Timeline 2003 October - December
Return to home
2003 Oct 1,
The United States took over the month-long presidency of the U.N.
Security Council at a time when it was campaigning for approval of a
new resolution aimed at getting more countries to contribute troops
and money to Iraq.
(AP, 10/1/04)
2003 Oct 1, Conservative
commentator Rush Limbaugh resigned from ESPN, three days after
saying Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb is overrated
because the media wanted to see a black quarterback succeed.
(AP, 10/2/03)
2003 Oct 1, US officials
identified Abu Hazim al-Sha'ir (29), a Yemeni ex-bodyguard of Osama
bin Laden, as al Qaeda's new terror chief.
(WSJ, 10/2/03, p.A1)
2003 Oct 1, A federal judge in
Texas ruled that former Enron Chairman Kenneth Lay and Northern
Trust Corp., can be sued for allegedly failing to protect the Enron
employee pension plan.
(WSJ, 10/2/03, p.A1)
2003 Oct 1, Robert Dynes
assumed the office of president of the Univ. of California.
(SFC, 8/14/07, p.A4)
2003 Oct 1, California state
car license fees increased $150 from $73 to $223.
(SFC, 9/29/03, p.A1)
2003 Oct 1, California approved
a phosphite product developed by Agrichem of Australia to treat
sudden oak death.
(SFC, 10/3/03, p.A17)
2003 Oct 1, Thousands of postal
workers in London began a 24-hour strike that was expected to cause
huge disruption to mail deliveries.
(AP, 10/1/03)
2003 Oct 1, Burkina Faso
arrested 12 people in connection with an alleged coup plot.
(AP, 10/7/03)
2003 Oct 1, In southern
Chechnya gunmen opened fire on a car carrying the mayor of a town,
killing the local leader and his son, who was a police officer.
(AP, 10/2/03)
2003 Oct 1, In China new rules
took effect that eliminate a requirement for couples to get the
permission of their employers before they tie the knot.
(AP, 10/1/03)
2003 Oct 1, Prime Minister
Bertie Ahern said Ireland will ban smoking from all workplaces,
including pubs, in January despite rising opposition from lawmakers
and business owners.
(AP, 10/1/03)
2003 Oct 1, In Liberia West
African forces traded their camouflage helmets Wednesday for the
blue ones of the UN. Hours later clashes flared between rebels and
loyalist forces in Monrovia, leaving three civilians dead.
(Reuters, 10/1/03)
2003 Oct 1, In Rwanda the
ruling party of President Paul Kagame won nearly three-fourths of
the vote the multiparty legislative elections since independence
from Belgium in 1962.
(AP, 10/1/03)
2003 Oct 1, Solomon
Islands Foreign Minister Laurie Chan said an Australian-led force
has broken the reign of gangsters and warlords terrorizing the
Islands, paving the way for the small South Pacific nation to start
battling corruption.
(AP, 10/1/03)
2003 Oct 1, In southwestern
Zimbabwe a bus overturned and crashed after a tire burst, killing 16
people and injuring at least 28 in the second serious bus crash in
Zimbabwe in 24 hours.
(AP, 10/3/03)
2003 Oct 2, The annual Ig Noble
prizes were awarded at Harvard Univ.
(SFC, 10/6/03, p.A1)
2003 Oct 2, South Africa's J.M.
Coetzee, whose stories tell of innocents and outcasts oppressed by
the cruel weight of history, won the 2003 Nobel Prize for
literature. His books included "Dusklands" (1974), "In the heart of
the Country" (1977), "Waiting for the Barbarians" (1980), "Life and
Times of Michael K" (1983) and "Disgrace" (1999).
(AP, 10/2/03)(WSJ, 10/14/03, p.D10)
2003 Oct 2, The US House voted
281-142 to prohibit doctors from carrying out what abortion
opponents call partial birth abortion.
(AP, 10/2/04)
2003 Oct 2, The Los Angeles
Times published allegations that California gubernatorial candidate
Arnold Schwarzenegger had sexually harassed six women in the past;
the actor acknowledged "bad behavior" on his part, and apologized.
(LAT, 10/2/03)
2003 Oct 2, John Dunlop (89),
former Labor Secretary died.
(AP, 10/2/04)
2003 Oct 2, In Bahrain
assailants hurled gasoline bombs at a busload of police officers,
wounding five of them.
(AP, 10/3/03)
2003 Oct 2, Two Canadian
peacekeepers were killed and three were injured in a land-mine blast
in the Afghan capital Kabul.
(Reuters, 10/2/03)
2003 Oct 2, In Haiti police
trying to raid a shantytown touched off a gunfight that killed five
men in the city of Gonaives.
(AP, 10/3/03)
2003 Oct 2, North Korea said it
is using plutonium extracted from spent nuclear fuel rods to make
atomic weapons.
(AP, 10/2/03)
2003 Oct 2, Pakistan's army
launched its largest offensive against al-Qaida and other militants
in a rugged tribal region bordering Afghanistan, killing at least 12
suspects.
(AP, 10/2/03)
2003 Oct 3, In Las Vegas a
tiger attacked magician Roy Horn of Siegfried & Roy during a
performance. It was Horn's 59th birthday.
(SFC, 10/4/03, p.A1)
2003 Oct 3, William Steig (95),
an illustrator for The New Yorker who was known as the "King of
Cartoons" for his award-winning, best-selling children's books
including "Shrek," died.
(AP, 10/4/03)
2003 Oct 3, Afghan civilians
accidentally set off an explosive inside a home near Bagram Air Base
American military headquarters, killing seven people and wounding
six others.
(AP, 10/3/03)
2003 Oct 3, The first tanker
set off from the Cameroon port of Kribi with crude oil from a
massive $3.7 billion, 665-mile pipeline from the landlocked nation
of Chad.
(AP, 10/6/03)
2003 Oct 3, Oswaldo Paya, top
democracy activist, launched a new challenge to Fidel Castro's
government as part of the Varela Project, turning in more than
14,000 signatures of people seeking a human rights referendum just
six months after a crackdown on the opposition.
(AP, 10/4/03)
2003 Oct 3, In Iraq US Army
Spc. Jeremy C. Sivits began photographing Iraqi prisoner abuse at
Abu Ghraib prison. He was under instruction from MP Cpl. Charles A.
Graner to not say anything. In 2007 Lt. Col. Steven Lee Jordan (50),
who ran the interrogation center at Abu Ghraib, was court-martialed
on 8 charges including cruelty and maltreatment of prisoners. In
2008 Philip Gourevitch and Errol Morris authored “Standard Operating
Procedure” and produced a documentary film covering the Abu Ghraib
abuses. [See Jan 13, 2004]
(SFC, 5/14/04, p.A12)(SFC, 1/27/07, p.A9)(Econ,
5/17/08, p.102)
2003 Oct 3, Pakistan
test-launched a missile capable of carrying a nuclear warhead,
saying it was the first in a series of tests scheduled for the next
few days.
(AP, 10/3/03)
2003 Oct 3, In Karachi,
Pakistan, gunmen opened fire on a bus carrying Shiite Muslim
employees of Pakistan's space agency, killing six and wounding at
least six others.
(AP, 10/3/03)
2003 Oct 3, In Sri Lanka the US
Embassy said it has re-designated the Tamil Tigers as a terrorist
organization, despite an ongoing peace process between the Sri
Lankan government and the rebels.
(AP, 10/4/03)
2003 Oct 4, A U.S. military
source said Polish troops had discovered and destroyed French-made
anti-aircraft missiles in Iraq. France swiftly denied selling any
weapons to Iraq in violation of a U.N. arms embargo and had stopped
making the Roland missiles 15 years ago.
(AP, 10/4/03)
2003 Oct 4, Sid McMath (91),
former 2-term governor of Arkansas, died.
(WSJ, 10/6/03, p.A1)
2003 Oct 4, In southwest Brazil
a small airplane carrying congressman Rep. Jose Carlos Martinez and
three others went missing. All 4 were found dead the next day.
(AP, 10/4/03)(AP, 10/5/03)
2003 Oct 4, In London James
Forlong (44), a former Sky News television correspondent who
resigned after he admitted faking parts of a report on the war in
Iraq, was found dead at his home in a possible suicide.
(AP, 10/6/03)
2003 Oct 4, Eight Indonesian
soldiers plummeted into the ocean and were presumed dead after a
helicopter crew cut the ropes carrying them during rehearsal of a
mid-air stunt.
(AP, 10/4/03)
2003 Oct 4, In Haifa, Israel,
Hanadi Jaradat (29), a female Palestinian lawyer, blew herself up in
a crowded Mediterranean beach restaurant, killing 21 people
including 4 children. A brother and cousin, Jihad terrorists, had
been killed in June. Her suicide inspired a piece of installation
art in 2004 at the Stockholm Museum titled "Snow White and the
Madness of Truth."
(WSJ, 10/7/03, p.A1)(SFC, 10/11/03, p.A7)(WSJ,
1/22/04, p.D6)(AP, 10/4/04)
2003 Oct 4, In Italy
anti-globalization demonstrators set fire to an employment agency,
smashed cars and windows and hurled insults at government
headquarters in Rome.
(AP, 10/4/03)
2003 Oct 4, A shipment of
uranium-enriching centrifuge gear was seized at the Italian port of
Taranto in 2003, forcing Libya to admit and eventually renounce its
efforts to acquire nuclear weapons. In 2009 Urs Tinner, suspected of
involvement in the world's biggest nuclear smuggling ring, said in a
Swiss TV documentary that he tipped off US intelligence about a
delivery of centrifuge parts meant for Libya's nuclear weapons
program.
(http://articles.latimes.com/2004/nov/28/world/fg-network28)(WSJ,
12/31/03, p.A1)(AP, 1/22/09)
2003 Oct 5, The Chicago Cubs
won their first postseason series since 1908 when they beat Atlanta
5-1 in the decisive Game 5 of the National League playoffs.
(AP, 10/5/04)
2003 Oct 5, The MacArthur
Foundation named 24 winners of its annual fellowship award.
Historians Eve Troutt Powell (42) of the Univ. of Georgia and Anders
Winroth (38) of Yale Univ. were among the winners.
(USAT, 9/22/03, p.7D)
2003 Oct 5, In Atlanta,
Georgia, Shelia Chaney Wilson (43), shot and killed her mother,
minister and herself in the sanctuary of the Turner Monumental AME
Church.
(SFC, 10/6/03, p.A3)
2003 Oct 5, Elections organized
by Moscow were held in Chechnya. Some 200,000 dead Chechens remained
on the electoral lists. Akhmad Kadyrov, chief of the pro-Russian
administration enjoyed a 13% popularity.
(WSJ, 10/2/03, p.A16)(AP, 10/5/03)
2003 Oct 5, In Port-Au-Prince,
Haiti, landslides caused by heavy rains swept down on poor areas of
the capital, killing at least 12 people and leaving dozens of others
homeless.
(AP, 10/6/03)
2003 Oct 5, Israeli warplanes
bombed the Ein Saheb base northwest of Damascus, Syria, in
retaliation for a suicide bombing at a Haifa restaurant. Israeli
military called it an Islamic Jihad training base. Residents later
told the Associated Press the camp was abandoned years ago.
(AP, 10/5/03)(AP, 10/6/03)
2003 Oct 5, Ministers of the
10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) met ahead
of a leaders' summit on Indonesia's resort island of Bali, with
leaders of China, India, Japan and South Korea joining the bloc to
sign trade and security accords.
(AP, 10/5/03)
2003 Oct 5, In Malaysian Borneo
armed kidnappers riding in a speedboat raided a remote resort,
seizing six people before escaping.
(AP, 10/6/03)
2003 Oct 5, Valentina Matvienko
was elected gov. of St. Petersburg. Turnout was under 30%.
(Econ, 10/11/03, p.54)
2003 Oct 5, Pope John Paul II
declared three missionaries to be saints: Daniele Comboni, an
Italian; Arnold Janssen, a German; and Josef Freinademetz, an
Austrian.
(AP, 10/5/03)
2003 Oct 5, In Somalia
Annalena Tonelli (60), an Italian aid worker who dedicated 33 years
of her life to helping Somalis, was shot and killed outside the
hospital she founded to treat tuberculosis patients.
