP,
5/24/10)
2003 Aug 4, In Honduras 9 members
of a family were shot to death by suspected gang that raided their home
in San Pedro Sula.
(AP, 8/4/03)
2003 Aug 4, West African forces
arrived in Liberia to oversee the departure of President Charles Taylor.
(AP, 8/4/08)
2003 Aug 4, Chung Mong-hun (54) a
top executive of the Hyundai conglomerate, whose business spearheaded
reconciliation efforts with North Korea but ended up tangled in debt
and scandal, plunged to his death from his office window.
(AP, 8/4/03)
2003 Aug 4, Mexico's federal
government dispatched some 650 federal agents to Tijuana in the latest
attempt to curb smuggling and corruption in the rough border city.
(AP, 8/4/03)
2003 cAug 4, Pres. Putin visited
Malaysia to seal a $900 million sale of Sukhoi fighter jets and tout
Russia's liberal sale policies.
(WSJ, 8/5/03, p.A1)
2003 Aug 5, US Episcopal leaders
approved New Hampshire bishop-elect Rev. Gene Robinson as the church's
first openly gay bishop.
(SFC, 8/6/03, p.A1)
2003 Aug 5, A powerful car bomb
exploded in an apparent suicide attack outside the Marriott hotel in
downtown Jakarta, killing 10 people and wounding 149, including two
Americans. The head of Asmar Latin Sani (28), the suicide bomber,
landed on the 5th floor of the hotel.
(AP, 8/5/03)(SFC, 8/7/03, p.A3)(SFC, 8/9/03, p.A3)
2003 Aug 5, Catalino "Tite" Curet
Alonso (77), a Puerto Rican composer who wrote nearly 2,000 dance songs
and ballads, died in Baltimore.
(AP, 8/6/03)(SFC, 8/9/03, p.A15)
2003 Aug 6, Arnold Schwarzenegger
on The Tonight Show told Jay Leno and a national TV audience of his
candidacy to replace Gray Davis as governor of California. Hours later,
Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante said he was entering the recall race as well.
(SFC, 8/7/03, p.A1)(AP, 8/6/04)
2003 Aug 6, Roberto Marinho (98),
who turned his father's O Globo newspaper into a media empire and
became one of Brazil's richest men, died.
(AP, 8/7/03)(SFC, 8/9/03, p.A14)
2003 Aug 6, Israel freed 334
Palestinian prisoners in a bid to jump-start peace efforts, but the
gesture fell flat among Palestinians.
(AP, 8/6/04)
2003 Aug 6, Record-breaking heat,
already blamed for three dozen deaths, continued to torment Europe.
(AP, 8/6/04)
2003 Aug 7, Scientists reported a
new vaccine that was successful against the Ebola virus in monkeys.
(WSJ, 8/7/03, p.D6)
2003 Aug 7, In the August issue of
Foundations of Physics Letters, Peter Lynds of New Zealand claimed to
see time and motion in a new way. Lynds refutes an assumption dating
back 2,500 years, that time can be thought of in physical, definable
quantities. In essence, scientists have long assumed that motion can be
considered in frozen moments, or instants, even as time flows on.
"There isn't a precise instant underlying an object's motion," he said.
"And as its position is constantly changing over time -- and as such,
never determined -- it also doesn't have a determined position at any
time."
(AP, 8/7/03)
2003 Aug 7, In Afghanistan some 40
suspected Taliban fighters killed 6 Afghan soldiers and a driver for a
US aid organization.
(SFC, 8/8/03, p.A7)
2003 Aug 7, An Australian patrol
boat spotted the Viarsa, a Spain-based fishing vessel, near Heard
Island, half way between Australia and South Africa. The Viarsa with 96
tons of Chilean Sea Bass fled south and was chased for 3 weeks until
cornered with help by ships from Britain and South Africa. In 2006 G.
Bruce Knecht authored “Hooked: Pirates, Poaching and the Perfect Fish,”
an account of the chase and the Chilean Sea Bass.
(WSJ, 5/4/06, p.B1)
2003 Aug 7, Bangladesh and Namibia
pledged more than 6,000 troops for a UN peace-keeping force to replace
multinational soldiers now deploying in war-torn Liberia.
(AP, 8/8/03)
2003 Aug 7, Chechen rebels using a
shoulder-fired missile shot down a Russian military helicopter in the
mountains, killing three of the crew.
(AP, 8/7/03)
2003 Aug 7, Gunmen ambushed a
Russian military convoy near the border with Chechnya, killing six
soldiers and wounding seven.
(AP, 8/8/03)
2003 Aug 7, Denmark's unemployment
rate rose in June to 6.2 percent, the highest level in almost five
years.
(AP, 8/7/03)
2003 Aug 7, An Indonesian court
sentenced Amrozi bin Nurhasyim to death in the 2002 Bali bombings that
killed 202 people.
(AP, 8/7/04)
2003 Aug 7, In Iraq a car bomb
shattered a street outside the walled Jordanian Embassy, killed 19
people — including two children.
(SFC, 8/9/03, p.A1)(AP, 8/7/08)
2003 Aug 7, In Liberia Charles
Taylor picked Vice Pres. Moses Blah (56) as his successor. West African
peacekeepers entered Liberia's rebel-besieged capital.
(AP, 8/7/04)
2003 Aug 7, An opposition party in
the Turks and Caicos, a British territory, won legislative elections
and will return to power after eight years out of office.
(AP, 8/8/03)
2003 Aug 8, George Soros pledged
$10 million to a political action committee called America Coming
Together to defeat George Bush in 2004.
(AP, 8/8/03)
2003 Aug 8, A US federal judge
ruled that some 264,000 square miles of submerged lands in the Northern
Mariana Islands, a US commonwealth, belong to the United States.
(AP, 8/8/03)
2003 Aug 8, The Boston Roman
Catholic archdiocese offered $55 million to settle lawsuits stemming
from sex abuse by priests. The archdiocese later settled for $85
million.
(AP, 8/8/04)
2003 Aug 8, In eastern Colombia
suspected rebels set off a car bomb near the Saravena airport, killing
five civilians, including two children.
(AP, 8/8/03)
2003 Aug 8, In India workers
camped out at a mountain tunnel were hit by a fierce overnight
thunderstorm near a Himalayan resort in Himachal Pradesh state, leaving
at least 26 dead.
(AP, 8/8/03)
2003 Aug 8, Mahmud Dhiyab
Al-Ahmad, Saddam Hussein's former interior minister, (No. 29 on the
list of 55 most-wanted Iraqis) surrendered to coalition forces.
(AP, 8/10/03)
2003 Aug 8, A West Bank raid on a
bomb lab by Israeli troops killed 2 members of the Islamic militant
group Hamas. An Israeli soldier also was killed.
(AP, 8/9/03)
2003 Aug 8, Hezbollah guerrillas
shelled Israeli positions in a disputed Lebanese border region for the
first time in eight months, drawing Israeli airstrikes and artillery
fire.
(AP, 8/8/03)
2003 Aug 9, The US Army fired up
its first chemical weapons incinerator located near a residential area,
outside Anniston, Ala., to destroy two rockets loaded with enough sarin
nerve agent to wipe out a city.
(SSFC, 8/10/03, p.A4)(AP, 8/9/08)
2003 Aug 9, Gregory Hines (57),
considered the greatest tap dancer of his generation, died of cancer in
Los Angeles.
(AP, 8/11/03)
2003 Aug 9, In northeastern Brazil
84 inmates from a maximum security prison escaped through a tunnel.
(AP, 8/9/03)
2003 Aug 9, Mitar Rasevic, Bosnian
Serb prison chief of 37 guards at the KP-Dom detention facility in
Foca, surrendered in Belgrade to the Yugoslav war crimes tribunal. He
was wanted on charges of enslavement, torture and murder at the wartime
prison.
(AP, 8/15/03)
2003 Aug 10, Atlanta Braves
shortstop Rafael Furcal turned the 12th unassisted triple play in major
league history against the St. Louis Cardinals. St. Louis beat Atlanta
3-2.
(AP, 8/11/04)
2003 Aug 10, Britain sweltered
through its hottest day on record and Alpine glaciers melted as the
heat wave that has baked much of Europe for days sizzled relentlessly
on. Britain topped 100 degrees for the first time in recorded history.
(AP, 8/11/03)(AP, 8/10/08)
2003 Aug 10, Eight Russian
soldiers and police died in rebel attacks in a day of violence
throughout Chechnya.
(AP, 8/11/03)
2003 Aug 10, India's prime
minister called for an end to bloodshed between Pakistan and India in a
statement read before a peace conference in Islamabad.
(AP, 8/10/03)
2003 Aug 10, Israeli warplanes
bombed suspected Hezbollah positions in southern Lebanon, hours after
the militant group shelled northern Israel, killing a teenage boy.
(AP, 8/10/03)
2003 Aug 10, Pirates in the Strait
of Malacca struck a small tanker near the Port Klang, Kuala Lumpur.
They looted the ship and took it into Indonesia waters and sought
$100,000 ransom for the top 3 officers.
(SFC, 8/15/03, p.A8)
2003 Aug 10, Liberian President
Charles Taylor delivered a farewell address to a nation bloodied by 14
years of war.
(AP, 8/11/04)
2003 Aug 10, In Pakistan gunmen on
motorcycles opened fire on a van in the southern port city of Karachi,
killing five people.
(AP, 8/10/03)
2003 Aug 10, In the southern
Philippines army troops searching for a suspected Islamic militant
clashed with unidentified men, killing three gunmen.
(AP, 8/10/03)
2003 Aug 10, Russian cosmonaut
Yuri Malenchenko, aboard the international space center, married his
earthbound bride, Ekaterina Dmitriev, who was at Johnson Space Center
in Houston, in the first wedding ever conducted from space.
(AP, 8/11/08)
2003 Aug 10, Saudi police arrested
10 suspected Muslim militants following a gunfight after police tried
to stop their cars outside Riyadh.
(WSJ, 8/12/03, p.A1)
2003 Aug 11, Pres. Bush named Mike
Leavitt, Republican governor of Utah, to head the EPA.
(SFC, 8/11/03, p.A1)
2003 Aug 11, Herb Brooks, who
coached the U.S. Olympic hockey team to the "Miracle on Ice" victory
over the Soviet Union in 1980, died in a car wreck near Minneapolis at
age 66.
(AP, 8/11/04)
2003 Aug 11, In Afghanistan NATO
took command of the 5,000-strong international peacekeeping force in
Kabul, its 1st deployment outside Europe.
(AP, 8/11/03)
2003 Aug 11, British troops
restored badly needed electricity to parts of Basra and supervised
distribution of gasoline after two days of protests over fuel and power
shortages.
(AP, 8/11/03)
2003 Aug 11, In northern China a
gas explosion ripped through a coal mine, killing at least 33 miners
and leaving nine missing.
(AP, 8/12/03)
2003 Aug 11, The Dominican
Republic granted asylum to former Ecuadorian President Gustavo Noboa,
who has been under investigation for allegedly mishandling his
country's foreign debt negotiations and costing the country $9 billion.
(AP, 8/12/03)
2003 Aug 11, A helicopter
chartered by one of India's largest oil companies crashed into the
Arabian Sea near Bombay with 29 people on board. Two people were
rescued.
(AP, 8/12/03)
2003 Aug 11, In Liberia Pres.
Charles Taylor shook hands with his designated successor as his
long-promised resignation ceremony started in Monrovia. A UN official
later reported that Taylor took $3 million with him, that had been
donated for disarming and demobilizing thousands of armed combatants.
Taylor flew into exile in Nigeria following his resignation.
(AP, 8/11/03)(SFC, 9/6/03, p.A3)(AP, 7/14/09)
2003 Aug 11, Gunmen killed
Nadirshakh Khachilayev, a former lawmaker, in Makhachkala, capital of
Dagestan. In 1998 his armed supporters were accused of seizing a
Dagestani government building during a violent anti-government raid and
Russia's parliament voted to lift his immunity.
(AP, 8/12/03)
2003 Aug 11, Saudi Crown Prince
Abdullah flew to Morocco for talks with King Mohammed VI about Iraq and
the Palestinian territories.
(AP, 8/11/03)
2003 Aug 11, Hambali (39), an
Indonesian whose real name is Riduan Isamuddin, was captured in a raid
in the ancient temple city of Ayutthaya, Thailand. Hambali, the
operational head of Jemaah Islamiyah, was handed over to US authorities
and flown out of the country. He was al Qaeda's top man in Southeast
Asia and the suspected mastermind behind a string of deadly bombings
including the Bali attacks.
(Reuters, 8/15/03)(SFC, 8/15/03, p.A3)(AP, 8/16/03)
2003 Aug 12, The FBI arrested
Hemant Lakhani, an Indian-born British arms dealer, in a sting
operation in New Jersey and foiled a contrived plot aimed at smuggling
a shoulder-fired missile for some $80,000 to US-based terrorists. It
involved cooperation between the intelligence services of the US and
Russia.
(AP, 8/13/03)(WSJ, 8/13/03, p.A1)(SFC, 8/14/03, p.A3)
2003 Aug 12, John Poindexter
submitted a 5-page letter of resignation from his position as director
of DARPA, the Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.
Poindexter, a former Navy admiral and national security advisor to
Pres. Reagan, had proposed the Pentagon-funded Total Awareness Program,
a plan for government computers to gather digital and personal
information on everybody in the pursuit of terrorists. His plan, which
included built-in privacy protections, failed but was succeeded by a
National Security Agency program that left out his privacy protections.
(SFC, 8/13/03, p.A5)(SSFC, 3/7/10, p.F5)
2003 Aug 12, Some 8,000 US doctors
called for a government-financed national health insurance as a
single-payer system similar to an expanded version of Medicare.
(SFC, 8/13/03, p.A3)
2003 Aug 12, An Internet worm
targeting Microsoft Corp Windows users was spreading rapidly around the
world, triggering computer crashes and slowing Web connections. Dubbed
Blaster but also known as LoveSan or MSBlaster, carried a message for
the Microsoft chairman: "Billy Gates why do you make this possible?
Stop making money and fix your software!!"
(AP, 8/12/03)
2003 Aug 12, A balsa-mylar model
airplane set a long distance flight record of 1,888.3 miles as it
landed in Ireland from Newfoundland.
(WSJ, 8/13/03, p.A1)
2003 Aug 12, At least 20
combatants died in a gunbattle between suspected Taliban fighters and
Afghan government soldiers.
(AP, 8/13/03)
2003 Aug 12, Legislators in
Argentina's lower house voted to throw out amnesty laws that
effectively ended trials over abuses during the country's military
dictatorship.
(AP, 8/13/03)
2003 Aug 12, El Salvador sent 360
peacekeepers to Iraq.
(AP, 8/13/03)
2003 Aug 12, Two teenage
Palestinian suicide bombings less than an hour apart killed at least 2
Israelis at a shopping plaza in Israel and a bus stop in the West Bank.
(AP, 8/12/03)
2003 Aug 12, Liberia's leading
rebel movement agreed to lift its siege of the capital and vital port
within two days, allowing food to flow to hundreds of thousands of
hungry people.
(AP, 8/12/04)
2003 Aug 12, The Serbian
government said it wants to retake control of Kosovo but pledged to
give it "substantial autonomy." Serbia claimed UN officials have failed
to establish democracy there.
(AP, 8/13/03)
2003 Aug 13, Arnold
Schwarzenegger, candidate for governor of California, named Warren
Buffet as his economic adviser. 135 candidates were certified.
(WSJ, 8/14/03, p.A1)
2003 Aug 13, Florida's legislature
approved a bill that capped most medical malpractice damage awards at
$500,000.
(WSJ, 8/14/03, p.A1)
2003 Aug 13, In southern
Afghanistan a bomb ripped through a bus in Lashkargah, killing 15
people, including six children. Officials blamed al-Qaida and remnants
of the Taliban militia for the bombing, the deadliest in nearly a year.
Heavy fighting erupted between government soldiers and Taliban
remnants. 43 deaths were reported in the fighting.