(AP, 10/6/03)
2003 Oct 6, The annual Nobel
Prize in Medicine went to Paul C. Lauterbur (74) of the Univ. of
Illinois and Sir Peter Mansfield (69) of the Univ. of Nottingham,
for their work that led to magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).
(SFC, 10/7/03, p.A2)
2003 Oct 6, Pres. Bush met with
Kenya's Pres. Kibaki, who asked for help in stabilizing Somalia.
(WSJ, 10/7/03, p.A1)
2003 Oct 6, Democrat Bob Graham
announced on CNN's "Larry King Live" that he was ending his
presidential campaign.
(AP, 10/6/04)
2003 Oct 6, A fire in Yazoo
City, Miss., left 5 children (1½-10) dead. Their mothers were
at a nightclub.
(SFC, 10/7/03, p.A1)
2003 Oct 6, In Argentina newly
released archives of police intelligence, first discovered in 1998
behind a wall in a building that now houses the Commission for
Memory, indicated that police infiltrated unions and dissident
groups before and during the 1976-83 military dictatorship,
monitoring tens of thousands of people for a quarter of a century.
(AP, 10/6/03)
2003 Oct 6, In Chechnya Akhmad
Kadyrov was declared the winner in the region's presidential vote.
Human rights advocates questioned the fairness of a vote held during
a war and said the election was heavily tilted in favor of Kadyrov,
whose personal security service is widely feared and accused of
kidnappings and killings.
(AP, 10/6/03)
2003 Oct 6, In southeastern
Colombia FARC guerrillas assassinated two town mayors, Orlando Hoyos
and Jaime Zambrano, after they met with rebels in a mountain
hideout.
(AP, 10/8/03)
2003 Oct 6, In northeastern
Congo dozens of tribal fighters attacked Katchele village with
assault rifles and machetes, killing at least 65 people, mainly
children, looting property and setting huts on fire.
(AP, 10/7/03)
2003 Oct 6, Roadside bombings
in central Iraq killed three U.S. soldiers and an Iraqi interpreter
and wounded six other service members.
(AP, 10/7/03)
2003 Oct 6, In Pakistan gunmen
assassinated Maulana Azam Tariq, a hardline Sunni Muslim politician
and four other people, spraying their car with automatic weapon-fire
before fleeing.
(AP, 10/6/03)
2003 Oct 6, Elisabeta Rizea
(91), a Romanian anti-communist resistance fighter whose defiance of
the regime made her a symbol of the fight against tyranny, died.
(AP, 10/7/03)
2003 Oct 7, The US dollar fell
to 7-year lows against the Canadian dollar and near a six-year
trough against the Australian dollar.
(Reuters, 10/7/03)
2003 Oct 7, California voters
recalled Gov. Davis. Among the replacement candidates, Arnold
Schwarzenegger won with 3.74 million votes or 49%. Propositions 53
on racial privacy and 54 on state infrastructure funding were
defeated.
(AP, 10/8/03)(SFC, 10/8/03, p.A1)(SFC, 10/9/03,
p.A15)
2003 Oct 7, Three scientists
who worked separately to explain the nature of matter at extremely
low temperatures won the 2003 Nobel Prize for Physics. Russians
Vitaly Ginzburg (87), Alexei Abrikosov (75) and British-born Anthony
Leggett (65), worked on theories that led to the development of
magnetic imaging scanners.
(Reuters, 10/7/03)(SFC, 10/8/03, p.A2)
2003 Oct 7, A £4bn deal
to create a single company to run ITV, Britain's only fully
commercial national TV network, was given the go-ahead by the
government, heralding a new era in commercial television.
(http://media.guardian.co.uk/broadcast/story/0,7493,1057710,00.html)
2003 Oct 7, Israel "Izzy" Asper
(71), the colorful, controversial, jazz-loving founder of Canada's
largest newspaper publisher, died. He created CanWest Capital,
Western Canada's 1st merchant bank and founded television station
CKND. He bought out Toronto-based Global TV and turned it into a
national network, CanWest Global Comm.
(AP, 10/8/03)(SFC, 10/11/03, p.A19)
2003 Oct 7, In southern India
an overloaded ferry carrying 50 people capsized in the storm-tossed
Krishna River, killing at least 18 passengers.
(AP, 10/7/03)
2003 Oct 7, In Bali southeast
Asian leaders from 10 ASEAN nations signed a landmark accord that
would pull together their disparate region into a European-style
economic community in less than two decades.
(AP, 10/7/03)
2003 Oct 7, Anerood Jugnauth
(b.1930) became president of Mauritius.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anerood_Jugnauth)
2003 Oct 7, A ferry hit a
bridge in eastern Nigeria and capsized. Dozens were believed dead.
(AP, 10/11/03)
2003 Oct 7, Yasser Arafat swore
in new Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia and a skeleton
emergency Cabinet.
(AP, 10/7/03)
2003 Oct 7, In the Philippines
a detained Muslim terror suspect grabbed a guard's rifle and opened
fire at police headquarters in Manila, killing three officers and
wounding three others before he was fatally shot.
(AP, 10/7/03)
2003 Oct 7, Turkey's parliament
voted overwhelmingly to allow Turkish troops to be sent to Iraq.
(AP, 10/7/04)
2003 Oct 8, Americans Peter
Agre and Roderick MacKinnon won the Nobel Prize in chemistry for
studies of tiny transportation tunnels in cell walls, work that
illuminates diseases of the heart, kidneys and nervous system.
(AP, 10/8/03)
2003 Oct 8, The Bank of Sweden
Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel was awarded to
American Robert F. Engle (60) of NY Univ. and Briton Clive W.G.
Granger (1934-2009) of visiting scholar at Canterbury Univ. in New
Zealand for their work in statistical techniques to measure
investment risk and track economic trends.
(WSJ, 10/9/03, p.A2)(USAT, 10/9/03, p.8B)(SFC,
6/3/09, p.B5)
2003 Oct 8, In Arizona
officials at Safford Middle School strip-searched Savana Redding
(13) after she was suspected of distributing 4 ibuprofen pills. In
2009 the US Supreme Court ruled 8-1 that the school officials had
violated her rights.
(SFC, 6/26/09,
p.A8)(www.freebase.com/view/guid/9202a8c04000641f800000000b8d2720)
2003 Oct 8, A day after
being elected governor of California, Arnold Schwarzenegger said he
was promised "a very smooth transition" by ousted Gov. Gray Davis
and vowed to "open up the books" in dealing the state's ailing
economy.
(AP, 10/8/08)
2003 Oct 8, Jarome Iginla of
the Calgary Flames was tabbed to become the first black captain in
NHL history.
(AP, 10/8/08)
2003 Oct 8, In Colombia a car
bomb exploded in a black-market shopping district in downtown
Bogota, killing at least six people and wounding 12.
(AP, 10/8/03)
2003 Oct 8, China was reported
to have taken the first step toward recognizing the Himalayan
territory of Sikkim as a part of India, resolving a long-standing
border dispute. Sikkim, located between Nepal and the kingdom of
Bhutan, was an independent principality before it was annexed by
India in 1975.
(AP, 10/8/03)
2003 Oct 8, In Indonesia a
semi-trailer veered out of its lane and crashed head-on into a
school bus near Situbondo. The death toll from a school bus crash
reached 54 and police said they had launched a search for a truck
driver.
(AP, 10/9/03)
2003 Oct 8, Vietnam and the
United States tentatively agreed to allow the first commercial
flights between the two countries since the end of the Vietnam War.
(AP, 10/8/03)
2003 Oct 9, The new peach and
blue redesigned US $20 bill made its debut.
(WSJ, 10/10/03, p.C3)
2003 Oct 9, Scientists in
Nature reported that certain types of Navy sonar use was responsible
for whale deaths due to beaching.
(SFC, 10/9/03, p.A4)
2003 Oct 9, Rival warlords in
northern Afghanistan said that they had reached a truce after
fighting killed dozens of people.
(AP, 10/9/03)
2003 Oct 9, In Santo Antonio de
Jesus in Bahia state, Brazil, gunmen shot and killed Gerson de Jesus
Bispo, a man who spoke to a UN investigator about police death
squads.
(AP, 10/10/03)
2003 Oct 9, A British
judge ruled that former residents of the Chagos archipelago have no
right to return home or get compensation. Britain had leased Diego
Garcia, the main island, to the US in the late 1960s and barred
anyone from entering the archipelago except by permit.
(AP, 10/9/03)
2003 Oct 9, Miners angry about
a proposal to export oil through Chile clashed with riot troops near
the Bolivian capital. At least two people were killed and nine were
hurt.
(AP, 10/9/03)
2003 Oct 9, In central China an
underground flood in a coal mine trapped 18 miners.
(AP, 10/10/03)
2003 Oct 9, A suicide car
bomber crashed a white Oldsmobile into a police station in Sadr
City, Iraq's largest Shiite Muslim enclave, killing himself, 8
others and wounding as many as 45. Kirk von Ackerman (37), US army
contractor, disappeared between Tikrit and Kirkuk. It was later
reported that Von Ackerman was about to report on kickbacks to a US
Army officer in Iraq. On Dec 14 Ackerman’s associate Ryan Manelick
was shot to death near Camp Anaconda. Jose Antonio Bernal Gomez,
Spanish military attache, was shot to death in Baghdad.
(AP, 10/9/03)(SFC, 10/10/03, p.A1)(AP,
10/9/04)(AP, 10/9/08)(SFC, 11/11/03, p.A1)(SSFC, 2/13/05, p.A14)
2003 Oct 9, Japan's PM
Junichiro Koizumi ordered the lower house of Parliament dissolved,
paving the way for national elections that he's counting on to
strengthen his party.
(AP, 10/9/03)
2003 Oct 9, Russia's defense
minister assured NATO that Moscow is not adopting a more aggressive
nuclear stance and remains committed to cooperation with the Western
alliance.
(AP, 10/9/03)
2003 Oct 9, In Russia Alexei
Sidorov, editor of the Togliatti Review, died in his wife's arms
after being stabbed several times in a parking lot hear his home. He
was the sixth Togliatti journalist slain in an apparent contract
killing in recent years.
(AP, 10/10/03)
2003 Oct 9, In northeastern
Uganda rebels attacked a refugee camp, killing 15 people, including
four guards.
(AP, 10/9/03)
2003 Oct 10, Human rights
activist Shirin Ebadi (56) won the 2003 Nobel Peace Prize. It was
the first peace prize for an Iranian, and first for a Muslim woman.
(AP, 10/10/03)
2003 Oct 10, Conservative
commentator Rush Limbaugh announced during his syndicated radio show
that he was addicted to painkillers and was checking into a rehab
center.
(AP, 10/10/04)
2003 Oct 10, In southern
Afghanistan 41 Taliban militants escaped from prison by digging a
30-foot-long tunnel with apparent help from officials.
(AP, 10/11/03)
2003 Oct 10, A Central African
Republic national forum recommended posthumous forgiveness for
despot Jean-Bedel Bokassa (d.1996), whose 13-year rule (1966-1979)
ruined the country. The vote followed an apology by Bokassa's son
Jean-Serge (31). About 60 legitimate children of Bokassa had
mandated one of their number, Jean-Serge Bokassa, to sit as a
delegate in a reconciliation forum called the "National Dialogue."
There, he asked "forgiveness for the wrong" done by his father and
called for his rehabilitation because he had helped to build the
country.
(SFC, 10/11/03, p.A2)(AFP, 12/3/10)
2003 Oct 10, Near Genova,
Colombia, suspected leftist guerrillas gunned down two candidates
for upcoming state and mayoral elections. Police found the bodies of
Jairo Gomez, a mayoral contender in the city of Genova, and Julio
Cesar Castennanos, the next day.
(AP, 10/11/03)
2003 Oct 10, Former Guyana vice
president and first lady Viola Burnham (72) died after a prolonged
battle with cancer. She served as vice president and deputy PM from
1985-1991.
(AP, 10/11/03)
2003 Oct 10, In Sadr City,
Iraq, 2 Americans and 2 Iraqis were killed in a gunfight.
(SFC, 10/11/03, p.A12)
2003 Oct 10, Israel sent dozens
of tanks into a Gaza refugee camp to destroy tunnels allegedly used
by Palestinians to smuggle weapons. Israeli forces killed seven
Palestinians, including an eight-year-old boy, in the Gaza Strip.