(AP, 8/13/03)(AP, 8/14/03)
2003 Aug 13, Ontario health
officials reported that a family doctor had become the 44th person to
die from SARS in Toronto.
(AP, 8/14/03)
2003 Aug 13, Chinese researchers
reported that they had created hybrid embryos of human and rabbit DNA
as a source for stem cells.
(SFC, 8/14/03, p.A3)
2003 Aug 13, Iraq began pumping
crude oil from its northern oil fields for the first time since the
start of the war.
(AP, 8/13/04)
2003 Aug 13, In Iraq British
Private Jason Smith (32) died of heat stroke as the local temperature
passed the limits of available thermometers. An inquest in 2007 ruled
that troops were not adequately advised on how to cope with high
temperatures. In 2009 the British Ministry of Defense upheld an earlier
judgment that the had breached Smith’s right to life.
(Econ, 5/23/09,
p.58)(www.operations.mod.uk/telic/smith.htm)
2003 Aug 13, Libya agreed to set
up a $2.7 billion fund for families of 270 people killed in the 1988
Pan Am bombing.
(AP, 8/13/04)
2003 Aug 13, Scientists are
blaming global warming for falling fish harvests in Africa's Lake
Tanganyika, threatening the diets of several poor nations.
(AP, 8/13/03)
2003 Aug 14, A massive power
blackout hit 8 northeastern US states and southern Canada. It shut down
10 major airports and 9 nuclear power stations. The problem began in
the FirstEnergy plant near Cleveland at 2pm. Cleveland lost power at
4:09pm.
(AP, 8/15/03)(SFC, 8/15/03, p.A1)(SFC, 8/16/03,
p.A1)(WSJ, 8/18/03, p.A6)
2003 Aug 14, Roy Moore, Alabama's
chief justice, said that he would refuse to move a Ten Commandments
monument from the state judicial building in Montgomery.
(SFC, 8/15/03, p.A4)
2003 Aug 14, Dozens of American
troops landed at Liberia's main airport, increasing the U.S. presence
to boost West African peacekeepers, as rebels began withdrawing from
Monrovia. A "quick reaction" force of 150 combat troops were sent to
back up Nigerian peacekeepers.
(AP, 8/14/03)
2003 Aug 14, The French health
ministry estimated that about 3,000 people had died in France of
heat-related causes since abnormally high temperatures swept across the
country about two weeks ago.
(AP, 8/14/03)
2003 Aug 14, In northeast India
suspected separatist rebels blew up a bus on the main highway, killing
six passengers.
(AP, 8/14/03)
2003 Aug 14, Israeli troops killed
Mohammed Sidr, a top Islamic Jihad commander, in a gun battle at his
hideout in Hebron.
(AP, 8/14/03)(WSJ, 8/15/03, p.A6)
2003 Aug 14, A Greek oil tanker
that ran aground Jul 27 off the port city of Karachi broke apart, but
officials said the worst was over and rich fishing grounds nearby were
not threatened. The ship carried 378,000 to 450,000 gallons. It leaked
an estimated 12,000 metric tons.
(AP, 8/14/03)(SFC, 8/15/03, p.A3)
2003 Aug 14, The UN Security
Council approved a resolution welcoming the Iraqi Governing Council and
created a mission to oversee UN efforts to help rebuild the country and
establish a democratic government.
(AP, 8/14/03)
2003 Aug 14, Rebels lifted their
siege of Liberia's capital.
(AP, 8/14/04)
2003 Aug 14, The 16-member Pacific
Islands Forum (Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, the Cook Islands, the
Federated States of Micronesia, Kiribati, Nauru, Niue, Palau, Papua New
Guinea, the Marshall Islands, Samoa, the Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu
and Vanuatu) planned to create a region-wide aviation market aimed at
encouraging tourism.
(AP, 8/14/03)
2003 Aug 15, Bouncing back from
the largest blackout in U.S. history, cities from the Midwest to
Manhattan restored power to millions of people — only to confront a
second series of woes created in the aftermath of the enormous outage.
(AP, 8/15/04)
2003 Aug 15, West Virginia
officials suspected that a single sniper had killed 3 people in recent
days near Charleston.
(SFC, 8/16/03, p.A4)
2003 Aug 15, A remote mine,
allegedly triggered by Chechen rebels, killed five Russian soldiers
while troops were conducting a search operation in the breakaway
republic. Chechen rebels also fired automatic weapons and lobbed
grenades at a military commander's office, killing two soldiers and
wounding 10.
(AP, 8/15/03)(AP, 8/16/03)
2003 Aug 15, Saboteurs blew up a
major pipeline and stopped all oil flow from Iraq to Turkey, just three
days after the pipeline between the two countries was reopened. A
following fire raged into the next day. The 600-mile pipeline runs from
the northern city of Kirkuk to the Turkish city of Ceyhan.
(AP, 8/16/03)
2003 Aug 15, Tens of thousands
Liberian civilians, desperate for food, broke through barricades on
Monrovia's front-line bridges, reuniting the capital after 10 weeks of
rebel siege.
(AP, 8/15/03)
2003 Aug 15, The ruling prince of
Liechtenstein, who garnered controversy in Europe with his push for
more power in the tiny state, announced he would step down and hand
over the reins to his son in one year.
(AP, 8/15/03)
2003 Aug 15, Mexican troops
arrested one of the country's most-wanted drug-traffic suspects,
Armando Valencia, along with seven top figures in his ring in
Tlajomulco near Guadalajara.
(AP, 8/16/03)
2003 Aug 15, A landslide swept
through an army base in northern Nepal killing at least 15 soldiers,
and search teams scoured the debris for more bodies.
(AP, 8/16/03)
2003 Aug 15, Nicanor Duarte was
inaugurated as Paraguay's 47th president. Presidents from Colombia and
other countries in the region gave Duarte his first official business
as they signed the "Declaration of Asuncion" pledging a political
alliance in the war on drugs.
(AP, 8/16/03)
2003 Aug 15, Philippine army
forces in a speedboat killed 4 suspected members of Abu Sayyaf, an
extremist Muslim group, in a clash at sea after getting a tip from
fishermen.
(AP, 8/17/03)
2003 Aug 15, Saudi police arrested
at least 11 suspected militants and seized a large weapons cache in
southern Jazan province that included rockets and explosive chemicals.
(AP, 8/16/03)
2003 Aug 15, The World Bank said
it is lending Vietnam $100 million over the next 3 years to support
reforms, reduce poverty, develop a market economy and help devise a
modern legal system.
(AP, 8/15/03)
2003 Aug 16, The Midwest and
Northeast were almost fully recovered from the worst power outage in
U.S. history.
(AP, 8/16/04)
2003 Aug 16, Bill Janklow (64), US
Congressional Representative and former South Dakota governor, ran a
stop sign and killed motorcyclist Randolph E. Scott (55) near
Flandreau, SD. On Aug 29 Janklow was charged with manslaughter. Janklow
was found guilty of felony manslaughter on Dec 8 and announced his
resignation effective Jan 20. Janklow was sentenced to serve 100 days
in a county jail.
(SFC, 8/30/03, p.A3)(SFC, 12/9/03, p.A5)(SFC,
1/23/04, p.A3)
2003 Aug 16, Haroldo de Campos
(73), Brazilian poet, died in Sao Paulo. He was the best know of the
Brazilian Concrete poets.
(SFC, 8/26/03, p.A19)
2003 Aug 16, In Nigeria's southern
oil port city of Warri, authorities imposed a nighttime curfew
following gunbattles between rival tribal militias that have killed at
least 20 people.
(AP, 8/16/03)
2003 Aug 16, In southern Pakistan
unidentified gunmen shot to death Ibn-e-Hasan (45), a Shiite Muslim
doctor, sparking rowdy protests by hundreds of youths.
(AP, 8/16/03)
2003 Aug 16, In north central
Uganda rebels from the shadowy Lord's Resistance Army slashed up to 15
people to death with machetes during an attack on the village of Bata.
They also made off with 40 children. All the people killed were
formerly abductees who had been rescued. The army said the next day it
had killed 20 rebel fighters and rescued 127 abducted children.
(AP, 8/17/03)
2003 Aug 16, Former Ugandan
dictator Idi Amin, blamed for the murder of tens of thousands of his
people in the 1970s, died in a Saudi hospital where he had been
critically ill for weeks. In 2006 the film “The Last King of Scotland,”
was adopted from a novel by Giles Foden that focused on Idi Amin. The
film, directed by Kevin McDonald, featured Forest Whitaker as
Amin.
(AP,
8/16/03)(www.moreorless.au.com/killers/amin.html)(WSJ, 9/29/06, p.W1)
2003 Aug 16, It was reported that
African swine fever (ASF) had killed half of the pigs in Uganda this
year.
(SFC, 8/16/03, p.A24)
2003 Aug 17, US Federal
investigators joined industry teams in the search for clues into what
triggered the country's worst power blackout in the Midwest and
Northeast as the Bush administration promised to get answers and
address whatever problem was found.
(AP, 8/17/04)
2003 Aug 17, In southeastern
Afghanistan insurgents attacked a police headquarters sparking a battle
that killed at least 15 fighters and seven Afghan police.
(AP, 8/17/03)
2003 Aug 17, Iceland launched its
first whale hunt in more than a decade in the name of scientific
research. The US, Britain and several other governments opposed to
whaling labeled the hunt unnecessary.
(AP, 8/18/03)
2003 cAug 17, Iranians in Semirom
clashed with police over consolidation of the central city with
less-affluent Shahreza. 8 people were left dead.
(WSJ, 8/18/03, p.A1)
2003 Aug 17, Saboteurs blew a hole
in a giant Baghdad water main, forcing engineers to cut off water to
the capital. Two ferocious blazes raged out of control along the
pipeline that exports Iraq's oil to the north.
(AP, 8/17/03)
2003 Aug 17, Mazen Dana (43), a
Palestinian cameraman for Reuters, was shot dead by US troops in Iraq
while he filmed outside Abu Ghraib prison in western Baghdad. Soldiers
mistook his camera for a rocket-propelled grenade launcher. The
official judgment of the US Military, given five weeks later, was that
The Rules of Engagement required no warning and the tank crew were
justified in shooting Mazen Dana, seeing his TV camera as a
rocket-propelled grenade launcher, or RPG. No disciplinary action was
taken against any US serviceman. Mazen was the 18th foreign journalist
to be killed in Iraq since the occupation by the U.S. Military on March
20, 2003 and the second Reuters cameraman to be killed.
(Reuters,
8/18/03)(http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/030605A.shtml)(http://tinyurl.com/lxu5b)
2003 Aug 17, Indonesian
investigators reported the arrest of 9 people in the Aug. 5 attack on
the Marriott Hotel in Jakarta that killed 12 people and wounded nearly
150.
(AP, 8/17/03)
2003 Aug 17, Nepal’s government
forces detained and then shot dead 21 suspected Maoists in the village
of Doramba. In 2005 the major responsible was cashiered and sentenced
to 2 years in prison.
(Econ, 4/16/05,
p.23)(http://hrw.org/reports/2005/nepal0205/2.htm)
2003 Aug 18, Suspected Taliban
insurgents killed at least nine policemen in an ambush in Logar
province's Kharwar village, about 55 miles south of Kabul.
(AP, 8/19/03)
2003 Aug 18, A 24-year-old woman
from China tipped over 303,621 dominos, breaking a long-standing record
for the world's longest solo domino topple.
(AP, 8/18/03)
2003 Aug 18, In Shanxi province,
China, there was a gas explosion in a coal mine where 27 miners were
working. At least 25 were killed.
(AP, 8/20/03)
2003 Aug 18, Lucien Abenhaim, a
senior French health official resigned after the health minister
admitted that up to 5,000 people, many of them elderly and alone, might
have died in the recent heat wave.
(AP, 8/19/03)
2003 Aug 18, All of Georgia was
without power for the entire day, and officials in the impoverished
former Soviet republic were struggling to determine the cause of the
blackout.
(AP, 8/19/03)
2003 Aug 18, Israel delayed plans
to hand over Jericho and Qalqiliya, two West Bank towns to Palestinian
control.
(AP, 8/19/03)
2003 Aug 18, In Accra, Ghana,
Liberia's government and rebels signed a peace accord to end 14 years
of vicious war with plans for elections in 2 years.
(AP, 8/19/03)
2003 Aug 18, A six-month ordeal
for 14 European tourists kidnapped by Islamic extremists while on
desert safaris in Algeria has ended with their release to officials in
neighboring Mali.
(AP, 8/19/03)
2003 Aug 18, In Venezuela 9
workers died as 8 tried to rescue a comrade who was felled by toxic
industrial gases at an animal feed plant outside Caracas.
(WSJ, 8/19/03, p.A1)
2003 Aug 19, An Ohio auto-parts
worker shot a woman to death and wounded 2 other employees in Andover.
(WSJ, 8/20/03, p.A1)
2003 Aug 19, Afghanistan
celebrated its Independence Day. An explosion ripped through the home
of the brother of President Hamid Karzai.
(AP, 8/19/03)
2003 Aug 19, In northeastern
Brazil federal police and government inspectors freed about 800 slave
workers from two farms in Bahia state. Another 200 were freed a week
later. The Brazilian government estimated that some 25,000 people work
in slavery conditions in Brazil, most of them in remote Amazon areas.
(AP, 8/30/03)
2003 Aug 19, Royal Bank of Canada
said it would get $195 million plus interest from Enron Corp. and
others in a settlement agreement related to the sale of 11.5 million
common shares of EOG Resources.
(AP, 8/19/03)
2003 Aug 19, Fighting persisted in
Chechnya, with six Russian servicemen killed and 11 others wounded.
(AP, 8/20/03)
2003 Aug 19, It was reported that
France had provided Alstom SA a $3.9 billion lifeline to save it from
bankruptcy. The bailout was made against EU rules.
(WSJ, 8/19/03, p.A1)
2003 Aug 19, Carlos Roberto Reina
(77), a former political prisoner who rose to Honduras' presidency
(1993), died at his home in Tegucigalpa. After his presidential term,
he was a judge of the Interamerican Court of Human Rights and an
ambassador to France.
(AP, 8/20/03)
2003 Aug 29, A new Iraq Trade Bank
was established to provide letters of credit for big shipments to Iraq.
(WSJ, 10/28/03, p.A4)
2003 Aug 19, In Baghdad a car bomb
exploded in front of the hotel housing the UN headquarters, collapsing
the front of the building. UN Special Representative Sergio Vieira de
Mello (55) of Brazil and 22 other people were killed. UNICEF said that
its program co-coordinator for Iraq, Canadian Christopher
Klein-Beekman, was among the dead. In 2008 Samantha Power authored
“Chasing the Flame: Sergio Vieira de Mello and the Fight to Save the
World.”
(SFC, 8/20/03, p.A12)(AP, 8/21/03)(SSFC, 2/10/08,
p.M1)
2003 Aug 19, Taha Yassin Ramadan,
a former Iraqi vice president known as "Saddam's knuckles" for his
ruthlessness and No. 20 on the US list of most-wanted Iraqis, was
turned over to US forces in Mosul. Ramadan was tried and convicted in
November 2006 of murder, forced deportation and torture, and sentenced
to life in prison. The court agreed to turn it to a death sentence in
March 2007. Ramadan was hanged before dawn on Tuesday, March 20, 2007,
for his role in the killing of 148 Shia Iraqis in Dujail.
(AP, 8/19/03)(SFC, 8/20/03,
p.A13)(www.iraqupdates.com/p_articles.php/article/15720)
2003 Aug 19, A Hamas bus bombing
in Jerusalem killed 22 people, including as many as six children.
(AP, 8/20/03)(AP, 8/19/04)
2003 Aug 19, It was reported that
women in Kenya had begun rebelling against a traditional "cleansing"
ritual whereby new widows were required to sleep with a designated
"cleanser" in order to be inherited by male relatives and freed of
haunting spirits.
(SFC, 8/19/03, p.A10)
2003 Aug 19, Morocco sentenced
four men to death and 83 others to prison in a trial centered on deadly
terror attacks that raised fears Islamic extremism is spreading.