(AP, 10/10/03)(Reuters, 10/10/03)
2003 Oct 10, It was reported
that members of an elite Mexican army unit have deserted and formed
a drug gang, using their military training to launch a violent
battle for control of Nuevo Laredo. An estimated 31 of 350 members
of the Special Air Mobile Force Group, posted to the border state of
Tamaulipas in the 1990s, had deserted and joined the drug turf war.
(AP, 10/10/03)
2003 Oct 10, Morocco's king
announced plans to grant new rights to women regarding marriage and
divorce, reforms aimed at modernizing Moroccan society.
(AP, 10/10/03)
2003 Oct 10, In Peru a
passenger bus plunged off a 1,000-foot cliff in the Andes mountains,
killing at least 30 people and wounding 17.
(AP, 10/11/03)
2003 Oct 10, Spain's new
Madrid-Leida bullet train made its maiden journey. The train had an
average speed of 108 mph, with a peak of 124 mph. This was slower
than the intended average speed of 186 mph with peaks of 217 mph.
(AP, 10/11/03)
2003 Oct 11, Clerks for three
major supermarket chains in Southern California began a
four-and-a-half-month strike after negotiations with store officials
broke off.
(AP, 10/11/04)
2003 Oct 11, A team of 18
doctors in Dallas, Texas, began a complicated separation surgery in
an attempt to give Ahmed and Mohamed Ibrahim, 2-year-old conjoined
twins from Egypt, a chance at independent lives. The 34-hour went
well.
(AP, 10/11/03)(SSFC, 10/11/03, p.A2)(SFC,
10/14/03, p.A3)
2003 Oct 11, Ivan A. Getting
(91), a Cold War scientist who conceived the Global Positioning
Satellite system, died in Coronado, Calif.
(AP, 10/11/04)
2003 Oct 11, Bolivia’s Pres.
Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada and two of his ministers, Carlos Sanchez
Berzain and Jorge Berindoague, signed Supreme Decree No. 27209
directing the military to break up demonstrations that blocked fuel
truck access to the city of La Paz.
(www.boliviasolidarity.org/takeaction/latestactions/sanfran)
2003 Oct 11, In China the 16th
Communist Party Congress began in Beijing. The 4-day meeting
included debates on reforms toward private property, a more stable
legal system and measures to encourage private investments.
(SSFC, 10/11/03, p.A3)
2003 Oct 11, It was reported
that a worsening drought in Fiji has caused thousands of people to
lose water supplies, with large parts of Suva receiving water by
truck.
(SSFC, 10/11/03, p.C10)
2003 Oct 11, The French
government and its main opposition joined in supporting school
officials who expelled two sisters for refusing to remove
traditional Islamic headscarves in class.
(AP, 10/11/03)
2003 Oct 11, Israeli forces
killed a Palestinian and razed dozens of homes in a Gaza Strip
refugee camp as Israeli opposition politicians and Palestinian
officials sought to revive peace talks.
(AP, 10/11/03)(Reuters, 10/11/03)
2003 Oct 11, In Italy
4-month-old twin Greek girls joined at the temple were successfully
separated after a 13 hour operation at a Rome hospital.
(AP, 10/12/03)(SFC, 10/15/03, p.A2)
2003 Oct 11, A Lebanese woman
gave birth to sextuplets, four girls and two boys.
(AP, 10/11/03)
2003 Oct 11, In Malaysia
delegates from Islamic nations gathered in the new administrative
capital of Putrajaya with Iraq as a center piece of discussion.
(SSFC, 10/11/03, p.A3)
2003 Oct 11, In Nepal at least
3 policemen and 35 Maoist rebels were killed in an overnight battle
as the rebels resumed attacks on government forces after a 9-day
cease-fire.
(AP, 10/11/03)
2003 Oct 12, Some 70,000
employees of Ralphs, Vons and Albertsons grocery stores began a
strike in southern California, Missouri, Kentucky, West Virginia and
Ohio. Health care costs were a main issue. Workers approved an
agreement for southern California on Feb 29, 2004.
(SFC, 10/14/03, p.B2)(SFC, 11/5/03, p.B1)(SFC,
3/1/04, p.A5)
2003 Oct 12, Doctors in Dallas
succeeded in separating two-year-old Egyptian conjoined twins.
(AP, 10/12/04)
2003 Oct 12, Some 70,000
employees of Ralphs, Vons and Albertsons grocery stores began a
strike in southern California, Missouri, Kentucky, West Virginia and
Ohio. Health care costs were a main issue. Workers approved an
agreement for southern California on Feb 29, 2004.
(SFC, 10/14/03, p.B2)(SFC, 11/5/03, p.B1)(SFC,
3/1/04, p.A5)
2003 Oct 12, Joan Kroc (75),
widow of McDonald's founder Ray Kroc, died near San Diego. On Nov 6
it was announced that she had left over $200 million for National
Public Radio.
(SFC, 11/7/03, p.A2)
2003 Oct 12, Bill Shoemaker
(72), Hall of Fame jockey, died in San Marino, Calif.
(AP, 10/12/04)
2003 Oct 12, In Baku,
Azerbaijan, some 50,000 people protested Pres. Aliev's attempt to
transfer power to his son in upcoming elections.
(SFC, 10/13/03, p.A11)
2003 Oct 12, In Belarus a
patient at a mental hospital set fire to the building, killing 30
people and injuring 31.
(AP, 10/12/03)
2003 Oct 12, In Bolivia
violence erupted at El Alto when the military tried to break a
blockade against gas trucks bound for Chile. The death toll grew to
59 after 4 days of clashes at El Alto. Finance Ministry officials
began a 3-day withdrawal of 13.7 million bolivianos (US$1.8
million). In 2006 Marcela Nogales, the central bank manager, was
jailed for releasing the money, which facilitated a military
crackdown. In 2011 Bolivia's highest court convicted five former top
military commanders of genocide for an army crackdown on the riots
that killed at least 64 civilians. It gave them prison sentences
ranging from 10 to 15 years.
(http://tinyurl.com/onpns)(SFC, 10/15/03,
p.A11)(Econ, 10/18/03, p.38)(AP, 9/6/06)(AP, 8/30/11)
2003 Oct 12, British wartime
hero Patrick Dalzel-Job, whose exploits made him a model for James
Bond, died in Plockton, Scotland, at age 90.
(AP, 10/12/04)
2003 Oct 12, In China Ma
Yong (43), was arrested and accused of robbing and killing 12 women
in southern China over a five-month period, preying on job seekers
in the boomtown of Shenzhen. Duan Zhiqun (20), his female partner,
was arrested Oct 23.
(AP, 11/11/03)
2003 Oct 12, In southern China
an explosion in a coal mine killed 7 miners, while the bodies of 4
miners killed in an underground flood were pulled from a shaft in a
central province.
(AP, 10/12/03)
2003 Oct 12, In Colombia
government forces battled rebels and right-wing paramilitaries in
several locations in heavy fighting that killed 27 gunmen and two
soldiers.
(AP, 10/13/03)
2003 Oct 12, Germany won the
Women's Soccer World Cup 2-1 over Sweden in the eighth minute of
overtime.
(AP, 10/12/08)
2003 Oct 12, In Baghdad a
suicide attacker, stopped from reaching a hotel full of Americans,
detonated his car bomb on a commercial avenue, killing six
bystanders and wounding dozens.
(AP, 10/12/03)
2003 Oct 12, Renato Rinino
(41), a professional Italian thief who gained notoriety for stealing
jewelry from Prince Charles' London palace in 1994, was shot and
killed in Savona.
(AP, 10/12/03)
2003 Oct 12, In the Philippines
Fathur Rohman Al-Ghozi, terrorist bombmaker for Jemaah Islamiyah,
was killed in a shootout with police in Pigcauayan.
(SFC, 10/13/03, p.A7)
2003 Oct 12, In northern Spain
2 bombs exploded in a parking lot, destroying 11 freight trucks. No
one was injured in the blast blamed on the armed Basque separatist
group ETA,
(AP, 10/12/03)
2003 Oct 12, Taiwan's dwindling
number of diplomatic allies shrank by one as Liberia switched ties
to the island's rival, China. This reduced Taiwan's recognition to
26 nations, most of them small, developing countries in Africa and
Latin America.
(AP, 10/12/03)
2003 Oct 13, The Bill and
Melinda Gates Foundation said it was doubling to $200 million the
prevention funds for HIV and AIDS in India.
(AP, 10/14/03)
2003 Oct 13, It was reported
that scientists in North Carolina had built a brain implant that
lets monkeys control a robotic arm with their thoughts.
(SFC, 10/13/03, p.A1)
2003 Oct 13, Ohio Democratic
congressman Dennis Kucinich formally kicked off his presidential
bid.
(AP, 10/13/04)
2003 Oct 13, Texas Gov. Rick
Perry signed into law a controversial redistricting bill designed to
put more Republicans in the Texas congressional delegation.
(AP, 10/13/04)
2003 Oct 13, In Louisiana a bus
crash on I-20 killed 8 members of a Texas church group after the
driver fell asleep.
(WSJ, 10/14/03, p.A1)
2003 Oct 13, Hundreds of Afghan
troops backed by U.S. soldiers and helicopters attacked a suspected
Taliban hide-out, killing at least 4 rebels and capturing 8 others.
(AP, 10/14/03)
2003 Oct 13, Bolivia's Pres.
Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada dropped plans to export natural gas in the
face of massive protests that left 18 dead.
(SFC, 10/14/03, p.A3)(WSJ, 10/14/03, p.A1)
2003 Oct 13, In western Nepal
Communist rebels attacked a police training camp overnight, sparking
a gunbattle that left at least 12 policemen and 15 guerrillas dead.
(AP, 10/13/03)
2003 Oct 13, In Nepal soldiers
stormed a high school that had been taken over by rebels in a
mountain village, starting a gunbattle that left at least 11
insurgents and four students dead.
(AP, 10/14/03)
2003 Oct 13, Paraguay's
president named a new interior minister, in a change spurred by a
contraband scandal.
(AP, 10/13/03)
2003 Oct 13, The Saudi Cabinet
announced that first-ever elections would be held for local councils
in 14 municipalities throughout the country.
(AP, 10/14/03)
2003 Oct 13, In Sudan, Hassan
Turabi, hard-line Islamic leader and top opposition figure, was
pardoned after more than 2 years under house arrest as part of a
release of political prisoners.
(AP, 10/13/03)
2003 Oct 13, The UN Security
Council approved a resolution expanding the NATO-led peacekeeping
force in Afghanistan.
(AP, 10/13/04)
2003 Oct 14, In Game Six of the
National League Championship Series, a Cubs fan inadvertently
deflected a foul ball away from the outstretched glove of Chicago
outfielder Moises Alou; the Florida Marlins, down 3-0 at the time,
rallied to win the game and went on to win Game 7 and advance to the
World Series, where they beat the New York Yankees.
(AP, 10/14/04)
2003 Oct 14, The US vetoed a
U.N. Security Council resolution that would have condemned Israel
for building a barrier that cut into the West Bank.
(AP, 10/14/04)
2003 Oct 14, John Allen
Muhammad pleaded innocent to murder as the first trial in the deadly
Washington-area sniper rampage got under way in Virginia Beach, Va.
Muhammad was later convicted and sentenced to death for killing Dean
Harold Meyers.
(AP, 10/14/04)
2003 Oct 14, It was reported
that Los Alamos National Laboratory researchers proposed an elevator
reaching 62,000 miles into the sky to launch payloads into space.
(AP, 10/14/03)
2003 Oct 14, Ben Metcalfe, the
1st chairman of the Greenpeace Foundation (1970), died in BC,
Canada.
(SSFC, 10/19/03, p.A31)
2003 Oct 14, Afghan soldiers
backed by U.S. troops and helicopters killed 7 Taliban and captured
12 others during a 2-day raid in southern Afghanistan.
(AP, 10/15/03)
2003 Oct 14, In Bolivia
demonstrations called for the resignation of Pres. Gonzalo Sanchez
de Lozada as 30,000 marched in La Paz. [see Oct 12]
(SFC, 10/15/03, p.A11)(Econ, 10/18/03, p.38)
2003 Oct 14, China's ruling
communists closed a secretive 4-day meeting aimed at pushing ahead
with market reforms and said a revision to the country's
constitution had been endorsed.
(AP, 10/14/03)
2003 Oct 14, In St. Marc,
Haiti, protesters hurled rocks at police and blocked streets with
flaming tire barricades for a 2nd day, demanding President
Jean-Bertrand Aristide's resignation.