(AP, 8/19/03)
2003 Aug 19, South African police
and the FBI arrested Craig Michael Pritchert, 41, and Nova Ester
Guthrie, 28, in Capetown. The couple are suspected of armed robberies
in Arizona, Colorado, Montana, New Mexico, Texas, and Oregon between
1993 and 1996.
(AP, 8/21/03)
2003 Aug 20, The US won the
women's overall team gold medal at the World Gymnastics Championships
in Anaheim, Calif.; Romania took the silver medal and Australia, the
bronze.
(AP, 8/21/04)
2003 Aug 20, In Australia Pauline
Hanson, the right-wing firebrand known for her anti-immigration
rhetoric, was sentenced to three years in jail for fraudulently setting
up her One Nation political party and illegally using electoral funds.
(AP, 8/20/03)
2003 Aug 20, In Chechnya fighting
left 8 Russian soldiers and 12 rebels dead.
(SFC, 8/22/03, p.A9)
2003 Aug 20, In the Dominican
Republic police clashed with rioters who were protesting rising prices
and electrical blackouts, leaving one man dead and a dozen arrested.
(AP, 8/21/03)
2003 Aug 20, The G-20 (G20) was
formed with Brazil as one of its leading member nations. The group
emerged at the 5th Ministerial WTO conference, held in Cancun, Mexico
from 10 September to 14 September 2003. The other members are
Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, China, Cuba, Egypt, the Philippines,
Guatemala, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Nigeria, Pakistan, Paraguay, South
Africa, Thailand, Tanzania, Uruguay, Venezuela and Zimbabwe.
(AP,
9/10/06)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G20_developing_nations)
2003 Aug 20, Authorities in the
Russian Far East lost contact with a helicopter carrying a regional
governor and 16 other people over the volcanoes of the Kamchatka
peninsula.
(AP, 8/20/03)
2003 Aug 20, Opposition leaders
turned in 2.7 million signatures to demand a referendum on ending Hugo
Chavez's tumultuous four-year presidency in Venezuela.
(AP, 8/20/03)
2003 Aug 21, Alabama's top judge,
Chief Justice Roy Moore, refused to back down in his fight to keep a
Ten Commandments monument and lashed out at his colleagues who ordered
it removed from the rotunda of the state judicial building.
(AP, 8/21/04)
2003 Aug 21, Paul Hamm put
together a near-perfect routine on the high bar to become the first
American man to win the all-around gold medal at the World Gymnastics
Championship.
(AP, 8/21/08)
2003 Aug 21, Coca Cola signed
basketball prodigy LeBron Jones (18) to a 6-year deal to pitch Sprite.
(WSJ, 1/2/04, p.R10)
2003 Aug 21, Argentina's Senate
voted overwhelmingly to scrap a pair of amnesty laws dating to the
1980s that had ended trials for human rights abuses committed during
the country's military dictatorship.
(AP, 8/21/03)
2003 Aug 21, The US military
reported that Ali Hassan al-Majid, No. 5 on the list of most-wanted
Iraqis, had been captured. [see Apr 5]
(AP, 8/21/03)
2003 Aug 21, In Ecuador some 1000
Indians and union workers marched through Quito, protesting the
economic policies of President Lucio Gutierrez.
(AP, 8/21/03)
2003 Aug 21, France raised the
death toll from the recent heat wave to as many as 10,000.
(SFC, 8/22/03, p.A9)
2003 Aug 21, Israel killed Ismail
Abu Shanab, a senior Hamas political leader, in a missile strike,
retaliating for a suicide bombing of a bus in which 20 people died
including six children. Abu Shanab was widely regarded as a
moderate in the group, and served as a liaison with Abbas during the
prime minister's efforts to persuade Hamas to halt attacks. Palestinian
militants abandoned a two-month-old truce after Israel killed the Hamas
leader.
(AP, 8/21/03)(AP, 8/21/08)
2003 Aug 21, Liberia's rebels and
government chose Gyude Bryant, a gentle-mannered businessman, to lead a
transition administration.
(AP, 8/21/03)
2003 Aug 21, Vladimir Gusinsky,
former Russian media mogul who clashed with the Kremlin and fled under
fraud accusations three years ago, was arrested at the Athens
airport. Russia initially sought Gusinsky on charges of
misrepresenting the assets of his company Media-Most to obtain a $262
million loan from the government-controlled gas giant Gazprom. It later
added allegations of money laundering.
(AP, 8/24/03)
2003 Aug 22, Roy Moore,
Alabama's chief justice, was suspended for his refusal to obey a
federal court order to remove his Ten Commandments monument from his
courthouse.
(AP, 8/22/03)
2003 Aug 22, In southern
California members of the Earth Liberation Front struck 4 car
dealerships. Damage at a Chevrolet dealership in West Covina was over
$1 million.
(SFC, 8/23/03, p.A2)
2003 Aug 22, Texas Gov. Rick Perry
pardoned 35 people arrested in the 1999 Tulia drug busts and convicted
on the testimony of a lone undercover agent later charged with perjury.
The agent, Tom Coleman, was later found guilty of aggravated perjury
and sentenced to 10 years probation. He's been appealing his conviction.
(AP, 8/22/08)
2003 Aug 22, In central
Afghanistan government forces fought hundreds of suspected Taliban
insurgents, killing four guerrillas and arresting 13. At least four
government soldiers died.
(AP, 8/23/03)
2003 Aug 22, In Brazil a $6
million rocket exploded on its launch pad while undergoing final
pre-launch tests, killing 21 people. The VLS-1 rocket which was
undergoing tests at the Alcantara Launch Center.
(AP, 8/25/03)
2003 Aug 22, In Canada a wildfire
has forced up to 10,000 people from their homes in Kelowna, British
Columbia.
(Reuters, 8/22/03)
2003 Aug 22, In northern China a
bus swerving to avoid an oil truck ran off a highway and plunged into a
ravine, killing 27 people.
(AP, 8/23/03)
2003 Aug 22, Suspected FARC rebels
killed Carlos Benavidez (25), a journalist and wounded another, after
the vehicle in which the reporters were traveling failed to stop at a
roadblock in southern Colombia.
(AP, 8/24/03)
2003 Aug 22, France announced a
$525 million aid package for farmers whose animals died by the millions
and whose crops withered in a heat wave estimated to have killed 10,000
people.
(AP, 8/22/03)
2003 Aug 22, Israeli troops killed
a Palestinian militant and wounded two others in a shootout Friday at a
West Bank hospital.
(AP, 8/22/03)
2003 Aug 22, In Nigeria 5 days of
street battles in Warri left as many as 100 dead.
(SFC, 8/23/03, p.A16)
2003 Aug 22, Oslo, Norway, was
ranked the world's most expensive city by Swiss banking giant UBS. It
was followed by New York, Zurich, Switzerland; Copenhagen, Denmark;
London; Basel, Switzerland; Chicago; and Geneva.
(AP, 8/22/03)
2003 Aug 22, Turkish troops
clashed with Kurdish rebels in Batman province. 7 Kurds and 2 Turkish
soldiers were killed.
(SFC, 8/23/03, p.A3)
2003 Aug 23, Former priest John
Geoghan (67), a convicted child molester, died after being attacked by
Joseph L. Druce (37), a fellow inmate, at the Souza-Baranowski state
prison in Shirley, Mass. Druce was convicted of murder in 2006.
(SSFC, 8/24/03, p.A1)(SFC, 1/26/06, p.A3)
2003 Aug 23, Marion Hargrove (83),
American writer, died in Long Beach, Calif. She was noted for the
bestselling World War II comedy novel “See Here, Private Hargrove,”
which was made into a 1944 movie with Robert Walker as Hargrove and
Donna Reed as his love interest.
(AP,
8/30/04)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marion_Hargrove)
2003 Aug 23, Taliban fighters
ambushed a truck full of government soldiers in the southern province
of Zabul. Gov. Hafizullah Khan said five soldiers and three Taliban
were killed.
(AP, 8/24/03)
2003 Aug 23, In Iraq a guerrilla
attack killed 3 British soldiers and seriously wounded one in the
southern port city of Basra.
(AP, 8/23/03)(SSFC, 8/24/03, p.A6)
2003 Aug 23, Michael Kijana
Wamalwa (58), Kenya's 8th Vice President, died of an undisclosed
illness after several months of treatment in a hospital near London.
(AP, 8/23/03)
2003 Aug 23, Emergency officials
discovered the wreckage of a helicopter that crashed Aug 20 in the
Russian Far East. All 20 people aboard were killed. Among the dead were
Igor Farkhutdinov, governor of the oil-rich Sakhalin region, and top
regional officials and business leaders.
(AP, 8/23/03)
2003 Aug 24, The US Justice
Department reported the crime rate in 2002 was the lowest since studies
began in 1973.
(AP, 8/24/04)
2003 Aug 24, Japan’s Musashi-Fuchu
routed East Boynton Beach, Fla., 10-1 to win the Little League World
Series.
(AP, 8/24/08)
2003 Aug 24, It was reported in
Nature that a chemical in red wine called resveratrol was able to
increase the life a Saccharomyces yeast cell by 80%. A beneficial
effect on humans was implied.
(NW, 9/1/03, p.9)
2003 Aug 24, In Oregon 8
firefighters died as their van hit a tractor-trailer while returning
from fighting a wildfire in Idaho.
(WSJ, 8/25/03, p.A1)
2003 Aug 24, John J. Rhodes Jr.
(86), former U.S. House Minority Leader, died in Mesa, Ariz.
(AP, 8/24/04)
2003 Aug 24, Sir Wilfred Thesiger
(93), British writer, explorer and chronicler of the world's vanishing
ways of life, died. Thesiger's most famous books were "Arabian Sands,"
about his travels with the Bedu people across the Empty Quarter of
southern Arabia in the 1940s, and "The Marsh Arabs," the story of the
Shiite marsh dwellers of southern Iraq. In 2006 Alexander Maitland
authored “Wilfred Thesiger: The Life of the Great Explorer.”
(AP, 8/26/03)(Econ, 2/18/06, p.79)
2003 Aug 24, Public power went out
in Kabul, Afghanistan, due to lack of water in the local reservoirs.
Return of power was not expected until Dec.
(Econ, 8/30/03, p.30)
2003 Aug 24, In central Colombia a
rebel bomb exploded as passengers were disembarking from a boat,
killing six people, including the woman carrying the device.
(AP, 8/24/03)
2003 Aug 24, A 150-strong US
Marine force ended an 11-day deployment and headed back to warships off
the coast of Monrovia, Liberia.
(AP, 8/24/03)
2003 Aug 24, A twin-engine
turboprop Let L-410 crashed in Haiti and 21 people were killed.
(AP, 8/26/03)
2003 Aug 24, Hurricane
Ignacio sideswiped the southern tip of the Baja California peninsula.
(AP, 8/24/08)
2003 Aug 24, Palestinian militants
carried out their deepest rocket strike against Israel. A Qassam-2
rocket, a makeshift weapon produced by the militant Islamic group
Hamas, landed near a lifeguard station on Zikim beach with no damages
or casualties. Israeli missile fire killed 4 Palestinian militants in
Gaza City.
(Reuters, 8/24/03)(SFC, 8/25/03, p.A1)
2003 Aug 24, In northern Turkey a
bus in a wedding convoy veered off the road and slammed into a
retaining wall, killing 19 people and injuring several others.
(AP, 8/24/03)
2003 Aug 25, NASA launched the
largest-diameter infrared telescope ever in space. NASA showed the 1st
images from the $670 million Spitzer Space Telescope on Dec 18.
(WSJ, 8/26/03, p.A1)(SFC, 12/19/03, p.A2)
2003 Aug 25, In southeastern
Afghanistan US jets hit a Taliban hideout and at least 14 insurgents
were killed.
(SFC, 8/26/03, p.A7)
2003 Aug 25, Brazil's Pres. Lula
da Silva and Peru's Pres. Toledo signed a free-trade agreement between
Peru and Mercosur. Peru planned to join as an associate member.
(Econ, 8/30/03, p.25)
2003 Aug 25, Canada's Premier
Chretien signed an agreement in the Northwest Territories bestowing
self-government and mineral wealth on the 4,000 Dogrib Indians (Tlicho
First Nation).
(Econ, 8/30/03, p.26)
2003 Aug 25, In India consecutive
bombs exploded in a crowded jewelry market and a historical landmark in
Bombay, killed 53 people, wounding 150 others. The Student’s Islamic
Movement of India (SIMI) was believed responsible. Ashrat Shafiq
Mohammed Ansari, Syed Mohammed Haneef Abdul Rahim and his wife Fahmeeda
Syed Mohammed Haneef were arrested under India's tough anti-terrorism
law shortly after the attacks. All 3 were convicted and sentenced to
death in 2009 after Judge M.R. Puranic said they were members of
Lashkar-e-Taiba, a banned, Pakistan-based militant group formed in the
1980s.
(WSJ, 8/27/03, p.A1)(Econ, 7/15/06, p.39)(AP,
8/25/08)(AP, 7/27/09)(AP, 8/6/09)
2003 Aug 25, In Ivory Coast 2
French soldiers, part of a peacekeeping force, were killed.
(AP, 8/26/03)
2003 Aug 25, In southern Russia a
series of bomb explosions near two cafes and a bus stop in Krasnodar,
about 750 miles south of Moscow, killed at least three people and
wounding ten others.
(AP, 8/25/03)
2003 Aug 25, In Rwanda voters
lined up before dawn to vote in the country's first real presidential
election. Incumbent President Paul Kagame scored an overwhelming
election win.
(AP, 8/26/03)
2003 Aug 26, In the face of
criticism, President Bush defended his handling of the war and
reconstruction of Iraq, telling an American Legion conference in St.
Louis the fight was essential to the U.S. campaign against terrorism.
(AP, 8/26/04)
2003 Aug 26, Investigators
concluded that NASA's overconfident management and inattention to
safety doomed the space shuttle Columbia as much as did damage to the
craft.
(AP, 8/26/04)
2003 Aug 26, The CBO forecast a US
deficit of $401 billion this year and $480 billion in 2004.
(WSJ, 8/27/03, p.A1)
2003 Aug 26, The toll of U.S.
troops killed in postwar Iraq surpassed the number killed in major
combat, reaching 139.
(AP, 8/26/03)
2003 Aug 26, In northern Iraq the
Patriotic Union of Kurdistan and the Iraqi Turkmen Front signed an
agreement in Kirkuk aimed at preventing ethnic violence after clashes
left 11 people dead last week.
(AP, 8/28/03)
2003 Aug 26, A hidden cache of
fireworks exploded in a town in China's southeast, killing at least 20
people in the 2nd such disaster to strike the same county in one month.
(AP, 8/27/03)
2003 Aug 26, Two Russian military
helicopters collided over an airfield in Russia's Far East, killing
five people and injuring one.
(AP, 8/26/03)
2003 Aug 27, The Bush
administration relaxed clean air rules to allow industrial plants to
make upgrades without installing pollution controls.
(SFC, 8/28/03, p.A1)
2003 Aug 27, A moving crew rolled
a massive Ten Commandments monument out of the rotunda of the Alabama
Judicial Building to comply with a federal court order as protesters
knelt, prayed and chanted, "Put it back!"
(AP, 8/27/04)
2003 Aug 27, Oklahoma charged
Bernie Ebbers (62), ex-CEO of WorldCom, and 6 other former executives
with 15 felony violations of state's securities laws. The charges
against Ebbers were dropped when the Federal government filed on
March 2, 2004 security fraud and conspiracy charges. Ebbers was found
guilty of all charges on March 15, 2005. He was sentenced to 25 years
in a federal prison in Louisiana, the toughest sentence yet among other
recent corporate accounting scandals.
(SFC, 8/28/03,
p.B1)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_Ebbers#Criminal_charges)
2003 Aug 27, In Chicago Salvador
Tapia (36) shot and killed 6 people inside Windy City Core Supply Inc.
autoparts warehouse. He opened fire on police and was killed. Tapia had
been fired from the auto parts warehouse six months earlier.