(AP, 10/14/03)
2003 Oct 14, Across Honduras
thousands of protesters blocked streets and burned tires to demand
the government not renew a debt-payment agreement with the IMF.
(AP, 10/14/03)
2003 Oct 14, In Baghdad a
suicide bomber detonated a car packed with explosives near the
Turkish Embassy, killing the driver and wounding more than a dozen
others.
(AP, 10/14/03)
2003 Oct 14, In Liberia
businessman Gyude Bryant was sworn in as leader of the post-war
government, taking up a 2-year term.
(AP, 10/14/03)
2003 Oct 14, In Riyadh, Saudi
Arabia, hundreds took to the streets demanding reforms, the first
large-scale protest in this conservative kingdom where
demonstrations are illegal.
(AP, 10/14/03)
2003 Oct 15, The Florida
Marlins defeated the Chicago Cubs 9-6 in game 7 for the National
League pennant.
(WSJ, 10/16/03, p.A1)
2003 Oct 15, FCC officials
raided San Francisco Liberation Radio, a low-power FM station, and
confiscated its equipment.
(SFC, 10/21/03, p.D1)
2003 Oct 15, In Florida
tube-feeding stopped for Terri Schiavo (39), brain-damaged since
1990, based on a court decision for its removal. Death was expected
within 2 weeks. The tube was reinserted six days later after the
Florida Legislature rushed through "Terri's Law," which was recently
struck down by the Florida Supreme Court
(Econ, 10/18/03, p.31)(AP, 10/15/04)
2003 Oct 15, A Staten Island
ferry pilot lost consciousness before the vessel slammed into a
pier, killing at least 10 people and injuring 42, including 3 who
lost limbs. Pilot Richard J. Smith fled the scene and attempted
suicide. Smith later pleaded guilty to 11 counts of manslaughter. In
2006 Smith was sentenced to 18 months in jail. Patrick Ryan, the
ex-ferry director received a one year sentence.
(AP, 10/16/03)(SFC, 10/16/03, p.A1)(AP,
10/15/04)(SFC, 1/10/06, p.A5)
2003 Oct 15, Azerbaijan held
presidential elections.
(WSJ, 10/15/03, p.A1)
2003 Oct 15, In China Shenzhou
5 launched into orbit with air force Lt. Col. Yang Liwei (38)
aboard, making China the third nation to put a human in space on its
own, after the former Soviet Union and the United States. The launch
was made from the space center at Jiuquan. His capsule landed in
Mongolia the next day.
(AP, 10/15/03)(SFC, 10/16/03, p.A3)(SSFC,
7/15/07, p.D5)(Econ, 10/24/09, SR p.13)
2003 Oct 15, In the Gaza Strip
a remote-controlled bomb exploded under a US diplomatic convoy,
ripping apart an armored van and killing three Americans.
(AP, 10/15/03)
2003 Oct 15, Japan pledged $1.5
billion in reconstruction aid next year for Iraq and more down the
line despite economic woes at home.
(AP, 10/15/03)
2003 Oct 15, In Iraq the new
dinar was launched graced with the likeness of an ancient ruler and
a 10th century mathematician. The Iraqi central bank had no tools to
regulate currency value. Exchange of the old currency was set to end
Jan 15.
(SFC, 10/16/03, p.A12)(WSJ, 11/7/03, p.A10)
2003 Oct 15, NATO launched its
elite rapid-reaction force, a prototype unit that will eventually
become a 20,000-member force able to deploy in short notice anywhere
in the world.
(AP, 10/15/03)
2003 Oct 15, In Nicaragua
radical students and teachers drove a truck through a gate and threw
rocks and gasoline bombs at police guarding the legislature as part
of a protest demanding more government spending for education.
(AP, 10/16/03)
2003 Oct 15, Nigerian police
returned 74 child workers to Benin. As young as 4 years old, their
skin broken and palms callused from months of hauling granite, they
received food, clothes and medical care in the West African state of
Benin after being rescued from the traffickers who sold them into
heavy labor. On Sept. 27 authorities brought back 116 children who
had been put to work in the granite quarries of southwest Nigeria.
(AP, 10/16/03)
2003 Oct 16, The New York
Yankees won the American League Championship Series, defeating the
Boston Red Sox 6-5 in Game 7.
(AP, 10/16/04)
2003 Oct 16, Pres. Bush met
with Calif. Gov-elect Arnold Schwarzenegger during a stopover at the
start of a weeklong trip to Asia and Australia.
(ST, 10/17/03, p.A5)
2003 Oct 16, The Bridgeport,
Conn. Diocese announced a $21 million settlement with 40 people who
said they had been molested by priests when they were children.
(SFC, 10/17/03, p.A7)
2003 Oct 16, Alan Mulally, CEO
of Boeing, announced that production of the Boeing 757 would end in
late 2004.
(ST, 10/17/03, p.A1)
2003 Oct 16, In Azerbaijan
rioting protesters clashed with police in the capital, Baku, after
Ilham Aliev was elected to succeed his father as president. At least
2 people were reported killed. The vote was marred by fraud. Closest
rival Isa Gambar had 11% of the vote.
(AP, 10/16/03)(SFC, 10/16/03, p.A3)(ST, 10/17/03,
p.A14)
2003 Oct 16, Canada's 2
conservative parties agreed to unite to give the governing Liberal
Party a competitive race in 2004 national elections.
(SFC, 10/17/03, p.A3)
2003 Oct 16, In northern
Colombia suspected paramilitary gunmen shot and killed Esperanza
Amaris (40), a women's rights activist.
(AP, 10/17/03)
2003 Oct 16, Iraqi police
backed by American tanks forced out the renegade Sadr City council.
(WSJ, 10/20/03, p.A9)
22003 Oct 16, In Iraq 3
American soldiers were killed during a clash at a Shiite Muslim
cleric's headquarters in Karbala.
(AP, 10/16/04)
2003 Oct 16, Laos and Thailand
signed a pact aimed at stamping out border attacks by unknown
militants.
(ST, 10/17/03, p.A13)
2003 Oct 16, Malaysian Prime
Minister Mahathir Mohamad told a summit of Islamic leaders that
"Jews rule the world by proxy" and the world's 1.3 billion Muslims
should unite, using nonviolent means for a "final victory."
(AP, 10/16/03)
2003 Oct 16, Palestinian police
arrested 7 suspects in Jebaliya for a deadly attack on US diplomats,
briefly exchanging fire with the militants during a nighttime raid.
The suspects were members of the Popular Resistance Committees, a
group of dozens of armed men from various factions, former members
of the security forces and disgruntled followers of Yasser Arafat.
(AP, 10/16/03)(WSJ, 10/17/03, p.A1)
2003 Oct 16, The UN Security
Council unanimously adopted a resolution aimed at attracting aid to
stabilize Iraq and putting it on the road to independence.
(AP, 10/16/03)
2003 Oct 16, Pope John Paul II
celebrated his 25th anniversary, reaching a milestone matched by
only three of his predecessors.
(AP, 10/16/03)
2003 Oct 17, Pres. Bush stopped
in Tokyo and thanked PM Junichiro Koizumi for aid to Iraq.
(WSJ, 10/17/03, p.A1)
2003 Oct 17, The US House and
Senate voted to spend some $87 billion earmarked for securing peace
and eliminating terrorist threats in Iraq and Afghanistan.
(AP, 10/17/04)
2003 Oct 17, In Chicago
government workers trapped in a burning downtown office tower
frantically dialed 911 as they tried to make their way through
smoke-filled staircases and hallways. 13 were found unconscious amid
the smoke, 6 of them dead.
(AP, 10/18/03)
2003 Oct 17, A new family of
frogs was reported from the western India. The purple, burrowing
frog family, named Nasikabatrachus sahydrensis, appeared to date
back some 200 million years.
(SFC, 10/17/03, p.A10)
2003 Oct 17, In eastern
Afghanistan a bomb blew up a pickup truck on a dirt road, killing
four people, and two Afghan soldiers were killed in a land mine
explosion in the country's south.
(AP, 10/19/03)
2003 Oct 17, Bolivia's Pres.
Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada (“Goni”) resigned in a letter to Congress.
VP Carlos Mesa, a moderate political unknown, took over the
presidency. As one of Bolivia's top journalists, Mesa wrote a
best-selling book, "Entre urnas y fusiles" (Between the Ballot Box
and the Rifle), about the many presidents in this country's often
tumultuous history.
(Econ, 10/16/04,
p.34)(www.boliviasolidarity.org/takeaction/latestactions/sanfran)
2003 Oct 17, The EU pushed
ahead with efforts to build its own defense arm but sought to ease
U.S. concerns by insisting the plan would neither duplicate nor
undermine NATO.
(AP, 10/17/03)
2003 Oct 17, German lawmakers
approved an $18 billion tax cut for next year and reductions in
jobless benefits.
(AP, 10/17/03)
2003 Oct 17, In Iraq the deaths
of 4 soldiers brought to 101 the number killed since Pres. Bush
declared the end of major combat on May 1.
(SFC, 10/18/03, p.A1)
2003 Oct 17, Taiwanese
officials celebrated the completion of the world's tallest
skyscraper after crews installed the pinnacle on the 1,676-foot-tall
building.
(AP, 10/17/03)
2003 Oct 18, The Florida
Marlins won the first game of the World Series, defeating the New
York Yankees 3-2.
(AP, 10/18/04)
2003 Oct 18, Pres. Bush
addressed a special joint session of the Philippine Congress in
Manila. Some 290 families lost their homes in a shantytown of the
Batasan Hills, which faced the building where the address was to be
held. Bush promised to help the Philippines defeat terrorism by
aiding in the modernization of its under-equipped military.
Thousands of university students and other activists marched to
protest Bush's visit to Manila already tense over security concerns.
(SFC, 10/17/03, p.A5)(AP, 10/18/03)(SSFC,
10/19/03, p.A3)
2003 Oct 18, In a new
audiotape, a voice purported to be that of Osama bin Laden vowed
suicide attacks "inside and outside" the United States and
threatened nations that were helping the American occupation of
Iraq.
(AP, 10/19/08)
2003 Oct 18, India commandos
raided a Srinagar, Kashmir, shopping center where suspected Islamic
guerrillas were holed up, killing both men and ending a one-day
standoff.
(AP, 10/18/03)
2003 Oct 18, In Iran 6 Islamic
vigilantes were sentenced to death for killing five people for
allegedly having illicit sexual relationships. Judge Abdolreza
Parvizi said he ordered the men to be hanged in public for the 2002
deaths of three men and two women in the city of Kerman.
(AP, 10/18/03)
2003 Oct 18, In Iraq 2 U.S.
soldiers were killed and one was wounded in an ambush north of
Baghdad.
(AP, 10/19/03)
2003 Oct 18, South Korea
pledged to send more troops to Iraq but did not specify how many or
whether they would be combat troops.
(AP, 10/18/03)
2003 Oct 18, In Karachi,
Pakistani, attackers riding motorcycles opened fire at a restaurant,
killing three people in apparent gang violence.
(AP, 10/19/03)
2003 Oct 18, In southern Gaza
Israeli forces looking for smuggling tunnels killed 3 Palestinians,
including a senior member of the violent Islamic Hamas group, and
wounded 10.
(AP, 10/18/03)(SSFC, 10/19/03, p.A11)
2003 Oct 18, Russia launched a
Soyuz capsule from Kazakhstan with a 3-man crew for the int'l. space
station. Aboard were an American, a Russian and a Spaniard.
(SSFC, 10/19/03, p.A2)
2003 Oct 18, Manuel Vazquez
Montalban (64), one of Spain's best-known authors and the creator of
the Barcelona-based detective Pepe Carvalho, died.
(AP, 10/19/03)
2003 cOct 18, In western Sudan
9 commercial hauling workers were killed during clashes between
warring tribes. Recent fighting in Darfur had created more than
600,000 refugees.
(AP, 10/26/03)(AP, 10/28/03)
2003 Oct 18, In Swaziland
voters chose a new parliament in one of the world's last absolute
monarchies, while pro-democracy groups denounced the vote as a sham.
Political parties were banned and King Mswati III ruled by royal
decree.
(AP, 10/18/03)
2004 Oct 19, The New York
Yankees defeated the Florida Marlins 6-1 to even the World Series at
one game apiece.