(AP, 8/28/04)
2003 Aug 27, American and Afghan
forces killed about a dozen insurgents and recaptured a mountain pass
in southeastern Afghanistan.
(AP, 8/27/03)
2003 Aug 27, Chancellor Gerhard
Schroeder said that Germany was committed to deploying troops to
northern Afghanistan to support reconstruction efforts.
(AP, 8/28/03)
2003 Aug 27, In Nasik, India,
thousands of Hindu pilgrims jostling to reach a river for a religious
festival toppled a bamboo fence, sparking a stampede that killed at
least 39 people, mostly women. At least 125 people were injured.
(AP, 8/27/03)
2003 Aug 27, In Iraq 2 more US
soldiers were killed in combat, and the international relief agency
Oxfam said it pulled its foreign staff out of Iraq because of the
increasing danger.
(AP, 8/27/03)
2003 Aug 27, Nepal's rebels
announced that they were ending a seven-month cease-fire and
withdrawing from peace talks with the government aimed at closing seven
years of insurgency.
(AP, 8/27/03)
2003 Aug 27, The US and North
Korea held direct talks for the first time in months, meeting for a
half-hour on the sidelines of a six-nation summit in Beijing designed
to resolve the standoff over Pyongyang's nuclear program.
(AP, 8/27/03)
2003 Aug 27, Senegal announced its
5th government in three years under President Abdoulaye Wade, in a
Cabinet overhaul that followed criticism of Wade's administration and
its handling of recent flooding.
(AP, 8/27/03)
2003 Aug 27, Serbia declared
Kosovo part of its territory.
(WSJ, 8/28/03, p.A1)
2003 Aug 27, Mars came within
34,646,437 miles of Earth, its closest in the past 60 millennia.
(SFC, 8/27/03, p.A1)
2003 Aug 28, The US Library of
Congress said it would name Louise Gluck as the nation's poet laureate.
Her 9 books included "The Wild Iris" (1992).
(SFC, 8/29/03, p.A3)
2003 Aug 28, A US Defense
Department survey found that nearly one in five female Air Force
Academy cadets said they had been sexually assaulted during their time
at the academy.
(AP, 8/28/04)
2003 Aug 28, Two small pipe bombs
exploded at Chiron Corp., Emeryville, Ca. Animal rights activists were
suspected.
(SFC, 8/29/03, p.A1)
2003 Aug 28, In Erie, Pa., Brian
Douglas Wells (46), pizza delivery man, was killed when a bomb strapped
to his chest exploded while under police custody. Wells claimed a
customer had strapped on the bomb and ordered him to rob a bank. In
2007 a grand jury indicted 2 people in connection with the crime.
Marjorie Diehl-Armstrong (59), described as the ringleader, pleaded
guilty but mentally ill for killing her boyfriend to keep him silent
about the robbery. Diehl-Armstrong was trying to raise money to hire
Kenneth Barnes to kill her father due to an inheritance dispute. In
2008 Kenneth Barnes (54) pleaded guilty to conspiracy.
(SSFC, 8/31/03, p.A8)(AP, 7/11/07)(SFC, 9/4/08, p.A7)
2003 Aug 28, British Prime
Minister Tony Blair denied that the government had "sexed up" a dossier
on Iraq's weapons threat, and said he would have resigned if it had
been true.
(AP, 8/28/04)
2003 Aug 28, The WWF reported that
the hippos of Congo's Virunga national Park have been nearly wiped out
by poachers and civil war.
(WSJ, 8/29/03, p.A1)
2003 Aug 28, Akhmad Kadyrov, the
Kremlin-appointed head of Chechnya, said death squads associated with
security forces were seeking to prolong the conflict through abductions
and terror.
(SFC, 8/29/03, p.A8)
2003 Aug 28, A 40-minute blackout
in London, England, stranded hundreds of thousands of commuters.
(AP, 8/29/03)(WSJ, 8/29/03, p.A1)
2003 Aug 28, A North Korean envoy
at 6-nation talks said his nation intends to declare that it has atomic
arms and to test one as proof.
(WSJ, 8/29/03, p.A1)
2003 Aug 29, Rep. Bill Janklow,
R-S.D., was charged with felony manslaughter in a car accident that
claimed the life of motorcyclist Randolph E. Scott. Janklow was later
convicted and served 100 days in jail.
(AP, 8/29/04)
2003 Aug 29, Jeffrey Lee Parson
(18), suspected of writing a variant of the "Blaster," a virus-like
computer worm, was arrested in his hometown, the Minneapolis suburb of
Hopkins. He was charged with one count of intentionally causing or
attempting to cause damage to a computer and faced a maximum of 10
years in prison and a $250,000 fine if convicted. Parson pleaded guilty
in August 2004 and was subsequently sentenced on January 28, 2005 to 18
months in prison followed by a three-year supervised release program,
and was required to do 225 hours of community service. He was ordered
to pay restitution of $497,546.55 to Microsoft Corporation and $1,056
to specific individuals to have their computer hard drives cleaned.
(SFC, 8/29/03, p.A1)(SFC, 8/30/03,
p.A2)(http://www.rbs2.com/parson2.html)
2003 Aug 29, Six nations trying to
defuse a standoff over North Korea's nuclear program ended their talks
in Beijing with an agreement to keep talking.
(AP, 8/29/04)
2003 Aug 29, France raised the
death toll from the August heat wave to as many as 11,435.
(SFC, 8/30/03, p.A7)
2003 Aug 29, The board of Air
France approved a deal to combine with Dutch KLM under a holding
company to form the world's #3 airline.
(WSJ, 1/2/04, p.R12)
2003 Aug 29, In Haiti's west-coast
city of St. Marc torrential rains burst river banks, left at least 24
people dead and destroyed dozens of flimsy riverside shacks.
(AP, 9/2/03)(AP, 9/11/03)
2003 Aug 29, In Najaf, Iraq, a
massive car bomb exploded at the Imam Ali mosque during prayers,
killing Mohammed Bakir al-Hakim, one of Iraq's most important Shiite
clerics, and at least 85 other people. Two Iraqis and two Saudis were
caught soon after. Attackers fired rocket-propelled grenades at two
U.S. convoys in separate ambushes, killing one American soldier and
wounding six.
(SFC, 9/1/03, p.A1)(AP, 8/29/08)
2003 Aug 29, A Jewish settler was
killed and his pregnant wife wounded in a Palestinian shooting attack.
In Jenin Palestinian gunmen fired on Israeli soldiers manning a lookout
in a four-story office building. The violence came just hours after an
Israeli helicopter in southern Gaza fired missiles to kill a Hamas
fugitive as he drove a donkey cart.
(AP, 8/29/03)
2003 Aug 29, Excel Motors, a
fledgling Jamaican automaker, exported the Caribbean island's first
locally manufactured car to the Bahamas. The two-door Island Cruiser,
one of 22 built this year at the company's plant in western Jamaica,
sold for $11,500.
(AP, 8/30/03)
2003 Aug 29, In central Mexico a
truck carrying sulfuric acid collided head-on with a sport-utility
vehicle on a mountain road, killing five people and forcing dozens of
people to hospitals after they inhaled the fumes.
(AP, 8/30/03)
2003 Aug 29, In Nigeria crude oil
spilling from a ruptured Shell Oil pipeline burst into flames near a
southeastern village, scorching yam fields and spreading thick, black
smoke for miles. More than one-tenth of Nigeria's exports are stolen
daily by criminal rings who siphon the fuel from pipelines using
everything from buckets to sophisticated pumps.
(AP, 9/2/03)
2003 Aug 30, Harley-Davidson
celebrated its 100th anniversary in Milwaukee with a parade of 10,000
motorcycles. Some 250,000 bikers packed the roads around Milwaukee for
a 3-day celebration.
(AP, 9/1/03)
2003 Aug 30, A flashflood swept
cars off the Kansas Turnpike in Emporia and at least 4 children were
killed with 2 missing.
(WSJ, 9/2/03, p.A1)
2003 Aug 30, In Gerlach, Nevada, a
woman riding an "art car" at the counterculture Burning Man festival
died when she accidentally fell under the vehicle's wheels. The
weeklong festival, theme name "Beyond Belief," peaked Saturday night
with the torching of a 70-foot-high wooden effigy of a man.
(AP, 8/31/03)(SFC, 9/1/03, p.A1)
2003 Aug 30, Robert Abplanalp
(81), inventor and confidant of President Nixon, died in Bronxville,
N.Y.
(AP, 8/30/04)
2003 Aug 30, Charles Bronson
(b.1921), coal miner turned tough-guy actor and star of more than 60
films including the "Death Wish" series, died of pneumonia.
(AP, 9/1/03)(SFC, 9/1/03, p.A2)
2003 Aug 30, In Botswana a former
bank manager, draped in a ceremonial leopard skin, was installed as the
first female paramount chief. Mosadi Seboko took over as the
highest-ranking chief of the Balete people.
(AP, 8/30/03)
2003 Aug 30, An Israeli helicopter
gunship fired several missiles at a Palestinian car driving through a
refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip, killing two Hamas militants.
(AP, 8/30/03)
2003 Aug 30, In India 2 suspected
Islamic militants were killed in a battle with New Delhi police. Indian
police claimed to have killed Ghazi Baba, the head of the
Jaish-e-Mohammed militant group, during a fierce gun battle in
Srinagar. Baba was said to be the mastermind behind several terror
attacks including the December 2001 attack on India's Parliament.
(AP, 8/30/03)
2003 Aug 30, In northern India a
bus carrying 40 passengers plunged into a river in a remote hilly area.
There was no immediate word on casualties.
(AP, 8/30/03)
2003 Aug 30, A Russian
nuclear-powered submarine, K-159, sank in the Barents Sea as it was
being towed to a scrapyard, killing 9 of the 10 sailors on board.
(AP, 8/31/03)
2003 Aug 30, The World Trade
Organization agreed to let impoverished nations import cheaper copies
of patented medicines needed to fight killer diseases.
(AP, 8/30/04)
2003 Aug 31, In Gerlach, Nevada,
the "Temple of Honor" by David Best went up in flames. Some 30,500
people attended the weeklong "Burning Man" event.
(SFC, 9/1/03, p.A1)
2003 Aug 31, The burned body of
Katie Sepich (22) was found at an old dump in Las Cruces, NM. She had
been raped and strangled earlier that same day. In 2006 DNA evidence
identified Gabriel Adrian Avila, already in prison for burglary and
assault, as her killer.
(SFC, 2/28/07, p.B5)(http://tinyurl.com/yvb63k)
2003 Aug 31, In Afghanistan 2 US
soldiers were killed in Paktika province.
(SFC, 9/1/03, p.A3)
2003 Aug 31, It was reported that
Congo tribal fighters killed at least 200 people over the last month
and abducted scores more during a series of attacks that destroyed,
Fataki, a northeast town once controlled by a rival tribe.
(AP, 8/31/03)
2003 Aug 31, Vowing revenge and
beating their chests, more than 300,000 Shiites marched behind the
rose-strewn coffin of a beloved cleric, Ayatollah Mohammad Baqir
al-Hakim, who had been assassinated in a car bombing in Najaf, Iraq.
(AP, 8/31/04)
2003 Aug 31, Libyan leader Moammar
Gadhafi said a second agreement over compensation has been reached
between his country and the families of 170 victims of a French
airliner that exploded in 1989.
(AP, 9/1/03)
2003 Aug 31, At least 675,000
people in Malawi urgently need food aid despite the country's good
harvest, the UN World Food Program reported.
(AP, 8/31/03)
2003 Aug 31, In Taiwan a fire
engulfed an apartment building on the outskirts of Taipei before dawn,
killing at least 13 people and injuring dozens.
(AP, 8/31/03)
2003 Aug, Toyota sold more cars in
America than did Chrysler.
(Econ, 10/11/03, p.82)
2003 Aug, Skype, founded in
Amsterdam as Kazaa in 2001, released the 1st version of its software
which allowed people to make free voice and video calls over the
internet.
(Econ, 9/16/06, p.79)
2003 Aug, British regulators
disconnected the 47-year-old 192 directory assistance number in a bid
to increase competition. Some 57 six-digit phone numbers for national
assistance followed with complex charges and numerous errors.
(WSJ, 10/24/03, p.A1)
2003 Aug, Researchers from India’s
nongovernment Center for Science and Environment said Coke and Pepsi
products contain high levels of pesticide residue. A high court in
Kerala, India, soon ordered Coca Cola to shut down a $25 million plant
due to local complaints of excess water use. Villagers also complained
that waste from the plant had contaminated drinking water. Activists
left alone a nearby Indian brewery.
(SSFC, 3/6/05, p.A3)(WSJ, 9/12/06, p.A6)
2003 Aug, Honduras passed an
anti-gang law. Gang leaders faced 9-12 years in prison.
(SSFC, 9/28/03, p.A8)
2003 Aug, Odhiambo Mbai, Kenya
political scientist, was assassinated. He was a key man in efforts to
redraft the constitution.
(Econ, 10/11/03, p.50)
2003 Aug, In Switzerland Sheikh
Falah bin Zayed bin Sultan al-Nahyan, the brother of the president of
the United Arab Emirates, hit an Italian-American, Silvano Orsi, with
the buckle of his belt in a hotel. in a trial in June, 2008, he was
ordered to pay 540,000 Swiss francs (337,000 euros, 532,000 dollars) by
the court, suspended for three years. The sheikh was also sentenced to
pay legal costs of nearly 3,000 Swiss francs. In 2009 he was acquitted
on appeal against the imposed fines.
(AFP,
3/28/09)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falah_bin_Zayed_bin_Sultan_Al_Nahyan)
2003 Aug, Vietnam took possession
of the 1st of 4 new Boeing 777-200 ER jetliners purchased in part with
a loan from the Export-Import Bank of the US.
(SSFC, 8/24/03, p.I6)
2003 Sep 1, During a Labor Day
trip to Richfield, Ohio, President Bush announced he was creating a
high-level government post to nurture the manufacturing sector.
(AP, 9/1/04)
2003 Sep 1, Actor Rand Brooks
(84), who played Scarlett O'Hara's first husband in "Gone With the
Wind," died in Santa Ynez, Calif.
(AP, 9/1/04)
2003 Sep 1, Suspected Taliban
fighters attacked a government checkpoint and ambushed another group of
Afghan soldiers along the main road linking the south with the capital,
killing at least eight soldiers over the last 2 days.
(AP, 9/1/03)
2003 Sep 1, State media reported
that China will cut an additional 200,000 soldiers as part of efforts
to modernize its armed forces.
(AP, 9/1/03)
2003 Sep 1, The U.S.-picked Iraqi
Governing Council named a new Cabinet.
(AP, 9/1/04)
2003 Sep 1, Arab TV broadcast an
audiotape purportedly from Saddam Hussein denying any involvement in a
bombing in Najaf, Iraq, that killed a beloved Shiite cleric.
(AP, 9/1/04)
2003 Sep 1, Israeli helicopters
fired four missiles at a car carrying Hamas militants, killing at least
one of them and wounding 26 on a crowded Gaza City.
(AP, 9/1/03)
2003 Sep 1, A rebel group trying
to win independence for the Western Sahara has released 243 Moroccan
prisoners, some of whom have been held for nearly three decades. It was
the first prisoner release since the UN Security Council voted in July
to urge Morocco and the Polisario to accept a new plan to settle the
long-running dispute over the Western Sahara.
(AP, 9/3/03)
2003 Sep 1, Marijuana went on sale
Monday at Dutch pharmacies to help bring relief to thousands of
patients suffering from cancer, AIDS or multiple sclerosis.
(AP, 9/1/03)
2003 Sep 2, A federal appeals
court in San Francisco threw out more than 100 death sentences in
Arizona, Montana and Idaho because the inmates had been sent to death
row by judges instead of juries.