(AP, 10/19/04)
2003 Oct 19, President Bush met
with Thailand's PM Thaksin Shinawatra and pressed him to help
restore democracy in neighboring Myanmar. Some 1,000 protesters
marched in downtown Bangkok on against a summit of 21 economic
leaders.
(AP, 10/19/03)(SFC, 10/20/03, p.A1)
2003 Oct 19, Pres. Bush said he
would consider a deal promising not to attack North Korea as long as
the guarantee is not a formal treaty.
(SFC, 10/20/03, p.A1)
2003 Oct 19, Afghan movie
"Osama" by director Siddiq Barmak won the top prize at Montreal's
New Movie and New Media Festival, one of the first features produced
in Afghanistan and nominated since the fall of the Taliban.
(Reuters, 10/19/03)
2003 Oct 19, New York magician
David Blaine left his clear plastic box and began recovering from 44
days dangling near the River Thames.
(AP, 10/20/03)(SFC, 10/20/03, p.A2)
2003 Oct 19, In Bolivia Pres.
Carlos Mesa swore in a new Cabinet with most ministers independent
of the political establishment.
(SFC, 10/20/03, p.A3)
2003 Oct 19, Alija Izetbegovic
(78) died in Sarajevo. He led Bosnia's Muslims during the 1992-95
war for independence and became one of the republic's first postwar
presidents.
(AP, 10/19/03)
2003 Oct 19, In Chechnya Akhmad
Kadyrov was inaugurated as president.
(AP, 10/19/03)
2003 Oct 19, Colombian military
killed Edgar Gustavo Navarro, the No. 2 leader of FARC, along with
10 others. The guerrilla commander was accused of kidnapping 3 US
military contractors and carrying out a string of assassinations and
bombings.
(AP, 10/21/03)
2003 Oct 19, An Italian coast
guard crew found 13 bodies on board a rickety wooden boat in waters
off Sicily and 15 other would-be illegal Somali immigrants suffering
from exposure and badly in need of food and water. Some 50 bodies
were consigned to the sea before the boat was found.
(AP, 10/20/03)(Econ, 10/25/03, p.48)
2003 Oct 19, Palestinian gunmen
attacked an Israeli army foot patrol near a West Bank village,
killing three soldiers and wounding a fourth.
(AP, 10/19/03)
2003 Oct 19, In Romania
government leaders held an emergency session as many voters avoided
the polls, throwing into doubt a referendum on a new constitution
aimed at helping the country join the European Union.
(AP, 10/19/03)
2003 Oct 19, The nationalist
Swiss People's Party won elections to become the leading party in
the lower house of parliament.
(AP, 10/19/03)(SFC, 10/20/03, p.A8)
2003 Oct 19, Pope John Paul
beatified Mother Teresa before a crowd of 300,000.
(AP, 10/19/03)
2003 Oct 20, President Bush
pushed North Korea's nuclear threat to the forefront of a 21-nation
Asia-Pacific summit in Thailand.
(AP, 10/20/04)
2003 Oct 20, President Bush
personally condemned the Malaysian prime minister for his statement
that Jews rule the world, pulling Mahathir Mohamad aside at an
international economic meeting to tell him the remarks were "wrong
and divisive."
(AP, 10/20/03)
2003 Oct 20, Pres. Bush met
with Mexico's Pres. Vicente Fox in Thailand and asked him to set
aside disputes over immigration and Iraq.
(AP, 10/20/03)
2003 Oct 20, Bush
administration officials said some $3 billion of Saddam Hussein's
former government was being held in Syria and Lebanon.
(AP, 10/21/03)
2003 Oct 20, The US deficit
doubled to $374 billion in fiscal 2003 and was on track to exceed
$500 billion for the year.
(WSJ, 1/2/04, p.R12)
2003 Oct 20, Nathaniel Heatwole
(20) was charged with a federal crime for hiding banned items on
planes. He had e-mailed federal authorities regarding 6 security
breaches on Sep 15.
(SFC, 10/21/03, p.A7)
2003 Oct 20, A judge in Eagle,
Colo., ordered Kobe Bryant to stand trial for sexual assault. The
criminal case was later dropped.
(AP, 10/20/04)
2003 Oct 20, Kirk Jones (40)
from Canton, Michigan, survived a 150-foot plunge over the
fast-flowing Canadian side Niagara Falls, only to face charges of
mischief and unlawfully performing a stunt. Jones said he was driven
by depression, not a desire to become a daredevil. A 7-year-old boy
who went over in 1960, unlike Jones, was wearing a lifejacket. Since
1901, 15 daredevils have taken the plunge in barrels or other
devices, including a kayak and a personal watercraft. Ten survived,
(AP, 10/21/03)
2003 Oct 20, Jack Elam (82), a
character actor and favorite Western villain who menaced good-guy
cowboys with his crazy grin, wild eyes and remorseless gunslinging
in films such as "Rawhide" and "Wichita," died.
(AP, 10/22/03)(SFC, 10/23/03, p.A22)
2003 Oct 20, Flood waters in
southwestern British Columbia left at least two people dead.
(AP, 10/21/03)
2003 Oct 20, France raised
taxes on tobacco products. Cigarette prices for a pack jumped from
an average $4.60 to $5.40.
(SFC, 10/21/03, p.A3)
2003 Oct 20, Israeli
helicopters and warplanes unleashed a string of missile strikes in
Gaza City. At least 11 people were killed and over 90 wounded.
(AP, 10/20/03)(SFC, 10/21/03, p.A1)
2003 Oct 20, Saudi authorities
announced the arrests of terrorist suspects and the discovery of
large quantities of weapons and ammunition during raids around the
kingdom.
(AP, 10/20/03)
2003 Oct 20, Carla del Ponte,
chief prosecutor of the Yugoslav war crimes tribunal in the Hague,
announced the indictment of 4 top Serb generals for alleged crimes
in Kosovo.
(Econ, 10/25/03, p.47)
2003 Oct 21, The US Senate
voted to ban the practice that critics call partial-birth abortion.
(AP, 10/21/04)
2003 Oct 21, In Florida
tube-feeding was resumed for Terri Schiavo (39), brain-damaged since
1990, on orders from Gov. Jeb Bush, who overrode a court decision
for its removal.
(SFC, 10/22/03, p.A2)(WSJ, 10/22/03, p.A1)
2003 Oct 21, Louise Day Hicks
(87), Boston anti-busing activist, died
(AP, 10/21/04)
2003 Oct 21, Actor Fred Berry
(52) died in Los Angeles.
(AP, 10/21/04)
2003 Oct 21, Asia-Pacific
Economic Cooperation leaders ended their two-day annual summit in
Thailand with a statement seeking to boost trade and intensify the
fight on terror.
(AP, 10/21/03)
2003 Oct 21, In Colombia police
and soldiers rounded up at least 29 politicians, ahead of local
elections, with suspected ties to leftist guerrillas in pre-dawn
raids across Arauca state.
(AP, 10/21/03)(WSJ, 10/22/03, p.A1)
2003 Oct 21, In Ecuador, a
decade after Texaco pulled out of the Amazon jungle, the US
petroleum giant went on trial in a lawsuit filed on behalf of 30,000
poor Ecuadorians.
(AP, 10/21/03)
2003 Oct 21, A top European
Union official defended the bloc's $233 million contribution for
Iraqi reconstruction and said that more could be forthcoming next
year.
(AP, 10/21/03)
2003 Oct 21, Iran agreed to
snap UN inspections of its nuclear sites and to freeze uranium
enrichment.
(AP, 10/21/03)(SFC, 10/22/03, p.A3)
2003 Oct 21, In Ivory Coast
Jean Helene, a French radio reporter, was shot and killed by a
police officer at police headquarters in Abidjan. On Jan 22, 2004,
police sergeant Dago Sery was sentenced to 17 years in prison for
the murder.
(AP, 10/21/03)(WPR, 3/04, p.29)
2003 Oct 21, North Korea
rebuffed Pres. Bush's proposal to give it multi-nation security
assurances if it agrees to scrap its nuclear weapons program.
(AP, 10/22/03)
2003 Oct 21, In South Korea a
tourist bus plummeted into a gorge, killing at least 17 people and
injuring 15 others.
(AP, 10/21/03)
2003 Oct 21, Luis A. Ferre
(99), a philanthropist and former governor of Puerto Rico who became
the patriarch of the territory's US statehood movement, died.
(AP, 10/21/03)
2003 Oct 21, Romanians
overwhelmingly approved a new constitution designed to prepare the
formerly communist country for membership in the EU.
(AP, 10/21/03)
2003 Oct 21, Two British
teachers working for an aid agency in Somaliland were found dead
after being shot at their apartment at the school.
(AP, 10/21/03)
2003 Oct 21, Pope John Paul II
added 30 names to the list of his possible successors, installing a
diverse collection of cardinals.
(AP, 10/21/03)
2003 Oct 21, The U.N. General
Assembly overwhelmingly approved a resolution demanding that Israel
tear down a barrier jutting into the West Bank.
(AP, 10/21/04)
2003 Oct 22, President Bush
praised Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim nation, for
battling terrorism. Bush defended US policy from the Mideast to Iraq
during a frank exchange with moderate Muslim leaders during a
stopover in Bali, Indonesia.
(AP, 10/22/03)(AP, 10/22/08)
2003 Oct 22, IRL racer Tony
Renna, 26, died after crashing at close to 220 mph during a test
drive at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
(AP, 10/22/04)
2003 Oct 22, In southern
Australia the fossil of a 2.56-inch fishlike animal from the
Flinders Ranges was believed to be at least 560 million years old,
30 million years older than the previous record.
(AP, 10/23/03)
2003 Oct 22, Christina Mae
Watson (26) died as she and her new husband dove off the tropical
coast of Queensland. In 2009 David Gabriel Watson, of Birmingham,
Alabama, pleaded guilty to manslaughter. He was expected to serve
just one year of the four-and-a-half-year sentence in the death of
his wife of 11 days. Watson served an 18-month sentence in Australia
and was deported to the US in 2010 where he faced 2 murder counts in
Alabama. On Feb 23, 2012, Watson was acquitted of murder charges
after a Birmingham judge ruled that prosecutors lacked sufficient
evidence.
(AP, 6/5/09)(SFC, 11/26/10, p.A7)(SFC, 2/24/12,
p.A5)
2003 Oct 22, Chile's Senate
overwhelmingly approved a free trade treaty with the United States,
paving the way for the accord to become effective Jan 1.
(AP, 10/22/03)
2003 Oct 22, In Colombia a bomb
attached to a motorcycle exploded damaging the state prosecutor's
offices outside Medellin.
(AP, 10/22/03)
2003 Oct 22, It was reported
that pirated fuel from Iraq totaled some 2,000 tons for a daily loss
of $250,000.
(SFC, 10/22/03, p.A1)
2003 Oct 22, Israeli troops
shot and killed 2 suspected Palestinian militants in the West Bank.
(AP, 10/22/03)
2003 Oct 22, Jordan's king
asked a royal court minister to form a new government.
(AP, 10/22/03)
2003 Oct 22, A human rights
report on North Korea said hundreds of thousands of prisoners worked
in at least 36 hidden camps with torture and meager rations routine.
(SFC, 10/22/03, p.A14)
2003 Oct 22, The Arab-dominated
West African nation of Mauritania opened its first real presidential
campaign in more than a decade, with the grandson of black African
slaves of the Arabs among five opposition candidates competing.
(AP, 10/22/03)
2003 Oct 22, Tensions spiraled
between Ukraine and Russia over a small island controlling access to
disputed waters. Pres. Leonid Kuchma cut short a Latin American trip
to return home to deal with the issue. The dispute centers on
construction of a dike from the Russian mainland out into the Kerch
Strait that connects the Black and Azov Seas.
(AP, 10/23/03)
2003 Oct 23, Pres. Bush, was
heckled inside and outside Australia's Parliament. He said that the
war in Iraq was right and inevitable, but that Americans and
Australians "still have decisive days ahead" and that the broader
war on terror could be long and drawn out.
(AP, 10/23/03)
2003 Oct 23, President Bush
concluded his Pacific trip with a visit to Hawaii, where he dropped
flowers into the water at the sunken battleship USS Arizona.
(AP, 10/23/08)
2003 Oct 23, Bill Clinton
announced that his AIDS foundation clinched a deal to cut drug
prices and improve care in poor nations.
(WSJ, 10/23/03, p.A1)
2004 Oct 23, Federal
immigration agents arrested some 250 illegal workers at 60 Wal-Mart
stores in 21 states.
(AP, 10/23/04)
2003 Oct 23, In Santa Clara,
California, 7-Eleven owner Narinder Badwal learned that he had sold
the winning California Lottery and was entitled to a $250,000
commission. He then learned that he had sold the winning ticket
worth $49,747,500 to himself.
(SFC, 10/28/03, p.A15)
2003 Oct 23, Soong May-ling
(b.1896), aka Madame Chiang Kai-shek, died in NYC. She became one of
the world's most famous women as she helped her husband fight the
Japanese during World War II and later the Chinese Communists. In
2009 Hannah Pakula authored “Madame Chiang Kai-shek and the Birth of
Modern China.”
(AP, 10/24/03)(SSFC, 12/27/09, Books,
p.E3)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soong_May-ling)
2003 Oct 23, In northern Afghan
attackers fired rockets at a pickup truck ferrying passengers,
killing 10 people, including two children.
(AP, 10/24/03)
2003 Oct 23, Chinese officials
reported that accidents in China's mines and factories killed 11,449
people in the first nine months of this year despite a nationwide
safety crackdown.
(AP, 10/23/03)
2003 Oct 23, A bomb exploded
near a pipeline in northern Iraq, killing two Iraqi Civil Defense
Corps members and wounding 10 others.
(AP, 10/23/03)
2003 Oct 23, A 3-day dominos
tournament began at the Ocho Rios resort in Jamaica.
(SFC, 10/24/03, p.D3)
2003 Oct 23, Japan refused to
grant citizenship to a Japanese couple's twins because they were
born to an American surrogate mother in California.
(WSJ, 10/24/03, p.A1)
2003 Oct 23, Masked Palestinian
gunmen killed two men suspected of being informers for Israel, then
displayed their bodies in the central square of the Tulkarem refugee
camp.
(AP, 10/23/03)
2003 Oct 23, Venezuelan
troops and police killed 7 heavily armed gunmen during a raid on a
drug trafficking ring in northeast Venezuela.
(AP, 10/24/03)
2003 Oct 24, Tiger Woods
matched the 55-year-old standard set by Byron Nelson by making the
cut in his 113th consecutive PGA Tour event. Se Ri Pak became the
first woman to make the two-round cut in a men's golf tournament
since Babe Zaharias in 1945.
(AP, 10/24/04)
2003 Oct 24, California won its
first anti-spam judgment when a court fined PW Marketing of Los
Angeles County, $2 million for sending out millions of unsolicited
e-mails telling people how to spam.
(AP, 10/25/03)
2003 Oct 24, British Airways
retired the Concorde. 3 Concordes swooped into Heathrow Airport,
joining in a spectacular finale to the era of luxury supersonic jet
travel.
(WSJ, 10/2/03, p.A1)(AP, 10/24/03)
2003 Oct 24, Chinese President
Hu Jintao became the first Asian leader to address Australia's
parliament.
(AP, 10/24/03)
2003 Oct 24, Iraq's postwar
reconstruction received a boost as nations from Japan to Saudi
Arabia pledged $13 billion in new aid on top of more than $20
billion from the US. But the figure fell well short of the estimated
$56 billion needed to rebuild the country.
(AP, 10/24/03)
2003 Oct 24, Two U.S. soldiers
were killed and four were wounded in a mortar attack on their base
north of Baghdad.
(AP, 10/24/03)
2003 Oct 24, In Italy police
arrested 7 alleged members of the radical Red Brigades suspected of
the 1999 killing of a Labor Ministry consultant.
(AP, 10/24/03)
2003 Oct 24, In Italy millions
of workers stayed home to protest government plans to reform the
pension system.
(AP, 10/25/03)
2003 Oct 24, In Mexico Mariano
Diaz Mendez, a Pentecostal pastor of Indian descent, was shot twice
inside the car in a roadside ditch in San Juan Chamula, a majority
Catholic township just outside San Cristobal.
(AP, 10/25/03)
2003 Oct 24, Nigerian health
workers began an emergency drive to immunize some 15 million
children against polio. Some 192 cases were currently active.
(SFC, 10/24/03, p.A3)
2003 Oct 24, Palestinian
militants cut through a fence and crept up on the army base inside
the Netzarim settlement in Gaza. The militants entered the barracks
and shot soldiers as they slept, killing three including two women,
and wounding two others.
(AP, 10/26/03)
2003 Oct 24, In southern Russia
a team of mine rescue workers dug ventilation tunnels and tried to
reach 46 coal miners trapped about a half-mile underground in a
shaft.
(AP, 10/24/03)
2003 Oct 24, Venezuelan troops
and police killed seven heavily armed gunmen during a raid on a drug
trafficking ring in northeast Venezuela, officials said Friday.
(AP, 10/24/03)
2003 Oct 25, The Florida
Marlins beat the NY Yankees 2-0 at Yankee Stadium and won Baseball's
World Series in 6 games.
(SSFC, 10/26/03, p.B1)
2003 Oct 25, Florida State's
Bobby Bowden became the winningest coach in major college football
history with his 339th victory as the Seminoles beat Wake Forest
48-24.
(AP, 10/25/04)
2003 Oct 25, To chants of
"Impeach Bush," thousands of anti-war protesters rallied in the
nation's capital and delivered a scathing critique of President Bush
and his Iraq policy.
(AP, 10/25/04)
2003 Oct 25, A US-led coalition
troops and Afghan militia killed 18 rebel fighters in a six-hour
firefight in eastern Afghanistan.
(AP, 10/28/03)
2003 Oct 25, The USS Hartford,
a fast attack submarine, went aground off La Maddalena, a tiny
island off Sardinia's north coast that hosts a Naval support
facility. 2 officers were later relieved of their commands over the
incident.
(AP, 11/13/03)
2003 Oct 25, In Afghanistan CIA
operatives William Carlson, 43, of Southern Pines, N.C., and
Christopher Glenn Mueller, 32, of San Diego were ambushed and killed
near the village in Shkin in Paktika province while "tracking
terrorists."
(AP, 10/29/03)
2003 Oct 25, In northwestern
China powerful twin tremors, minutes apart, killed nine people and
leveled houses in Gansu province.
(AP, 10/26/03)
2003 Oct 25, In Colombia voting
began on a referendum proposed by Pres. Uribe that aimed to cut
government spending, reduce the size of Congress and fight political
corruption. Guerrillas attacked an army base, ambushed police and
launched other attacks, killing 13 people. The referendum was seen
as a test of President Alvaro Uribe's support.
(AP, 10/25/03)
2003 Oct 25, An Italian court
has ordered a crucifix removed from a classroom, where a law still
requires public schools to display a cross.
(AP, 10/26/03)
2003 Oct 25, Thousands of
Jamaicans rioted near Montego Bay's airport, burning buses and
blocking roads to protest the killings of two elderly men by police
in an alleged shootout.
(AP, 10/26/03)(Econ, 11/1/03, p.35)
2003 Oct 25, In Amman, Jordan,
Faisal al-Fayez (51) was sworn in as the new PM along with 20
Cabinet members.
(AP, 10/26/03)
2003 Oct 25, Secret police
arrested YUKOS oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Russia's richest
man, from his jet in Siberia and hauled him before a Moscow court
where he was charged with massive fraud and tax evasion.
(AP, 10/25/03)
2003 Oct 25, In southern Russia
emergency workers rescued 33 cold and exhausted miners from the
flooded Zapadnaya coal mine in Novoshakhtinsk, where they had been
trapped for nearly two days. The location of 13 men remained
unknown.
(AP, 10/25/03)(SSFC, 10/26/03, p.A7)
2003 Oct 26, Spencer Tunick
photographed 450 women posing in New York's Grand Central Terminal
as part of a human art installation.
(AP, 10/26/03)
2003 Oct 26, Flames stoked by
powerful winds raced through parts of Southern California, torching
more than 208,000 acres, destroying 500 homes and causing at least
11 deaths. A major radar facility was forced to close and many
flights in the area were cancelled.
(AP, 10/26/03)(SSFC, 10/26/03, p.A1)(SFC,
10/27/03, p.A1)
2003 Oct 26, It was reported
that Cambodian prostitutes were being subjected to gang rapes, and
that the practice, called "bauk," has been common for years.
(SSFC, 10/26/03, p.A11)
2003 Oct 26, Canadian Rob
Krueger defeated 320 competitors who played at the World Rock,
Paper, Scissors Championships at a downtown Toronto nightclub. He
netted $3,825.
(Reuters, 10/27/03)
2003 Oct 26, Colombians elected
state and municipal leaders despite the bloody campaign period in
which dozens of candidates were killed. Bogota residents elected
Eduardo Garzon, a former Communist union leader, as their mayor in
municipal elections. The victory was seen as a further headache for
hardline Pres. Alvaro Uribe, coming a day after he suffered a defeat
in a sweeping referendum.
(AP, 10/27/03)(Econ, 11/1/03, p.35)
2003 Oct 26, In Guatemala 4
journalists from the Prensa Libre newspaper were seized by
ex-paramilitary members and apparently were being held to press the
group's demand that the government pay them wages for their service
in the 1980s.
(AP, 10/26/03)
2003 Oct 26, In western Haiti
anti-government protesters loyal to a slain gang leader attacked a
police station. Gunfire killed a girl on her bicycle and wounded the
police chief and 2 officers.
(AP, 10/26/03)
2003 Oct 26, Iraqi insurgents
attacked the heavily guarded al Rashid hotel with a missile barrage
that killed an American colonel, wounded 18 other people. The
462-room hotel, housing civilian officials of the US-led Coalition
Provisional Authority and US military personnel, is seen as symbol
of the occupation.
(AP, 10/26/03)(SSFC, 10/26/03, p.A1)
2003 Oct 26, In South Korea a
race car crashed into the audience, killing three people and
injuring six.
(AP, 10/26/03)
2003 Oct 26, In the largest
demolition of Palestinian Authority buildings in Gaza in 3 years,
the Israeli army blew up 3 apartment towers in retaliation for a
deadly settlement attack.
(AP, 10/26/03)
2003 Oct 26, In Spain
conservatives regained control of Madrid's regional legislature in
an election giving PM Aznar's party momentum going into next year's
general elections.
(AP, 10/27/03)
2003 Oct 27, A new US stamp
dedicated to Theodore Geisel (d.1991), creator of Dr. Seuss, was
introduced at the Dr. Seuss National Memorial Sculpture Garden in
Springfield, Mass.
(SFC, 10/16/03, p.E13)
2003 Oct 27, Rod Roddy (66),
the flamboyantly dressed announcer on the TV game show "The Price is
Right" for nearly 20 years, died in LA.
(AP, 10/28/03)
2003 Oct 27, Walter Edward
Washington (88), former Washington, D.C. Mayor died.
(AP, 10/27/04)
2003 Oct 27, Bank of America
Corp. said it agreed to buy FleetBoston Financial Corp. for nearly
$47 billion in stock, creating the second-largest U.S. bank.
(AP, 10/27/03)
2003 Oct 27, The southern
California fires crossed into Mexico. The death toll climbed to 15
and damages were estimated to top $500 million.
(SFC, 10/28/03, p.A1)(WSJ, 10/28/03, p.A1)
2003 Oct 27, Millions of
Muslims across Asia began the fasting month of Ramadan.
(AP, 10/27/03)
2003 Oct 27, In Brazil the 22nd
Socialist International Congress opened. Some 600 delegates from
more than 100 political parties met under the 52-year-old Socialist
International's motto: "For a more human society. For a world more
fair and just."
(AP, 10/28/03)
2003 Oct 27, In Burundi
fighting between government soldiers and Hutu rebels has forced more
than 5,000 people to flee their homes in the hills surrounding the
capital of Bujumbura.
(AP, 10/28/03)
2003 Oct 27, In Haiti police
raided Raboteau, a slain gang leader's seaside slum, and arrested a
dozen of his cronies in retaliation for a police station attack the
day before. At least one person was killed.
(AP, 10/28/03)
2003 Oct 27, In Iraq suicide
car bombers on the 1st day of Ramadan struck the international Red
Cross headquarters and three police stations across Baghdad, killing
43 people and wounding at least 224.