(AP, 9/2/04)
2003 Sep 2, A car slid off a boat
ramp into Clinton Lake, Ill., and sank under the water. Two people
allegedly made it out of the car before it sank. They were Amanda Hamm
(27) and her boyfriend Maurice Lagrone Jr. (28). Three children were
trapped in the car: Christopher Hamm (6), Austin Brown (3), and Kyleigh
Hamm, age 23 months. Hamm and Lagrone were later charged with murder.
In 2007 Amanda Hamm was sentenced to 10 years in prison. Lagrone was
convicted earlier of 1st degree murder and sentenced to life.
(SFC, 2/2/07,
p.A3)(www.bellaonline.com/articles/art24538.asp)
2003 Sep 2, Typhoon Dujuan slammed
into the southern Chinese coastal city of Shenzhen, killing at least 20
people and causing extensive damage to parts of the country's showcase
economic development zone.
(AP, 9/3/03)
2003 Sep 2, The official Xinhua
News Agency reported that heavy flooding in northern China had killed
38 people with another 34 people missing since Aug 24.
(AP, 9/2/03)
2003 Sep 2, In China's Inner
Mongolia a locust plague, Oedaleus decorus asiaticus, was reported to
have affected some 47 million acres of grasslands.
(WSJ, 9/2/03, p.A1)
2003 Sep 2, Two South China
tigers, the first ever to leave the country, arrived in South Africa as
part of a project to save the endangered species.
(AP, 9/3/03)
2003 Sep 2, Ptolemy Alexander Reid
(85), former Guyanese Prime Minister, died after suffering a stroke.
Reid was named prime minister under President Forbes Burnham, and held
the post from 1980 to 1984.
(AP, 9/5/03)
2003 Sep 2, In eastern India an
overcrowded boat capsized in the swollen Kosi River of Bihar state, and
at least 25 people were missing and feared drowned.
(AP, 9/3/03)
2003 Sep 2, In Indonesia a court
in Jakarta convicted radical Muslim cleric Abu Bakar Bashir of inciting
others to overthrow the government. He was sentenced to four years in
prison for sedition. The court threw out charges that he belonged to
al-Qaida's main Asian ally. His conviction was later overturned after
he'd spent more than two years behind bars.
(AP, 9/2/03)(AP, 9/2/08)
2003 Sep 2, Saudi Arabia's Crown
Prince Abdullah met Russia's Pres. Putin on the first visit to
post-Soviet Russia by a Saudi leader, aimed at coordinating oil exports
and soothing Russian concerns about alleged funding of Chechen rebels
by Saudi charities.
(AP, 9/2/03)
2003 Sep 2, In northeastern Uganda
rebels shot or clubbed to death 25 people on a bus and then set the
vehicle ablaze.
(AP, 9/2/03)
2003 Sep 3, President Bush signed
legislation to begin free trade with Singapore and Chile.
(AP, 9/3/04)
2003 Sep 3, US federal authorities
raided the Bay Area laboratory Co-Operative (BALCO) for suspected
steroids. On Oct 16 Olympic drug-testing officials announced that they
believed the lab was a source for the steroid tetrahydrogestrinone
(THG).
(SSFC, 10/19/03, p.A1)
2003 Sep 3, NY Attorney General
Eliot Spitzer charged hedge fund Canary Capital with illegal mutual
fund trading. Other funds were also named.
(WSJ, 10/29/03, p.C1)
2003 Sep 3, Paul Hill, a former
minister who said he murdered an abortion doctor and his bodyguard to
save the lives of unborn babies, was executed in Florida by injection,
becoming the first person put to death in the United States for
anti-abortion violence.
(AP, 9/3/04)
2003 Sep 3, The Bank of Canada cut
interest rates by 25 basis points to 2.75 percent on because of
lower-than-expected inflation as well as sagging growth.
(Reuters, 9/3/03)
2003 Sep 3, In China Typhoon
Dujuan killed at least 32 people.
(WSJ, 9/4/03, p.A1)
2003 Sep 3, North Korea's
parliament re-elected Kim Jong Il as the isolated country's top leader
and approved his government's decision to "keep and increase its
nuclear deterrent force" to counter what it calls a hostile U.S. policy.
(AP, 9/3/03)
2003 Sep 3, In southern Russia at
Pyatigorsk two bombs exploded under a student-filled commuter train,
killing at least 4 people and wounding 44.
(AP, 9/3/03)(SFC, 9/4/03, p.A6)
2003 Sep 4, Miguel Estrada, whose
nomination became a flash point for Democratic opposition to President
Bush's judicial choices, withdrew from consideration for an appeals
court seat after Republicans failed in seven attempts to break a Senate
filibuster.
(AP, 9/4/04)
2003 Sep 4, The US House agreed to
a 2.2 percent pay raise for Congress, enough to boost lawmakers' annual
salaries to about $158,000 next year.
(AP, 9/4/03)
2003 Sep 4, Pres. Bush signed the
Prison Rape Elimination Act into law.
(Econ, 8/6/05,
p.25)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prison_Rape_Elimination_Act_of_2003)
2003 Sep 4, Verizon Communications
and two unions, the Communications Workers of America and the
International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, reached a tentative,
five-year contract agreement after four months of talks.
(AP, 9/4/04)
2003 Sep 4, Researchers reported
that the hormone YY3-36 appeared to curb the appetite of obese people.
(SFC, 9/4/03, p.A3)
2003 Sep 4, British and Colombian
authorities said they had seized nearly $7 billion in securities from
an international drug and money-laundering ring. Authorities arrested
14 alleged members of the ring, 10 in England, two in Colombia and two
in Ecuador.
(AP, 9/4/03)
2003 Sep 4, Mario Monteforte
Toledo, Guatemalan writer and activist, died. His work included the
1952 novel "En Donde Acaban los Caminos" (Where the Roads End).
(SFC, 9/5/03, p.A23)
2003 Sep 5, A roller coaster
derailed at Southern California's Disneyland theme park, killing one
man and injuring 10 other people, including a 9-year-old.
(Reuters, 9/5/03)
2003 Sep 5, Gisele MacKenzie (76),
former TV star, died. She starred on "Your Hit Parade" from 1953-1957,
after which she starred in NBC's "The Gisele MacKenzie Show."
(SFC, 9/6/03, p.A16)
2003 Sep 5, Afghan forces in the
southern province of Zabul captured five fugitive Taliban militants,
including an insurgent leader, after a battle that killed scores of
rebels. Coalition forces killed Mullah Abdul Razzaq Hafees, a Taliban
commander, and 19 other militants in fighting in southern Afghanistan.
(AP, 9/6/03)(AP, 10/6/03)
2003 Sep 5, Hurricane Fabian
slammed into Bermuda killing 4 people. [see Sep 6]
(AP, 9/5/08)
2003 Sep 5, Statistics Canada said
the nation's unemployment rate rose to 8.0% in August, an 18-month high.
(AP, 9/5/03)
2003 Sep 5, Costa Rica's Arenal
Volcano spewed lava, rocks and ash in its strongest eruption in more
than two years.
(AP, 9/5/03)
2003 Sep 5, Wayan Limbak (106), a
Balinese dancer who helped create the island's famous Monkey Dance,
died. Working with German painter Walter Spies in the 1930s, Limbak
adopted a traditional exorcism ritual to invent the dance, known in
Indonesian as Kecak.
(AP, 9/6/03)
2003 Sep 5, Israeli commandos
killed a Hamas bombmaker in a firefight and pulverized the West Bank
apartment building in which he had been hiding.
(AP, 9/5/04)
2003 Sep 5, European Union foreign
ministers met in Riva del Garda, Italy, to discuss Iraq, the tattered
Mideast peace plan and their bloc's draft constitution as some 500
anti-globalization protesters blocked main roads to an Italian Alps
town.
(AP, 9/6/03)
2003 Sep 6, Fabian, the most
powerful hurricane to hit Bermuda in 50 years pushed away from the
British territory after deadly winds split trees and swept trucks off
roads. Four people were missing and feared dead.
(AP, 9/6/03)
2003 Sep 6, In central Colombia
soldiers killed at least 25 suspected rebels and paramilitary fighters
in three military operations.
(AP, 9/6/03)
2003 Sep 6, The European Union
said it will declare all wings of the militant Palestinian group Hamas
a terrorist organization and freeze its assets after dozens of deadly
attacks in Israel.
(AP, 9/6/03)
2003 Sep 6, In Indian-controlled
Kashmir a bomb targeting an army convoy exploded in the main wholesale
market for fruit, killing six people, including an army officer, and
wounding 25.
(AP, 9/6/03)
2003 Sep 6, An Israeli missile
strike on Gaza City lightly wounded Hamas founder Sheik Ahmed Yassin,
the highest-ranking member of the militant group to be targeted by
Israel in recent weeks.
(AP, 9/6/03)
2003 Sep 6, Palestinian Prime
Minister Mahmoud Abbas, whose support was considered essential to any
prospect of peace success, submitted his resignation.
(AP, 9/6/03)
2003 Sep 6, In Taiwan thousands of
pro-independence activists marched in the capital, demanding that the
island's official name be changed from the Republic of China to Taiwan.
(AP, 9/6/03)
2003 Sep 7, President Bush spoke
on national TV and said he would ask Congress for $87 billion to fight
terrorism. He cautioned that the struggle "will take time and require
sacrifice."
(AP, 9/8/03)
2003 Sep 7, The top American
commander in Afghanistan said Taliban fighters, paid and trained by
al-Qaida, were pouring into Afghanistan from Pakistan.
(AP, 9/8/03)
2003 Sep 7, Goran Markovic's "The
Cordon", a film from Serbia and Montenegro about the behavior of
policemen during the demonstrations against president Slobodan
Milosevic in 1997, won the top prize at the Montreal film festival.
(Reuters, 9/7/03)
2003 Sep 7, The Russian drama "The
Return" won the Venice Film Festival's Golden Lion for best picture.
Vladimir Girin (15), star of the film, drowned shortly after the film
was shot. Randa Chahal Sabbag, Lebanese filmmaker, won the Silver Lion
prize for her film “Le cerf-volant” (The Kite), a love story between a
Lebanese girl and an Israeli border guard.
(SFC, 9/8/03, p.D5)(WPR, 3/04, p.45)
2003 Sep 7, Warren Zevon (56),
songwriter, died in West Hollywood. His work included the 1970s rock
hit "Werewolves of London."
(AP, 9/8/03)(WSJ, 9/9/03, p.D6)
2003 Sep 7, Fighting in northeast
Colombia killed seven army soldiers and at least eight rebels.
(AP, 9/8/03)
2003 Sep 7, A ferry boat traveling
from Indonesia's Bali island sank, killing at least six people and
leaving dozens missing.
(AP, 9/7/03)
2003 Sep 7, Mamohato Bereng Seeiso
(62), the queen mother of the tiny mountain kingdom of Lesotho, died
after collapsing in a church outside the capital.
(AP, 9/8/03)
2003 Sep 7, Macedonian police
clashed with ethnic Albanian militants in the volatile north, and
reported killing several men in what they said was a major sweep
against groups that threaten the Balkan country's fragile peace.
(AP, 9/7/03)
2003 Sep 7, Palestinian Pres.
Yasser Arafat tapped the parliament speaker, Ahmed Qureia, to take over
as prime minister following the resignation of Mahmoud Abbas.
(SFC, 9/8/03, p.A1)(AP, 9/7/08)
2003 Sep 8, The Recording Industry
Association of America (RIAA), the music industry's largest trade
group, filed 261 copyright lawsuits across the country against Internet
users for trading songs online.
(SFC, 9/9/03, p.A1)(AP, 9/8/08)
2003 Sep 8, In NYC Harvey Milk
High School for gay, bisexual and transgender kids opened in Greenwich
Village. It was named after the San Francisco supervisor killed
in 1978.
(SFC, 9/9/03, p.A1)
2003 Sep 8, NASA presented a
"return to flight" plan for the shuttle fleet.
(WSJ, 9/8/03, p.A1)
2003 Sep 8, In Afghanistan
suspected Taliban rebels stopped a car carrying Afghans working for a
Danish aid organization, tied them up, then shot four of them to death.
(AP, 9/10/03)
2003 Sep 8, In Ecuador spokesman
Marcelo Cevallos said Pres. Lucio Gutierrez will set a national example
and start showing up on time for meetings and appointments in an effort
to combat a national lack of punctuality. Cevallos apologized to the
audience for showing up late for the interview.
(AP, 9/9/03)
2003 Sep 8, Leni Riefenstahl
(101), filmmaker, died in Bavaria. Her depiction of Hitler's Nuremberg
rally, "Triumph of the Will," was renowned and despised as the best
propaganda film ever made. In 2007 Steven Bach authored “Leni: The Life
and Work of Leni Riefenstahl” and Jurgen Trimborn authored “Leni
Riefenstahl: A Life.”
(AP, 9/9/03)(SFC, 9/10/03, p.A19)(Econ, 3/10/07,
p.82)
2003 Sep 8, Ariel Sharon flew to
New Delhi for the first-ever visit to India by an Israeli prime
minister, hoping to cement blossoming defense and trade ties.
(AP, 9/8/03)
2003 Sep 8, In eastern India
suspected communist rebels detonated a land mine under a passing police
vehicle, killing 12 officers.
(AP, 9/8/03)
2003 Sep 8, In Mali
authorities said torrential rains have killed scores and caused heavy
property damage, warning of worse to come if the Niger River spills its
banks.
(AP, 9/8/03)
2003 Sep 8, In central Nigeria 3
buses and a truck collided, killing more than 100 people in the impact
and the fiery explosion that followed.
(AP, 9/8/03)
2003 Sep 8, Palestinian parliament
speaker Ahmed Qureia said he will accept the prime minister's job only
if Washington guarantees Israeli compliance with a US-backed peace
plan, including a halt to military strikes.
(AP, 9/8/03)
2003 Sep 8, Singapore health
officials confirmed that a local patient tested positive for severe
acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, the 1st new case of the disease in
over 5 months.
(AP, 9/8/03)(WSJ, 9/10/03, p.A1)
2003 Sep 9, The Catholic
archdiocese of Boston agreed to pay $85 million to settle claims by
more than 550 people who said they were sexually abused by priests.
(SFC, 9/10/03, p.A3)
2003 Sep 9, The WSJ disclosed that
Dick Grasso, Chairman of the NYSE, had a retirement package close to
$140 million along with entitlements to an additional $48 million. His
2001 pay exceeded $30 million with a base pay of $1.4 million. Grasso
soon decided to forego the $48 million undisclosed compensation. In
2007 Charles Gasparino authored “King of the Club: Richard Grasso and
the Survival of the New York Stock Exchange.
(WSJ, 9/11/03, p.C1)(WSJ, 5/25/04, p.C1)(WSJ,
11/21/07, p.D10)
2003 Sep 9, Alabama voters
rejected Amendment One by a margin of 2 to 1. The liberal tax measure
was endorsed by Gov. Bob Riley and based on Judeo-Christian ethics.
(SSFC, 12/12/04, p.A14)
2003 Sep 9, Edward Teller (95),
Hungarian-born pioneer in molecular physics and dubbed the "father of
the H-bomb" for his role in the early development of nuclear weapons,
died.
(SFC, 9/10/03, p.A1)
2003 Sep 9, Argentina missed a
$2.9 billion payment to the IMF.
(Econ, 9/13/03, p.32)
2003 Sep 9, France's leading
undertaker estimated the country's death toll from a summer heat wave
at 15,000.
(AP, 9/9/04)
2003 Sep 9, Israeli troops killed
three Palestinians, including a 12-year-old boy, in an arrest raid in
the West Bank city of Hebron, as Israel signaled both reluctant
acquiescence and disapproval of the Palestinians' candidate for prime
minister. In Jerusalem twin suicide bombings, 5 hours apart, killed 16
Israelis. One suicide bomber chose a nightspot packed with young
Israelis, the other a bus stop where soldiers were waiting for their
ride homes.
(AP, 9/9/03)
2003 Sep 9, The European Union's
high court ruled that Italy and other EU governments can temporarily
ban genetically modified foods while they examine health risks, but
must provide "detailed grounds," not general fears, to do so.
(AP, 9/9/03)
2003 Sep 9, In western Venezuelan
2 passengers buses crashed in separate highway accidents, killing 45
people and injuring dozens of others.
(AP, 9/9/03)
2003 Sep 10, Ben Glisan, former
Enron treasurer, pleaded guilty to one count of conspiring to commit
fraud and was sentenced to 5 years in federal prison.
(WSJ, 9/11/03, p.A3)
2003 Sep 10, The first video
image of Osama bin Laden in nearly two years was broadcast on
Al-Jazeera TV.
(AP, 9/10/08)
2003 Sep 10, Argentina refinanced
$21 billion in debt including $12.3 billion with the IMF.
(Econ, 9/13/03, p.32)
2003 Sep 10, A Bangladesh court
convicted and sentenced five zookeepers to 14 years in prison for
killing three tigers in 1996 and planning to sell their skins.
(AP, 9/10/03)
2003 Sep 10, In northeast Colombia
a bomb strapped to a horse exploded in a plaza in a small town, killing
at least eight people, including a toddler, and injuring 20 others.
(AP, 9/10/03)
2003 Sep 10, Imam Samudra (33),
the man accused of being the "intellectual mastermind" of last year's
Oct 12 Bali nightclub bombings was sentenced to face a firing squad
after being found guilty of the attack that killed 202 people.
(AP, 9/10/03)
2003 Sep 10, In Irbil, Iraq, a
suicide car bomber struck the US intelligence headquarters, killing
three Iraqis, including a 12-year-old boy.
(AP, 9/10/03)(WSJ, 9/11/03, p.A1)
2003 Sep 10, Israeli warplanes
flattened the home of senior Hamas leader Mahmoud Zahar with a half-ton
bomb, wounding him and killing his eldest son and a bodyguard, in
retaliation for twin suicide bombings that killed 15 Israelis a day
earlier.
(AP, 9/10/03)
2003 Sep 10, Ivory Coast created a
commission made up of members of the army and rebel movements to chart
the course of disarmament and reunification after a 9-month civil war.
(AP, 9/10/03)
2003 Sep 10, In Cancun, Mexico,
the WTO began its fifth ministerial meeting, with trade ministers from
every country expected to attend a five-day gathering to thrash out
many problems surrounding the latest "round" of trade liberalization
talks.
(AP, 9/10/03)
2003 Sep 10, In Puebla, Mexico, a
clandestine fireworks factory exploded, killing at least six people and
injuring 12 others.
(AP, 9/10/03)
2003 Sep 10, Swedish Foreign
Minister Anna Lindh was stabbed in the stomach and wrist at an
exclusive department store in downtown Stockholm. She died the next
day. In 2003 Mijailo Mijailovic, a 25-year-old Swede of Yugoslav
origin, confessed to the murder. In 2004 Mijailovic was sentenced to
life in prison.
(AP, 9/10/03)(AP, 9/11/03)(AP, 1/7/04)(SFC, 3/24/04,
p.A8)
2003 Sep 11, In Nogales, New
Mexico, federal agents discovered a 985-foot tunnel to Mexico equipped
to move drugs on railcars.
(SSFC, 9/14/03, p.A3)
2003 Sep 11, The Seattle
Archdiocese agreed to pay $7.87 million to settle lawsuits brought by
15 men who said they were molested by the same priest.
(SFC, 9/12/03, p.A3)
2003 Sep 11, Actor John Ritter
(b.1948), who gained fame playing bumbling and lovable characters in a
pair of hit TV comedies decades apart, collapsed while he was on the
set of his new series and died suddenly of a heart problem.
(Reuters, 9/12/03)
2003 Sep 11, In Canada 10 people
were killed in two separate plane crashes in Northern Ontario.
(AP, 9/12/03)
2003 Sep 11, The Israeli security
Cabinet decided in principle to authorize the expulsion of Yasser
Arafat. The Cabinet also decided that the construction of the security
fence between Israel and the West Bank will be accelerated.
(AP, 9/11/03)(SFC, 9/12/03, p.A3)
2003 Sep 11, The Italian Health
Ministry said at least 4,175 more elderly Italians died in the summer
heat wave that scorched Europe this year compared with the same period
last year.
(AP, 9/11/03)
2003 Sep 11, In Russia the 36-card
set "United Cards of America," featuring the key figures in Washington,
went up for sale.
(SFC, 9/15/03, p.A2)
2003 Sep 11, Swaziland's King
Mswati III selected his 12th bride, less than a week after he picked
bride No. 11 from thousands of young Swazi maidens.
(AP, 9/11/03)
2003 Sep 11, Sweden's Foreign
Minister Anna Lindh died after being stabbed Sep 10 by a mystery
attacker.
(Reuters, 9/11/03)
2003 Sep 11, Weary and trembling,
Pope John Paul II struggled to greet Slovaks as he began a four-day
visit.
(AP, 9/11/03)
2003 Sep 12, A climate prediction
experiment, expected to involve two million people around the world,
was launched. The program, downloaded from (www.climateprediction.net)
and ran on an ordinary desktop or laptop computer.
(Reuters, 9/11/03)
2003 Sep 12, Johnny Cash (71),
singer, died. His rough, unsteady voice championed the downtrodden and
reached across generations with songs like "Ring of Fire," "I Walk the
Line" and "Folsom Prison Blues."
(AP, 9/12/03)(SFC, 9/13/03, p.A12)
2003 Sep 12, US soldiers
mistakenly opened fire on uniformed Iraqi policemen chasing highway
bandits at night, killing eight officers and a Jordanian security guard
in Fallujah.
(AP, 9/12/04)
2003 Sep 12, In Colombia 4
Israelis, 2 Britons, a German and a Spaniard were kidnapped near
archaeological ruins high in the Sierra Nevada, about 465 miles north
of Bogota. 2 of the tourists were freed Nov 24. The other 4 were
released Dec 22. In 2004 the German government billed Reinhilt Weigel
$17,630 to cover the cost of a helicopter used to bring her part of the
way home, after she was released by rebels. In 2009 she lost her appeal.
(AP, 9/15/03)(WSJ, 11/25/03, p.A1)(AP,
12/23/03)(SFC, 5/29/09, p.A2)
2003 Sep 12, In Bombay (Mumbai),
India, police shot and killed a man believed to have masterminded car
bombings in Bombay last month that killed 53 people. Naseer and his
aide were traveling in a car that carried explosives, guns and
detonators when police intercepted it.
(AP, 9/12/03)
2003 Sep 12, The Palestinians
urged the UN Security Council to demand that Israel not expel Yasser
Arafat and halt any threats to his safety.
(AP, 9/12/03)
2003 Sep 12, In Portugal's Madeira
Islands a small airplane crashed into the sea, apparently killing all
nine people on board. The Beechcraft 200 was carrying eight Spaniards
and a British pilot from the islands off northwest Africa to the
southern Spanish city of Malaga.
(AP, 9/12/03)
2003 Sep 12, In Rwanda Paul Kagame
took the oath of office as the nation's first popularly elected
president since the 1994 genocide.
(AP, 9/12/03)
2003 Sep 12, Typhoon Maemi, the
most powerful ever to ever hit South Korea, flipped over a floating
hotel, twisted massive cranes, killed at least 117 people. The main
port of Busan reported $1.3 billion in damage.
(WSJ, 9/16/03, p.A1)(AP, 9/13/04)
2003 Sep 12, The UN Security
Council lifted 11-year-old sanctions on Libya after Moammar Gadhafi's
government took responsibility for bombing a Pan Am jet over Scotland
and agreed to pay the victims' families $2.7 billion.
(AP, 9/12/03)
2003 Sep 13, In Las Vegas, Sugar
Shane Mosley beat Oscar De La Hoya, winning a close but unanimous
decision to take the WBC and WBA 154-pound titles.
(AP, 9/13/04)
2003 Sep 13, The California
Democratic Party voted to endorse Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante while
continuing to support Gov. Gray Davis in the Oct. 7 recall election.
(AP, 9/13/04)
2003 Sep 13, Frank O'Bannon (73),
Indiana Gov. since 1996, died. He had suffered a massive stroke in his
Chicago hotel room on Sep 8. He was succeeded by Lt. Gov. Joe Kernan.
(SFC, 9/9/03, p.A3)
2003 Sep 13, In Indian-controlled
Kashmir suspected Islamic rebels killed a former lawmaker as gunbattles
and other violence escalated across Indian-controlled Kashmir, leaving
20 people dead and 37 wounded.
(AP, 9/13/03)
2003 Sep 13, Angry mourners
swarmed Fallujah, Iraq, a day after eight Iraqi police were killed in a
friendly fire incident involving U.S. troops; the U.S. military
apologized for the deaths.
(AP, 9/13/04)
2003 Sep 13, In the southern
Philippines soldiers killed two suspected members of the Muslim
extremist Abu Sayyaf group and seized pictures of al-Qaida chief Osama
bin Laden and documents in Arabic language after storming a rebel camp.
(AP, 9/13/03)
2003 Sep 14, Japanese filmmaker
Takeshi Kitano's "Zatoichi," the story of a mythical blind swordsman,
and Denys Arcand's "The Barbarian Invasions" took top awards at the
Toronto International Film Festival.
(Reuters, 9/14/03)
2003 Sep 14, Illinois Gov. Rod
Blagojevich directed the state Special Advocate to draft a plan for
busing inexpensive medications from Canada for state employees and
retirees.
(SFC, 9/15/03, p.A1)
2003 Sep 14, The Lasker foundation
presented awards for medical research to Dr. Robert Roeder for his work
on gene transcription, and to Dr. Marc Feldman and Sir Ravinder Maini
for their anti-TVF work that led to drugs for treating rheumatoid
arthritis.
(SSFC, 9/14/03, p.A2)
2003 Sep 14, Yetunde Price (31),
older sister of tennis stars Venus and Serena Williams, was shot and
killed in LA County. Suspect Aaron Michael Hammer (24) was arrested 2
days later.
(SFC, 9/16/03, p.A1)
2003 Sep 14, Hafiz Abdul Rahim, a
top commander of the former Taliban regime who allegedly led rebel
fighters in southern Afghanistan, was killed along with 14 other
fighters in a shootout with Afghan forces.
(AP, 9/16/03)
2003 Sep 14, Estonians passed a
referendum to join the European Union.
(AP, 9/15/03)
2003 Sep 14, In the West Africa
country of Guinea-Bissau the army launched a coup, arresting the
president and ordering government ministers detained. Verissimo Correia
Seabre and fellow senior officers arrested the elected president, Kumba
Yala.
(AP, 9/14/03)
2003 Sep 14, Lt. Gen. Ricardo
Sanchez, the US military commander in Iraq, authorized the use of loud
rock music, "to create fear, disorient ... and prolong capture shock."
The tactic became common in the US war on terror, with forces
systematically using loud music on hundreds of detainees in Iraq,
Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay.
(AP, 12/10/08)
2003 Sep 14, In Iraq a roadside
bomb attack on a convoy in the troubled city of Fallujah killed one US
soldier and injured three others.
(AP, 9/14/03)
2003 Sep 14, In Cancun, Mexico,
the WTO talks collapsed when delegates from Africa, the Caribbean and
Asia walked out accusing wealthy nations of failing to offer sufficient
compromises on agriculture and other issues.
(SFC, 9/15/03, p.A3)(AP, 9/14/08)
2003 Sep 14, A Saudi importer
of some 58,000 Australian sheep was reported to be trying to give
them away for free. The sheep had been stranded for five weeks on
the ship, the Cormo Express, due to a 6% infection rate for scabby
mouth disease. Australia in 2002 had imposed tougher rules on ships
exporting livestock to the Persian Gulf after it was revealed that
14,500 sheep had died from heat stress in one month. Some 5,700 sheep
aboard the Cormo Express died before Eritrea accepted the animals.
(AP, 9/14/03)(Econ, 12/2/06, p.88)
2003 Sep 14, Dhaher bin Thamer
al-Shimry, a Saudi marijuana trafficker, was beheaded, bringing the
number of beheadings in the kingdom this year to 41.
(AP, 9/14/03)
2003 Sep 14, Pope John Paul II
wrapped up a pilgrimage to Slovakia by beatifying two clerics, Greek
Catholic Bishop Vasil Hopko and Roman Catholic Sister Zdenka
Schelingova, who were jailed and tortured under the former communist
regime.
(AP, 9/14/03)
2003 Sep 14, Sweden voted 56-42%
"No" in a referendum on whether to adopt the euro.
(Reuters, 9/15/03)
2003 Sep 15, US professional
women's soccer folded due to low attendance. The WUSA soccer league
shut down operations five days before the Women's World Cup, saying it
didn't have enough money to stay in business for a fourth season.
(WSJ, 9/16/03, p.A1)(AP, 9/15/04)
2003 Sep 15, In California a
judicial panel postponed the Oct 7 recall balloting because old ballot
equipment could deprive voters of their right to be counted. On Sep 23
the 9th Circuit Court ruled that the recall be held on Oct 7.
(AP, 9/16/03)(SFC, 9/16/03, p.A1)(SFC, 9/20/03,
p.A1)(SFC, 9/24/03, p.A1)
2003 Sep 15, A new human rights
report on Brazil said summary executions and killings by death squads,
often formed by police officers, are commonplace and frequently
tolerated by authorities.
(AP, 9/16/03)
2003 Sep 15, The Colombian army
reported that its forces in Operation Scorpion killed at least 17
suspected members of a rebel special forces unit.
(AP, 9/15/03)
2003 Sep 15, In India rain-swollen
rivers began receding in the state of Uttar Pradesh but the death toll
there from monsoon rains rose to 190 after 34 more people were reported
killed.
(AP, 9/15/03)
2003 Sep 15, In Iraq guerrillas
killed a US soldier in a rocket-propelled grenade attack in central
Baghdad.
(AP, 9/15/03)
2003 Sep 15, In Kenya gunmen burst
into the home of a senior delegate to a constitutional convention and
shot him to death.
(AP, 9/15/03)
2003 Sep 15, More than 100 South
Korean tourists flew to North Korea's capital on the first commercial
flight between the two countries since they were divided nearly six
decades ago.
(AP, 9/15/03)
2003 Sep 15, In Ingushetia,
Russia, a truck filled with explosives blew up outside a government
security building, killing at least three people and wounding at least
22.
(AP, 9/15/03)(WSJ, 9/16/03, p.A1)
2003 Sep 15, In Saudi Arabia a
fire that swept through el-Haer prison in Riyadh and 94 were reported
killed.
(AP, 9/16/03)
2003 Sep 15, Over 360 Somali
delegates in Kenya adopted a transitional charter that outlines a
future government for the troubled African nation.
(AP, 9/16/03)
2003 Sep 16, The US vetoed a UN
resolution demanding that Israel not harm or expel Arafat.
(WSJ, 9/17/03, p.A1)
2003 Sep 16, North Carolina (D)
Sen. John Edwards (50) entered the US presidential race.
(SFC, 9/17/03, p.A6)
2003 Sep 16, Actor-singer Sheb
Wooley (82) died in Nashville, Tenn.
(AP, 9/16/04)
2003 Sep 16, Mohammed Abdel Qader
and his brother were summoned to a Cairo police station by Captain
Ashraf Safwat. Abdel Qader died five days later and an autopsy gave
torture by electric shock combined with a weak heart as the cause of
death.
(AFP, 2/1/07)
2003 Sep 16, Guinea-Bissau's army
chief of staff who overthrew the West African nation's president has
won an agreement from political leaders to have presidential powers
until new elections are held.
(AP, 9/16/03)
2003 Sep 16, In Indonesia
escalating fighting in resource-rich Aceh province left at least 22
suspected separatist rebels and one Indonesian soldier dead.