(AP, 10/27/03)(SFC, 10/28/03, p.A1)(WSJ, 4/19/04,
p.A14)
2003 Oct 27, Hezbollah
guerrillas shelled Israeli positions in southern Lebanon for the
first time in two months, wounding an Israeli soldier and triggering
Israeli airstrikes and artillery fire. The Israeli positions
were in Chebaa Farms, which Lebanon and Syria say belongs to
Lebanon. The UN says the area is Syrian and that Syria and Israel
should negotiate its fate. Israel captured the Chebaa Farms area
from Syria in the 1967 Middle East war
(AP, 10/27/03)(AP, 10/30/03)
2003 Oct 27, Prosecutors in the
Netherlands said Momir Nikolic (48), a Bosnian Serb captain who
admitted participating in the mass killing of more than 7,000 Muslim
boys and men in Srebrenica, should serve up to 20 years in
prison. Nikolic accepted that he was on duty when 80-100
prisoners were decapitated and their corpses loaded onto trucks on
July 12, 1995. In 2006 a UN appeals court reduced his 27-year
sentence to 20 years.
(AP, 10/28/03)(AP, 3/8/06)
2003 Oct 27, UN police and
NATO-led peacekeepers near Pristina, Serbia, arrested 5 former
ethnic Albanian rebels for alleged war crimes in Kosovo.
(AP, 10/28/03)
2003 Oct 27, The weekend arrest
of Russia's oil executive Mikhail Khodorkovsky, sparked a plunge in
Russian share prices.
(AP, 10/28/03)
2003 Oct 28, The US Senate
approved Utah's Gov. Mike Leavitt as head of the EPA.
(SFC, 10/29/03, p.A3)
2003 Oct 28, The seven
astronauts who died in the February 1 Columbia shuttle disaster were
honored with the unveiling of their names carved into the national
Space Mirror Memorial in Florida.
(AP, 10/28/08)
2003 Oct 28, In SF it was
announced that the Helen Diller Family Foundation would make a $35
million donation to the new cancer research center of UCSF at
Mission Bay. The new 5-story Diller Building, designed by
Uruguay-born architect, Rafael Vinoly, opened in 2009.
(SFC, 10/28/03, p.B1)(SFC, 6/2/09, p.E8)
2003 Oct 28, Wells Fargo
announced a new Identity Theft Assistance Center.
(SFC, 10/29/03, p.B1)
2003 Oct 28, Southern
California fires covered 600,000 acres. The death toll climbed to
20. Some 11,467 firefighters covered the blazes. Arson was suspected
in most of the 10 fires. Firefighters saved hundreds of homes in the
San Fernando Valley from California's deadliest wildfires in more
than a decade. In 2009 Rickie Lee Fowler (28) was indicted on murder
and arson charges for a 2003 wildfire that destroyed nearly 1,000
homes in San Bernadino County.
(SFC, 10/29/03, p.A1)(AP, 10/28/08)(SFC,
10/21/09, p.A4)
2003 Oct 28, It was reported
that Forbes Magazine had estimated Yasser Arafat's fortune at some
$300 million, with much of it controlled by adviser Mohammed Rachid.
(SFC, 10/28/03, p.A3)
2003 Oct 28, A Soyuz space
capsule with 3 astronauts from the International Space Station
landed in Kazakhstan.
(SFC, 10/28/03, p.A1)
2003 Oct 28, Australia and New
Zealand they will start withdrawing troops from the Solomon Islands,
claiming success in a mission to restore law and order.
(AP, 10/28/03)
2003 Oct 28, Chechen rebels
killed 8 Russian soldiers in a series of attacks.
(WSJ, 10/29/03, p.A1)
2003 Oct 28, Czech Independence
Day. Cathrin Schauer published her book “Children Walk the Streets,”
a chronicle of child prostitution along the Czech-German border.
(WPR, 3/04, p.45)
2003 Oct 28, Former Guatemala
paramilitary fighters released four journalists and three other
hostages after the government promised to pay the ex-soldiers for
their services during the 36-year civil war.
(AP, 10/28/03)
2003 Oct 28, In Iraq a car bomb
exploded near a police station on a major street in the tense city
of Fallujah, killing at least four people.
(AP, 10/28/03)
2003 Oct 28, In Iraq 2 American
soldiers were killed when their Abrams battle tank was damaged by
resistance fighters 45 miles north of Baghdad. Total US deaths reach
115 and surpassed the 114 killed during the initial war Mar 20-May
1.
(AP, 10/29/03)
2003 Oct 28, In southern Iraq 7
Ukrainian peacekeepers were wounded when militants attacked their
patrol. 1,650 Ukrainian troops served in the Polish-led
stabilization force.
(AP, 10/29/03)
2003 Oct 28, Japan's Sony Corp.
said it would cut 20,000 workers and reduce costs by $3 billion over
the next 4 years.
(SFC, 10/29/03, p.B3)
2003 Oct 28, In Mexico City
high-level officials of the Organization of American States ended
two day of talks with a new security agenda.
(AP, 10/29/03)
2003 Oct 28, In central Nepal
rebels attacked a police station, killing at least 8 people.
(AP, 10/28/03)
2003 Oct 28, Joan Perucho (82),
judge, novelist and art critic, died in Barcelona.
(SFC, 10/31/03, p.A25)
2003 Oct 28, In western Sudan a
helicopter transporting troops crashed, killing 19 members of the
armed forces and a university student.
(AP, 10/29/03)
2003 Oct 29, A powerful
geomagnetic storm walloped the Earth, knocking out some airline
communications but apparently causing no large power outages or
other major problems.
(AP, 10/29/04)
2003 Oct 29, Arnold
Schwarzenegger met with leaders in Washington DC and pushed for fire
relief in California and a stronger ban on assault weapons. Steven
Rucker (38), a firefighter from Novato, was killed in the Cedar
blaze as the death toll rose to 20.
(SFC, 10/30/03, p.A1)(WSJ, 10/30/03, p.A1)
2003 Oct 29, Harry Clement
Stubbs (81), science fiction writer, died. His books included
"Mission of Gravity" (1953).
(SFC, 11/1/03, p.A21)
2003 Oct 29, The Afghan Supreme
Court issued a condemnation against Vida Samadzai (33) for competing
as Miss Afghanistan in the Miss Earth competition in Manila.
(USAT, 10/30/03, p.13A)
2003 Oct 29, In the Bahamas
Cordell Farrington (35), a hardware store stock clerk, was charged
with five counts of murder in connection with the disappearance of
four boys and a young man on Grand Bahama Island.
(AP, 10/29/03)
2003 Oct 29, Lenslet, an
Israeli start-up, has developed a processor that uses optics instead
of silicon, enabling it to compute at the speed of light.
(Reuters, 10/29/03)
2003 Oct 29, In Indonesia an
air force helicopter crashed at an air strip on the southern
outskirts of Jakarta, killing all 7 people aboard.
(AP, 10/29/03)
2003 Oct 29, International
organizations continued their exodus from Iraq in the wake of car
bombings in the capital and attacks against coalition troops.
(AP, 10/29/04)
2003 Oct 29, Italian tenor
Franco Corelli (82), one of the top opera stars of the 20th century,
died in Milan.
(AP, 10/31/03)(SFC, 11/1/03, p.A21)
2003 Oct 29, A Mexican
electoral court annulled the results of the July 6 elections for the
governorship of the southern state of Colima after concluding that
the outgoing governor interfered in the race.
(AP, 10/30/03)
2003 Oct 29, In southern Russia
search crews blasted through solid rock to rescue 11 of 13 coal
miners after six days trapped in a deep shaft. One died and one
remained missing.
(AP, 10/29/03)
2003 Oct 30, The US House
approved an $87.5 billion package for Iraq and Afghanistan.
(AP, 10/30/04)
2003 Oct 30, The US Commerce
Dept. said GDP grew 7.2% over the last quarter.
(SFC, 10/31/03, p.A1)
2003 Oct 30, The US Senate
passed legislation allowing thinning of forests across the West.
(SFC, 10/31/03, p.A1)
2003 Oct 30, A multistory
parking garage under construction at the Tropicana Casino &
Resort in Atlantic City, NJ, collapsed, killing 4 construction
workers and injuring 22 others.
(Reuters, 10/30/03)(SFC, 10/31/03, p.A3)(AP,
10/30/08)
2003 Oct 30, The US and 29
other countries pledged $18.4 million to create a new war crimes
court in Bosnia that will lighten the load at the U.N. tribunal in
the Netherlands.
(AP, 10/30/03)
2003 Oct 30, In Italy former
Premier Giulio Andreotti was acquitted of charges he ordered the
Mafia killing of a journalist in 1979, wiping out the veteran
politician's previous conviction.
(AP, 10/30/03)
2003 Oct 30, In Panama more
than 20,000 teachers and construction workers stayed off the job,
staging a daylong strike to demand that the government retain
control over the country's social security system.
(AP, 10/31/03)
2003 Oct 30, President Vladimir
Putin tightened his grip on the Kremlin by relieving his chief of
staff from duty. Putin named Dmitry Medvedev, the first deputy chief
of staff and the chairman of the Russian natural gas giant Gazprom,
to succeed Alexander Voloshin in the post.
(AP, 10/30/03)
2003 Oct 30, In northeastern
Uganda soldiers clashed with rebels, killing 33 insurgents in three
separate battles over the last 2 days. 3 soldiers were killed.
(AP, 10/31/03)
2003 Oct 30, The UN ordered all
its non-Iraqi staff to leave Baghdad.
(WSJ, 4/19/04, p.A14)
2003 Oct 31, A new e-mail
virus, "Mimail.C.," started spreading to corporate computers and is
headed for home computers, but computer security experts said they
expect the outbreak to wind down over the weekend.
(AP, 11/1/03)
2003 Oct 31, In California
lawyer Gerald Curry was shot 5 times by William Strier outside a
courthouse in San Fernando Valley. The shooting was caught on
videotape by crews covering actor Robert Blake's murder case in Van
Nuys. In 2006 Strier (66) was convicted of attempted murder and
sentenced to life in prison plus 25 years.
(SFC, 1/21/06, p.B2)(AP, 10/31/08)
2003 Oct 31, In SF Victor Bach
(71) was killed at his Mission District office, Western Plumbing and
Heating on Halloween. His wife was later charged with defrauding the
business and a trust account that he was overseeing. In 2008 Kathy
Bach (57) was convicted of 13-theft related charges for defrauding
her husband’s business and a private trust that he oversaw.
(SFC, 3/16/05, p.B4)(SFC, 11/18/08, p.B2)
2003 Oct 31, Bethany Hamilton,
teen surfing star, lost her left arm in a shark attack off Kauai,
Hawaii.
(AP, 10/31/04)
2003 Oct 31, The EPA rejected
new restrictions on weed-killer atrazine. It was suspected of
causing mutations in frogs.
(WSJ, 11/3/03, p.A1)
2003 Oct 31, Richard E.
Neustadt (84), the noted presidential adviser, scholar and historian
who was a founder of Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, died in
England. His 1960 book "Presidential Power: The Politics of
Leadership," offered insight into government decision-making.
(AP, 11/2/03)(Econ, 11/15/03, p.81)
2003 Oct 31, Fighting between
Afghan soldiers and police in a tense province in southern
Afghanistan killed two military commanders and up to eight
policemen.
(AP, 11/1/03)
2003 Oct 31, Thousands of
Argentines banged pots and pans on street corners and apartment
balconies across the capital to protest rising crime.
(AP, 10/31/03)
2003 Oct 31, Ilham Aliev was
inaugurated as Azerbaijan's new president, succeeding his ailing
father as leader of the oil-rich former Soviet republic.
(AP, 10/31/03)
2003 Oct 31, A wildlife expert
said a rabies outbreak is threatening the few hundred remaining
Ethiopian wolves, one of the world's rarest animals.
(AP, 10/31/03)
2003 Oct 31, Kamato Hongo
(116), a Japanese woman believed to have been the world's oldest
person, died.
(AP, 10/31/03)
2003 Oct 31, Abdullah Ahmad
Badawi became Malaysia's first new prime minister in a generation,
succeeding Mahathir Mohamad.
(AP, 10/31/03)
2003 Oct 31, Taiwan's Pres.
Chen Shui-bian took his campaign for a new constitution to New York,
as Taiwanese media widely reported protests by Beijing supporters
against his visit. He described his campaign for a new constitution
as an effort to increase government efficiency.