(AP, 9/17/03)
2003 Sep 16, Baha Mousa (26), an
Iraqi hotel receptionist, died after being beaten at a British military
camp in Basra. An autopsy said he died of asphyxia, caused by a stress
position that soldiers forced him to maintain. He was arrested, along
with nine other Iraqis, at the Haitham Hotel in Basra 2 days earlier by
members of the 1st Battalion The Queen's Lancashire Regiment (QLR). In
2006 Corp. Donald Payne pleaded guilty to a charge of inhumane
treatment of Iraqi civilians, but denied manslaughter. Payne, who
became Britain's first convicted war criminal, was dismissed by the
army and jailed for a year over the killing. In 2008 the British
Ministry of Defense agreed to pay just under $6 million to the family
of Mousa and 9 others who suffered injuries while in the custody of
British forces. In 2009 Britain opened a public inquiry into the case
and Britain's military apologized for its treatment of Mousa.
(http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/8143982.stm)(Econ, 9/23/06,
p.66)(AP, 7/10/08)(AP, 7/13/09)(AP, 9/21/09)
2003 Sep 16, Italian consumer
groups asked for a boycott of virtually all products and services to
protest price hikes.
(AP, 9/16/03)
2003 Sep 16, In western Japan a
man reportedly involved in a pay dispute set off an explosion that
killed himself, a hostage and a police officer in an office building.
(AP, 9/16/03)
2003 Sep 16, It was reported that
scientists in Japan have transformed mouse stem cells into sperm cells.
(SFC, 9/16/03, p.A6)
2003 Sep 16, The UN turned over
responsibility for security in East Timor's second largest city to the
country's fledgling police force.
(AP, 9/16/03)
2003 Sep 17, Wesley Clark, the
retired general with a four-star military resume but no political
experience, decided to become the 10th Democratic presidential
candidate.
(Reuters, 9/16/03)
2003 Sep 17, Three former
executives of Merrill Lynch & Co. were indicted on fraud charges
related to Enron Corp.
(SFC, 9/18/03, p.B3)
2003 Sep 17, Dick Grasso, Chairman
of the NY Stock Exchange, resigned following a public outcry over his
$139.5 million retirement pay package.
(WSJ, 9/18/03, p.A1)
2003 Sep 17, Microsoft Chairman
Bill Gates said his foundation would donate $51 million to create 67
small high schools in NYC. It was part of a larger plan by the city to
create 200 small high schools to replace struggling large ones.
(SFC, 9/18/03, p.A3)
2003 Sep 17, Iran's leading
dissident cleric, Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri,
criticized the country's hard-line Islamic leaders, saying they should
submit to elections and allow the country's young people to choose
their future.
(AP, 9/17/03)
2003 Sep 17, An audiotape
purporting to carry the voice of Saddam Hussein, broadcast on Arab
television, called on Iraqis to fight the American occupation.
(AP, 9/17/04)
2003 Sep 17, The imprisoned leader
of a Peruvian rebel group said his group has given up armed conflict
and now wants to become a political movement. Victor Polay, in a
published interview, acknowledged that the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary
Movement has been defeated.
(AP, 9/17/03)
2003 Sep 17, Spain's leading
investigating judge, Baltasar Garzon, issued the first known indictment
against Osama bin Laden in the Sept. 11 attacks.
(AP, 9/17/04)
2003 Sep 17, In Sri Lanka 19
million people shared space with about 3,000 wild elephants. As forests
dwindled the huge beasts entered villages to forage in garbage dumps
for food.
(AP, 9/17/03)
2003 Sep 18, Hurricane Isabel
plowed into North Carolina's Outer Banks with 100 mile-an-hour winds
and pushed its way up the Eastern Seaboard; the storm was later blamed
for 30 deaths.
(AP, 9/18/08)
2003 Sep 18, Anti-virus companies
warned of a new computer worm circulating through e-mail that purports
to be security software from Microsoft Corp.
(Reuters, 9/18/03)
2003 Sep 18, In Afghanistan US
forces killed at least 11 Taliban in fighting over the last 3 days as
part of operation "Mountain Viper," which has been going on for more
than two weeks. US helicopters attacked a tent in southern Afghanistan,
killing two Taliban militants and 10 nomadic tribesmen after the
Taliban sought shelter there. Local Taliban commander, Mullah Mohammed
Gul Niazi, was among the dead.
(AP, 9/18/03)(AP, 9/20/03)
2003 Sep 18, In Afghanistan US
helicopter fire left 5 women and four children dead and six people
wounded in the Nuabahar district.
(AP, 9/25/03)
2003 Sep 18, A law against
"promotion" of homosexuality was removed from the British statute
books, after more than a decade of gay-rights protests.
(AP, 9/18/03)
2003 Sep 18, A human rights group
estimated that 11,000 children are fighting in Colombia's civil war.
(SFC, 9/19/03, p.A15)
2003 Sep 18, Iraqi guerrillas
ambushed an American patrol in Al Auja, Saddam Hussein's native
village, killing 3 US soldiers. The number of US killed since the start
of war in March reached 297.
(SFC, 9/19/03, p.A1)
2003 Sep 18, Genshin Fujinami
(44), a Japanese Buddhist monk of the Tendai sect, completed a 7-year,
24,800-mile spiritual journey to the Hiei mountains. 46 other marathon
monks have completed the journey since 1885. The ritual, believed to be
a path to enlightenment, dates to the 8th century.
(SFC, 9/20/03, p.A2)
2003 Sep 18, Nepal was shut down
in a 3-day strike imposed by Maoist rebels.
(WSJ, 9/19/03, p.A1)
2003 Sep 18, A Russian military
jet crashed in central Russia during a test flight and four crew
members are missing.
(AP, 9/18/03)
2003 Sep 18, Syria's new prime
minister formed a 31-member Cabinet, touted as a new effort to carry
out economic and bureaucratic reforms.
(AP, 9/18/03)
2003 Sep 18, Zimbabwe's high court
ordered the nation's only independent newspaper reopened. Police had
shut it down because it refused to get a government license.
(WSJ, 9/19/03, p.A1)
2003 Sep 19, Hurricane Isabel
knocked out power to more than 4.5 million people as it weakened into a
tropical storm and raced toward Canada after swamping tidal communities
along Chesapeake Bay. 21 of 36 storm victims were in Virginia.
(AP, 9/19/03)(AP, 9/20/03)(WSJ, 9/23/03, p.A1)
2003 Sep 19, In Chechnya rebel
attacks and a mine blast have left 7 Russian servicemen dead in the
past 24 hours in the Kremlin's military campaign against Chechen
separatists.
(AP, 9/19/03)
2003 Sep 19, The government of
Georgia scrapped an accord guaranteeing religious freedom for
Catholics. The next day the Vatican issued an unusually strong rebuke
to the former Soviet republic and its dominant Orthodox Church.
(AP, 9/20/03)
2003 Sep 19, In Iraq former Gen.
Sultan Hashim Ahmad, Saddam Hussein's last defense minister,
surrendered to an American commander after weeks of negotiations. He
was no. 27 on the most-wanted list.
(AP, 9/19/03)
2003 Sep 19, In the Maldives
unrest erupted at the Maafushi prison after a young man named Evan
Naseem was tortured to death. Police opened fire and 3 people were
killed. Violent riots followed as did a state of emergency.
(Econ, 12/23/06, p.54)
2003 Sep 19, Zimbabwe military
police barred journalists from entering their offices, defying a court
order to allow the country's only independent daily newspaper to resume
publishing.
(AP, 9/19/03)
2003 Sep 20, In Atlantic City, NJ,
Miss Florida Ericka Dunlap beat out 50 rivals to be crowned Miss
America.
(AP, 9/21/03)
2003 Sep 20, A Grand Canyon
sightseeing helicopter crashed and all 7 aboard were killed.
(WSJ, 9/23/03, p.A1)
2003 Sep 20, In Oakland, Ca., Cha
Cha Hill (3) died of multiple injuries following numerous beatings by
his father, Chazarus Hill Sr. In 2007 the father (27) was sentenced to
26 years to life in prison following a conviction of assault causing
death.
(SFC, 3/9/07, p.B4)
2003 Sep 19, Five of six children
riding on an all-terrain vehicle in Coffee County, Ga., were killed
when they were hit by a motorist.
(AP, 9/21/04)
2003 Sep 20, In central Iraq 3
American soldiers were killed and 13 injured in a mortar attack and a
bombing.
(AP, 9/21/03)
2003 Sep 20, In Iraq gunmen
attacked and wounded Aquila al-Hashimi, one of three women on Iraq's
Governing Council and a leading candidate to become the country's
representative at the United Nations.
(AP, 9/20/03)
2003 Sep 20, Japan's ruling party
entered the final phase of voting to choose its leader. PM Junichiro
Koizumi easily won re-election as head of Japan's ruling Liberal
Democratic Party.
(AP, 9/20/03)
2003 Sep 20, The Indian army said
it killed six suspected separatist guerrillas from a Pakistan-based
group after a fierce battle in Indian-controlled Kashmir.
(AP, 9/20/03)
2003 Sep 20, Latvians endorsed
membership in the EU.
(AP, 9/21/03)
2003 Sep 20, In central Pakistan a
train slammed into a bus, killing 27 people and injuring 6.
(AP, 9/20/03)
2003 Sep 20, The semi-annual
meetings of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund began in
Dubai, UAR.
(AP, 9/21/03)
2003 Sep 20, Zimbabwe Vice
President Simon Muzenda (81), a long time loyal aide of Zimbabwe's
autocratic leader Robert Mugabe, died.
(AP, 9/20/03)
2003 Sep 21, At the 55th Annual
Emmy Awards "The West Wing" won for best drama.
(SFC, 9/22/03, p.D1)
2003 Sep 21, NYSE board of
directors announced the appointment of John S. Reed (64) as interim
chairman and CEO.
(WSJ, 9/22/03, p.C1)
2003 Sep 21, NASA’s $1.5 billion
Galileo mission ended a 14-year exploration of the solar system's
largest planet and its moons with the spacecraft crashing by design
into Jupiter at 108,000 mph.
(SFC, 9/22/03, p.B8)(AP, 9/21/04)
2003 Sep 21, A US DynCorp plane
crashed while fumigating cocaine-producing crops in volatile northern
Colombia, killing the American pilot: "preliminary information
indicates the aircraft was struck by hostile ground fire." The military
contractor said it was the 5th shot down by rebels.
(AP, 9/22/03)(WSJ, 9/23/03, p.A1)
2003 Sep 21, In Bolivia a rural
roadblock near Warista ended in a clash with police and soldiers that
left at least 4 people dead.
(SSFC, 9/28/03, p.C2)
2003 Sep 21, The latest outbreak
of fighting between Hutu rebels and the army in Burundi's decade-long
civil war has killed at least 12 people on the outskirts of Bujumbura.
(AP, 9/23/03)
2003 Sep 21, Paul Martin was
elected by Canada's Liberal Party to succeed Jean Chretien as prime
minister.
(AP, 9/21/04)
2003 Sep 21, In Germany Chancellor
Gerhard Schroeder's party suffered a bitter defeat in state elections
that focused on Germany's stagnating economy.
(AP, 9/21/03)
2003 Sep 21, In India's portion of
Kashmir a bomb hidden inside a videocassette recorder exploded in a
busy market, killing 3 people and wounding 28 others.
(AP, 9/21/03)
2003 Sep 21, In Iraq corporate and
personal income taxes were capped at 15%. All foreign government
entities and their employees were declared exempt.
(WSJ, 10/28/03, p.A4)
2003 Sep 21, The leader of the
Maldives appealed for calm after two days of rioting killed 3 people
and sent shock waves through this tiny Indian Ocean island nation.
(AP, 9/21/03)
2003 Sep 22, California signed
into law a privacy bill, effective Jul 1, 2004, that prevents use of
vehicle recorded data without the consent of the owner. GM began
installing data boxes in the 1970s.
(SFC, 9/23/03, p.A1)
2003 Sep 22, Actor Gordon Jump
died at age 71.
(AP, 9/22/04)
2003 Sep 22, Hugo Young (b.1938),
British political columnist for the Sunday Times and the Guardian,
died. In 2008 Ion Trewin edited “The Hugo Young Papers: Thirty Years of
British Politics – Off the Record.”
(Econ, 11/29/08, p.86)
2003 Sep 22, In Haiti the
bullet-riddled body of Amiot Metayer (39) was found, more than a year
after he escaped from prison and allegedly went on a rampage
terrorizing government opponents. 3 days of protests followed the news.
(AP, 9/23/03)(SFC, 9/26/03, p.A3)
2003 Sep 22, A suicide bomber, his
body wrapped in explosives and his car filled with 50 pounds of TNT,
struck a police checkpoint outside UN headquarters in Baghdad, killing
an Iraqi policeman who stopped him and wounding 19 people.
(AP, 9/22/03)
2003 Sep 22, NATO selected Dutch
Foreign Minister Jaap de Hoop Scheffer as the alliance's new secretary
general.
(AP, 9/22/03)
2003 Sep 22, The jawbone of a
cave-man living in what is now Romania, found in 2002 in Pestera cu
Oase, was reported as the oldest fossil from an early modern human to
be found in Europe. It was carbon-dated to between 34,000 and 36,000
years ago.
(AP, 9/22/03)
2003 Sep 22, In Uganda a speeding
bus plowed head-on into a truck loaded with relief food destined for
Burundi, killing 46 people and injuring 33 others.
(AP, 9/22/03)
2003 Sep 23, Speaking at the
United Nations, President Bush rejected calls from France and Germany
to hasten the transfer of power in Iraq, insisting the shift to
self-government could be "neither hurried nor delayed."
(AP, 9/23/04)
2003 Sep 23, Puerto Rico's
congressional delegate said the United States will close its Roosevelt
Roads Naval Station in eastern Puerto Rico within the next six months.
(AP, 9/23/03)
2003 Sep 23, US forces in Iraq
killed 3 civilians in an aerial attack on a farming village.
(SFC, 9/24/03, p.A3)
2003 Sep 23, A federal appeals
court unanimously put California's recall election back on the calendar
for Oct. 11.
(AP, 9/23/04)
2003 Sep 23, In California's Gov.
Gray Davis signed a law to prohibit spam effective Jan 1.
(SFC, 9/24/03, p.A1)
2003 Sep 23, Advanced Micro
Devices (AMD) introduced 64-bit computing for PC users. The 1st new
chip is the AMD Athlon 64 Processor 3200+, which runs at 2 GHz.
(SFC, 9/23/03, p.B1)
2003 Sep 23, Scientists reported
that human bone fragments found in a cave from Aveline's Hole in the
Mendip Hills of southwest England date from 10,200-10,400BCE.
(AP, 9/23/03)
2003 Sep 23, China signed
agreements with Russia and four Central Asian neighbors (Uzbekistan,
Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Kazakhstan) in an effort to strengthen a
7-year-old security alliance and encourage economic links across a
largely undeveloped region.
(AP, 9/23/03)
2003 Sep 23, A power outage struck
the capital of Denmark and southern Sweden, leaving nearly 4 million
people without electricity.
(AP, 9/23/03)
2003 Sep 23, Ivory Coast rebel
leaders said they were abandoning their posts in Ivory Coast's
power-sharing government and halting disarmament.
(AP, 9/23/03)
2003 Sep 23, A raid in Saudi
Arabia on Islamic militants left three suspects dead, including Jubran
Sultan al-Qahtani (aka as Zubayr al-Rimi), an al-Qaida figure wanted by
the US.
(AP, 9/24/03)
2003 Sep 24, After four turbulent
months, three special legislative sessions and two Democratic walkouts,
both houses of the Republican-controlled Texas Legislature adopted
redistricting plans favoring the GOP.
(AP, 9/24/04)
2003 Sep 24, In Cold Spring,
Minn., Jason McLaughlin (15), a high school freshman, shot and killed
senior Aaron Rollins (17) and wounded Seth Bartell (14) before
surrendering. Bartell died from his wounds on Oct 10. On August 30,
2005, McLaughlin was sentenced to life in prison, with no possibility
for parole until he’s well over 50. He was convicted of first degree
murder in the shooting death of Bartell and second-degree murder for
killing Rollins.
(SFC, 10/11/03,
p.A3)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocori_High_School_shooting)
2003 Sep 24, Herb Gardner (68),
Tony-winning playwright, died in New York.
(AP, 9/24/04)
2003 Sep 24, In Israel 27 reserve
pilots refused to take part in targeted killings.
(WSJ, 9/25/03, p.A1)
2003 Sep 24, India rejected
Pakistan's invitation to negotiate a settlement concerning the disputed
province of Kashmir.
(AP, 9/25/03)
2003 Sep 24, Families of people
killed when US jets bombed Libya urged Tripoli to suspend payments to
relatives of the victims of the 1988 downing of a Pan Am airliner until
they receive compensation from the United States.
(AP, 9/24/03)
2003 Sep 24, Swedish police
arrested a new suspect in the murder of Foreign Minister Anna Lindh,
and released a man they had held for more than a week.
(AP, 9/24/03)
2003 Sep 25, In Nashville, Tenn.,
8 people died in a nursing home fire.
(SFC, 9/27/03, p.A3)
2003 Sep 25, In a new French deck
of cards Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld gets the honor as ace of
spades. Pres. Bush is the king of diamonds and Osama bin Laden the
joker. Thierry Meyssan, the man behind the French deck, headed the
Voltaire Network, a left-wing association that put the cards on its
Internet site.
(AP, 9/25/03)
2003 Sep 25, Franco Modigliani
(85), Nobel-winning economist, died in Cambridge, Mass.
(AP, 9/25/04)(Econ, 10/4/03, p.74)
2003 Sep 25, George Plimpton
(b.1927), writer and participatory journalist, died in NYC at age 76.
He helped found the Paris Review in 1953. His books included "Paper
Lion" (1966).
(SFC, 9/27/03, p.A2)
2003 Sep 25, Edward Said (67),
Palestinian American journalist, critic and author, died. His books
included "Orientalism" and "Culture and Imperialism."
(SSFC, 12/28/03, p.E9)(Econ, 10/4/03, p.84)
2003 Sep 25, In France INSERM, the
National Institute of Health and Medical Research, determined that
14,802 people had died in August due to the heat wave.
(AP, 9/25/03)
2003 Sep 25, A mortar blast tore
through a market in Baqouba, Iraq, killing nine civilians and injuring
more than a dozen others. Townspeople suspected American soldiers
stationed nearby may have been the target. Aquila al-Hashimi (50), the
first member of Iraq's American-picked Governing Council to be targeted
for assassination, died, five days after she was shot in an ambush.
(AP, 9/26/03)(AP, 9/25/03)(WSJ, 9/26/03, p.A1)
2003 Sep 25, Israeli troops killed
4 Islamic militants, including a senior fugitive, in gun battles in the
West Bank and Gaza Strip. One soldier was killed and six were wounded
in the fighting.
(AP, 9/25/03)
2003 Sep 25, In northern Japan an
8.3 earthquake, the world's most powerful in 2 1/2 years, injured at
least 589 people and knocked out power on Hokkaido.
(http://neic.usgs.gov/neis/eq_depot/2003/eq_030925/)
2003 Sep 25, In Nigeria an Islamic
appeals court overturned the conviction of Amina Lawal. She had been
sentenced to death by stoning for committing adultery.
(AP, 9/25/03)
2003 Sep 25, Yuri Senkevich (66),
a documentary filmmaker and host of Russia's longest running TV show,
died.
(AP, 9/25/03)
2003 Sep 25, Sudan's government
and main rebel group signed an agreement on security arrangements for a
six-year political transition in efforts to end their 20-year civil war.
(AP, 9/26/03)
2003 Sep 26, President Bush and
Russian President Vladimir Putin opened a two-day summit at Camp David.
(AP, 9/26/04)
2003 Sep 26, The US government
issued a recall for Segway scooters, citing instances in which riders
fell off when the batteries ran low.
(AP, 9/26/04)
2003 Sep 26, US troops fired on
two cars at a checkpoint in Fallujah, killing four Iraqis and injuring
five others. Over 4 days Sheikh Mishkhen al Jumaili lost 9 relatives
including his son.
(AP, 9/27/03)(SFC, 10/6/03, p.A1)
2003 Sep 26, Burkina Faso
President Blaise Compaore demanded the elimination of U.S. export
subsidies on cotton.
(AP, 9/27/03)
2003 Sep 26, In Cuba Brazil's
Pres. Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva signed business accords with Castro
that included an agreement to renegotiate Havana's $40 million debt
with Brazil.
(AP, 9/27/03)
2003 Sep 26, Robert Palmer (54), a
rock singer known for his sharp suits and hits including "Addicted to
Love," died in Paris of a heart attack.
(AP, 9/26/03)
2003 Sep 26, German authorities
reported that they have broken up 38 child-pornography rings with links
to tens of thousands of suspects around the world, including the US.
(AP, 9/27/03)
2003 Sep 26, A Palestinian gunman
killed 2 people including a baby girl in an Israeli settlement outside
Hebron.
(SFC, 9/27/03, p.A8)
2003 Sep 26, In Ivory Coast gunmen
broke into a bank and sparked a night-long street battle that left over
20 people dead. French troops rushed in the next day to try to impose
order.
(AP, 9/27/03)
2003 Sep 26, Nawabzada Nasrullah
Khan (85), head of Pakistan's main opposition alliance and one of its
greatest democracy advocates, died.
(AP, 9/27/03)
2003 Sep 26, In Singapore Vignes
Mourthi (23), found guilty of drug trafficking last year after his
arrest in September 2001 for smuggling 27 grams (0.98 ounces) of heroin
and Moorthi Angappan, convicted of helping him, were hanged. Over the
past four years, 88 people have been hanged, mostly for drug offenses.
The government says the death penalty effectively deters drug addiction.
(AP, 9/26/03)
2003 Sep 27, President Bush and
Russian President Vladimir Putin urged Iran and North Korea to abandon
suspected nuclear weapons programs, but disagreed over how to deal with
both countries; Putin also declined at the end of a two-day summit at
Camp David to pledge any postwar help for Iraq.
(AP, 9/27/04)
2003 Sep 27, Donald O'Connor (78),
film star and composer, died in Calabasas, Calif. His films included
"Singing in the Rain" (1952).
(SSFC, 9/28/03, p.A1)
2003 Sep 27, The Algerian army
reported that it had killed 150 armed Islamic militants in a two-week
operation in the eastern foothills of this north African country.
(AP, 9/27/03)
2003 Sep 27, Brazil and Cuba
signed $200 million in new business deals in Cuba by private Brazilian
enterprises.
(AP, 9/27/03)
2003 Sep 27, Europe's first
mission to the moon blasted off aboard a European Ariane rocket from
French Guiana. The SMART-1 probe made it to within 3,100 miles of the
moon on Nov 15, 2004, and proceeded to move into an elliptical orbit.
The spacecraft ended its mission Sep 3, 2006, when it crashed into the
lunar surface.
(AP, 9/28/03)(SFC, 11/17/04, p.A3)(SSFC, 9/3/06,
p.A5)
2003 Sep 27, In western Iran a bus
plunged from a mountain road into a river, killing 21 passengers and
injuring 11.
(AP, 9/28/03)
2003 Sep 27, A Palestinian
militant was killed when a bomb he was making blew up on as Israel
maintained a high alert over a New Year holiday weekend.
(Reuters, 9/27/03)
2003 Sep 27, A Russian rocket
brought two Russian and four foreign satellites, including Nigeria's
first, into orbit. Nigeria's $13 million craft, to be used for taking
photos, was built by a British firm.
(AP, 9/27/03)(Econ, 9/13/03, p.42)
2003 Sep 27, In northeast Uganda
rebels of the LRA fighting a 17-year insurgency raided a village,
killing at least 22 people.
(AP, 9/28/03)
2003 Sep 28, In Linden, Texas
Billy Ray Johnson (42) was lured to an all-white party where underage
drinkers fed him alcohol and picked on him. In 2007 a jury awarded $9
million to Johnson, a mentally disabled black man who suffered
permanent brain damage after being beaten and dumped in a field by 4
white men.
(AP, 4/22/07)
2003 Sep 28, Althea Gibson (76),
Wimbledon's 1st black tennis champion (1957), died in New Jersey.
(WSJ, 9/29/03, p.A1)
2003 Sep 28, Elia Kazan (b.1909),
Anatolian-Greek-born writer, film and stage director, died. His films
included "On the Waterfront" (1954) and "A Streetcar Named Desire"
(1951). In 2005 Richard Schickel authored “Elia Kazan: A Biography.”
(AP, 9/29/03)(SSFC, 12/4/05, p.M6)
2003 Sep 28, In Colombia a
remote-controlled bomb on a motorcycle exploded as revelers left a
disco in a Florencia, killing at least 13 people and wounding 48 others.
(AP, 9/29/04)
2003 Sep 28, Cuba's foreign
minister made an impassioned appeal for the lifting of the trade
embargo against his country, saying the blockade has cost the Caribbean
nation $72 billion in the last 42 years.
(AP, 9/28/03)
2003 Sep 28, In Guinea-Bissau
senior army officers, who staged a recent coup, installed
Henrique Rosa as civilian president and Artur Sanha as prime minister
to govern the West African country until elections. Civil servants
hadn't been paid in nearly a year and teachers hadn't been paid in two.
Soldiers were getting bags of rice instead of paychecks.
(AP, 9/29/03)(AP, 10/6/03)
2003 Sep 28, A nationwide power
blackout in Italy hit virtually the whole population in the dead of
night. Power was out for as much as 18 hours. Problems began after a
tree branch hit power lines in Switzerland.
(AP, 9/28/03)(WSJ, 10/1/03, p.A1)(AP, 10/1/03)
2003 Sep 28, Israeli and
Palestinian fatalities over the last 3 years totaled some 3,277 with
860 on the Israeli side and 2,417 Palestinian dead. An additional 60
Palestinians were killed by militants for informing to Israel.
(SSFC, 9/28/03, p.A14)
2003 Sep 28, Pope John Paul II
named 31 new cardinals.
(AP, 9/29/03)
2003 Sep 29, President Bush signed
legislation to ratify the Federal Trade Commission's authority to set
up a national do-not-call list for telemarketers.
(AP, 9/29/04)
2003 Sep 29, US The Justice
Department launched a full-blown criminal investigation into who leaked
the name of CIA officer Valerie Plame, the wife of ex-Ambassador Joseph
Wilson, and President Bush the next day directed his White House staff
to cooperate fully. The White House denied that President Bush's top
political adviser, Karl Rove, had leaked a CIA agent's identity to
retaliate against an opponent of the administration's Iraq policy. [see
Jul 14, 2003, Jun 30, 2005]
(WSJ, 10/1/03, p.A1)(SFC, 10/4/03, p.A3)(AP,
9/29/04)(SFC, 7/2/05, p.A8)
2003 Sep 29, Dennis Kozlowski, CEO
of Tyco Int'l., and financial chief Mark Swartz went on trial on
charges that they stole over $600 million from their Bermuda-based
conglomerate.
(WSJ, 2/4/04, p.C2)
2003 Sep 29, Irshad Manji (34),
Canadian author of the recently published: "The Trouble With Islam: A
Muslim's Call for Reform in Her Faith," was reported saying: "I leave
my fellow Muslims with a very basic question here: Will we remain
spiritually adolescent, caving to cultural pressures to conform or will
we finally mature to the full fledged citizens that we are allowed to
be in this part of the world?"
(AP, 9/29/03)(WSJ, 1/27/04, p.D8)
2003 Sep 29, India's army said
that it killed 15 Islamic militants as they tried overnight to sneak
into Indian-controlled Kashmir from Pakistan-controlled territory.
(AP, 9/29/03)
2003 Sep 29, In Japan a
23-month-old bull tested positive for new strain of mad cow disease. A
quarantined of 604 cows followed to prevent the spread of the
disease.
(AP, 10/8/03)
2003 Sep 29, In Malaysia PM
Mahathir Mohamad presided at the inauguration of the Berjaya Times
Square, a $460 million project that was derailed by the 1997-98 Asian
financial crises.
(AP, 9/29/03)
2003 Sep 29, Rwandans began
casting ballots at the start of three days of voting in the nation's
first genuine multiparty legislative elections since independence from
Belgium in 1962.
(AP, 9/29/03)
2003 Sep 29, Vietnam refused to
recognize Archbishop Jean-Baptiste Pham Minh Man, Pope John Paul
II's new appointment, as the new cardinal for Ho Chi Minh City.
(AP, 9/29/03)
2003 Sep 30, The FBI began a
full-scale criminal investigation into whether White House officials
had illegally leaked the identity of undercover CIA officer Valerie
Plame.
(AP, 9/30/08)
2003 Sep 30, Ford planned to cut
some 12,000 jobs world-wide. Chrysler planned to eliminate several
thousand positions.
(WSJ, 1/2/04, p.R12)
2003 Sep 30, In Oakland, Ca.,
Yusuf Bey, founder Your Black Muslim Bakery, died of colon cancer. He
was awaiting trial on charges of raping a minor. In 2002 he was charged
with 27 counts in the alleged rapes of 4 girls under the age of 14. In
2007 three of his former wives testified that Bey had directed many of
the 100 women, whom he considered his wives, to make fraudulent
applications for government aid programs.
(SFC, 11/30/05, p.A16)(SSFC, 11/18/07, p.A1)
2003 Sep 30, Eighteen
accused al-Qaida sympathizers were convicted in Belgium's biggest
terrorism trial. Nizar Trabelsi of Tunisia, who once played
professional soccer in Germany, received the maximum sentence of 10
years in prison from a court that also convicted 17 other men and
acquitted five others.
(AP, 9/30/03)(AP, 9/30/08)
2003 Sep 30, In Colombia assassins
riding a motorbike killed Jose Castillo, a candidate for mayor in
Soledad, marking the 15th candidate killed as elections approach.
(AP, 9/30/03)
2003 Sep 30, Mauritius PM Anerood
Jugnauth resigned and was replaced by his deputy, Paul Berenger.
Jugnauth took up the ceremonial roll of president a few days later.
(Econ, 9/27/03, p.46)
2003 Sep 30, Nigeria lifted its
fuel price cap on petrol, diesel and kerosene throwing the market open
to competition and chaos ensued.
(Econ, 10/18/03, p.46)
2003 Sep 30, Norway's national
film board lifted a ban on hundreds of films that were deemed too
sexually explicit or violent, including 1994's "On Deadly Ground"
starring Steven Seagal and the 1990 gangster epic "Miller's Crossing."
(AP, 10/1/03)
2003 Sep 30, A Serbian police
officer went on a shooting spree, killing four of his colleagues and
seriously wounding three others.
(AP, 9/30/03)
2003 Sep, Carlo Benetton sold his
11,000 acre Buffalo Ranch to the state of Texas for use by the prison
system.
(Econ, 9/27/03, p.30)
2003 Sep, Pres. Jammeh Yahya named
Maimuma Taal-Ndure (34) as director general of Gambia’s Civil Aviation
Authority (CAA).
(WSJ, 12/24/07, p.A8)
2003 Sep, In Hungary Tibor Rejto,
CEO of K&H Bank, was arrested as part of an alleged $40-50 million
fraud scandal centered around stockbroker Attila Kulscar.
(Econ, 9/27/03, p.78)
2003 Sep, A 3-foot-tall adult
female skeleton was found in a cave believed to be 18,000 years old. A
trove of fragmented bones accounted for as many as seven primitive
individuals that lived on the equatorial island of Flores, located east
of Java and northwest of Australia. Scientists have named the extinct
species Homo floresiensis. Scientists in 2005 said the group emerged
some 95,000 years earlier and went extinct about 12,000 years ago. In
2009 new studies suggested the people, dubbed hobbits, were a
previously unknown species altogether.
(AP, 10/27/04)(SFC, 10/28/04, p.A1)(SFC, 3/4/05,
p.A2)(AP, 5/7/09)
2003 Sep-2004 Apr, In 2005 it was
reported that members of the US Army’s 82nd Airborne Division beat and
abused prisoners at Camp Mercury, an operating base near Fallujah. “We
kept it to broken arms and legs.”
(SFC, 9/24/05, p.A3)
Go to October 2003
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