(AP, 11/1/03)
2003 Oct, Donald Rumsfeld
approved a CIA request to hold a suspected Iraqi terrorist in secret
and shield his detention from the Red Cross.
(WSJ, 6/17/04, p.A1)
2003 Oct, Apple Corp.
introduced a Windows version of the Mac music jukebox software,
iTunes.
(SFC, 1/24/04, p.A12)
2003 Oct, US home ownership in
the 3rd quarter rose to a record 68.4% of households.
(WSJ, 1/2/04, p.R12)
2003 Oct, In Florida farm
worker Felipe Santos (23) disappeared after he was arrested by
Sheriff’s Deputy Steven Calkins following a fender bender.
(SFC, 4/5/12, p.A9)
2003 Oct, The first Frieze Art
Fair was launched in London and attracted over 27,000 visitors. It
grew to become the city’s biggest contemporary art show.
(WSJ, 10/10/08,
p.W1)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frieze_Art_Fair)
2003 Oct, A storm split apart
the world's largest iceberg (B15), about the size of Jamaica, off
the coast of Antarctica. It is believed to have caused the deaths of
millions of penguins after it blocked access to the sea from the
Ross Ice Shelf.
(SFC, 11/8/03, p.A26)
2003 Oct, In Santiago, Chile,
Claudio Spiniak, a wealthy businessman, and 6 colleagues were
charged with using a luxury gym for sadomasochistic orgies with
children. An estimated 4,000 children worked in Chile's commercial
sex trade.
(SFC, 11/24/03, p.F1)
2003 Oct, A bolt of lightning
killed 11 students at the Mpimba Institute in Bikoro, Congo.
(SFC, 10/18/03, p.A26)
2003 Oct, Denmark cut taxes on
spirits by 45%.
(Econ, 11/15/03, p.49)
2003 Oct, Air Arabia, a Sharjah
government-owned airline, launched services from Dubai. It billed
itself as the Middle East's first budget airline.
(AP, 6/1/04)
2003 Oct, The IMF suspended a
$600 million loan program to the Dominican Republic, agreed upon in
August, after the government paid out a similar amount to
re-nationalize the 2 main electricity distributors.
(Econ, 12/13/03, p.35)
2003 Oct, In Ecuador Cesar
Fernandez, former governor of a coastal province, was arrested for
exporting almost half a ton of cocaine to Mexico. Allegation later
arose that Fernandez had contributed to the election campaign of
Pres. Lucio Gutierrez.
(Econ, 11/29/03, p.35)
2003 Oct, Sean O'Sullivan (39),
American documentary filmmaker, arrived in Iraq and formed JumpStart
Int'l., a private non-profit effort to clean up bombed and burned
sites in Baghdad using Iraqi labor.
(SSFC, 4/4/04, p.A3)
2003 Oct, Transparency
International ranked Ecuador as the 2nd most corrupt country in
Latin America.
(Econ, 11/1/03, p.36)
2003 Oct, Roberto Colannino
bought a controlling stake in Piaggio, the Italian scooter maker.
Debts at the time were equal to 60% of annual sales.
(Econ, 7/15/06, p.64)
2003 Oct, Washington reopened
its embassy on the tropical Equatorial Guinea's island capital of
Malabo after an eight-year shutdown. The tiny West African country
has a tremendous amount of oil. Pres. Teodoro Obiang has had his
opponents imprisoned and tortured, his presidential predecessor
executed by firing squad, and has helped himself to the state
treasury at will. State radio recently declared him "like God."
(AP, 11/17/03)
2003 Oct, Israel approved a
plan to spend at least $56 million to expand settlements on the
occupied Golan Heights.
(AP, 12/31/03)
2003 Oct, In Kenya Pres. Kibaki
suspended half of the 12-man appeal court and 17 of the high court's
44 judges. 82 or the country's 254 magistrates were also sent home.
An official inquiry revealed that some judges had specific charges
for favorable verdicts. Replacements were chosen by members of the
"Mount Kenya Mafia," a group of ministers and mates from the
president's Kikuyu tribe.
(Econ, 11/29/03, p.44)
2003 Oct, The Panama-registered
tanker African Pride, carrying 11,300 tons of crude oil, was boarded
by the Nigerian navy. The oil had allegedly been stolen by pirates
in the Niger Delta. 12 Russian sailors, two Romanians and a Georgian
were imprisoned in Nigeria. 2 naval admirals were prosecuted and
dismissed after the Greek-owned ship disappeared following its
seizure. In 2005 a Nigerian court agreed to free the sailors on
bail.
(AP, 8/5/05)
2003 Oct, Pakistan security
operatives arrested Javed Hashmi, head of the 15-party Alliance for
the Restoration of Democracy, for treason and attempting to incite
rebellion among the armed forces. 9 days earlier he had gone public
with an anonymous letter, purportedly from army officials, that
challenged Pres. Musharraf's cooperation with the US.
(SFC, 3/23/04, p.F1)
2003 Oct, Pres. Putin attended
the opening a Russian air base in Kant, Kyrgyzstan.
(Econ, 11/1/03, p.40)
2003 Oct, Uzbekistan made its
currency, the som, convertible, but foreign exchange was still made
difficult by the banks.
(Econ, 3/27/04, p.44)
2003 Nov 1, Democratic
presidential candidate Howard Dean stirred controversy within his
party by telling the Des Moines Register he wanted to be "the
candidate for guys with Confederate flags in their pickup trucks."
The former Vermont governor explained that he intended to encourage
the return of Southern voters who had abandoned the Democrats for
decades but were disaffected with the Republicans.
(AP, 11/1/04)
2003 Nov 1, Two small rebel
groups, the last rebel holdouts in eastern Congo, agreed to join the
country's transitional government. Leaders, Patrick Masunzu and
Aaron Nyamushebwa, agreed to join the government and integrate their
forces into a new national army.
(AP, 11/4/03)
2003 Nov 1, About 100,000
people took to the streets of Berlin to demonstrate against
Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's plans to trim Germany's generous
welfare state.
(AP, 11/1/03)
2003 Nov 1, In western India a
tourist bus skidded off a mountain road near Mahabaleshwar and fell
into a gorge, killing 22 people and injuring 30 others.
(AP, 11/2/03)
2003 Nov 1, In Iraq a roadside
bomb killed at least two US soldiers in Mosul.
(AP, 11/1/03)
2003 Nov 1, It was reported
that over a dozen members of Saddam Hussein's government have been
shot dead in the streets of Basra over the last month.
(SFC, 11/1/03, p.A8)
2003 Nov 1, Yehiel Shemi (81),
an Israeli sculptor renowned for his abstract works in metal, died.
(AP, 11/2/03)
2003 Nov 1, Macedonia launched
a lottery to reduce the number of light arms held by the public. An
amnesty for turning in arms was set to expire Dec 15.
(SSFC, 12/14/03, p.A14)
2003 Nov 1, It was reported
that central Sudan was experiencing its worst grasshopper attack in
3 decades. At least 11 people died and more than 16,000 were
hospitalized with a respiratory illness doctors link to an annual
locust invasion.
(SFC, 11/1/03, p.A8)(AP, 11/2/03)
2003 Nov 1, Taipei, Taiwan,
held the Chinese world's 1st gay pride parade.
(USAT, 2/5/04, p.10A)
2003 Nov 2, The US Episcopal
Church consecrated V. Gene Robinson as bishop in New Hampshire,
making him the first openly gay man to rise to that rank in any of
the world's major Christian bodies.
(AP, 11/3/03)
2003 Nov 2, The NYC Marathon
was won by Martin Lel of Kenya in 2:10:30; Margaret Okayo of Kenya
won the women's title in 2:22:31, a course record.
(WSJ, 11/4/02, p.A1)
2003 Nov 2, Frank McCloskey
(64), who represented Indiana's 8th District in Congress
(1983-1995), died in Bloomington.
(SFC, 11/4/03, p.A21)
2003 Nov 2, Burundi's president
and main rebel leader signed a peace agreement, but efforts to end
the decade-long civil war were threatened by renewed fighting
between Tutsi-dominated government troops and other Hutu rebels.
(AP, 11/2/03)
2003 Nov 2, Colombian troops
killed Luis Alexis Castellanos Garzon a FARC regional rebel
commander, the fifth guerrilla leader slain in less than a month.
(AP, 11/4/03)
2003 Nov 2, In Havana, Cuba, 71
American firms from 18 states and Puerto Rico opened trade fair
displays under an exception in a 42-year US trade embargo.
(AP, 11/2/03)
2003 Nov 2, Georgia held
parliamentary elections and opinion polls said the opposition would
take control unless there was massive fraud. Parliamentary
candidates allied with Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze held a
slim lead in elections that European monitors said were marred by
irregularities.
(SFC, 11/3/03, p.A3)(AP, 11/4/03)
2003 Nov 2, In Hong Kong Robert
Kissel, a Merrill Lynch investment banker, was killed. Nancy Kissel
was soon accused of drugging her husband with a milkshake laced with
sedatives before fatally beating him on the head with a metal
ornament. In 2005 Kissel testified that the day her 40-year-old
husband died, he told her he was divorcing her and taking their 3
children. She said that during an argument, he hit her with a
baseball bat and she struck him with a metal statue with human
figurines. In 2007 Joe McGinniss authored “Never Enough,” a
non-fiction account of the crime. In 2010 Hong Kong's highest court
overturned her murder conviction and ordered that she be retried. On
March 25, 2011, Nancy Kissel was convicted of murder for a 2nd time.
The unanimous verdict carried an automatic life sentence.
(AP, 6/8/05)(AP, 8/4/05)(WSJ, 12/27/07, p.D7)(AP,
2/11/10)(AP, 3/25/11)
2003 Nov 2, On Indonesia's
Sumatra island flash floods swept through a popular tourist resort,
killing 66 people, five of them foreigners, and leaving dozens
missing.
(AP, 11/3/03)
2003 Nov 2, In central Iraq
insurgents shot down a US Chinook helicopter as it carried troops
headed for R&R, killing 16 soldiers and wounding 21. Attacks on
US troops reached 33 a day.
(SSFC, 11/2/03, p.A1)(AP, 11/2/08)
2003 Nov 2, More than 6,000
Palestinian laborers crossed into Israel from the Gaza Strip on as
Israel slightly eased restrictions that had prevented them from
reaching their workplaces for more than a month.
(AP, 11/2/03)
2003 Nov 3, The US Congress
voted its final approval for $87.5 billion for U.S. military
operations and aid in Iraq and Afghanistan.
(AP, 11/3/04)
2003 Nov 3, The FDA issued
draft guidelines outlining when drug companies must submit
information on how medicines affect people differently depending on
their genetic makeup.
(WSJ, 11/3/03, p.B1)
2003 Nov 3, A US court
settlement gave Linda Tripp $595,000 from the Defense Dept. to
settle claims that officials leaked personal information. Tripp had
secretly taped Monica Lewinsky's confessions of a sexual affair with
Pres. Clinton.
(SFC, 11/4/03, p.A3)
2003 Nov 3, Afghanistan
unveiled a post-Taliban draft constitution.
(AP, 11/3/03)
2003 Nov 3, It was reported
from Burundi that a decade of civil war as well as fighting in
neighboring Congo had decimated the once 300-strong herd of hippos
whose habitat is the marshy Ruzizi River that flows from the
northern end of Lake Tanganyika. In August, the World Wildlife Fund
warned that 185 miles to the north, only 1,300 hippos of the 29,000
recorded 30 years ago remained in and around Lake Edward.
(AP, 11/3/03)
2003 Nov 3, In China Yang Zhiya
(Yang Xinhai, Yang Xinhua), an ex-convict dumped by his girlfriend,
was arrested in northern Hebei province for the stabbing murders of
67 people and 23 rapes. Xinhai was sentenced to death on Feb 1,
2004. He was executed Feb 14.
(AP, 11/15/03)(AP, 2/1/04)(AP, 2/14/04)
2003 Nov 3, Rasul Gamzatov,
Dagestan poet, died in Moscow. He wrote in Avar, a language spoken
by some 500,000 people in Dagestan. He also wrote the prose work "My
Dagestan."
(SFC, 11/4/03, p.A21)
2003 Nov 3, The EU condemned
lingering anti-Jewish bias it said was reflected in a new survey,
which found that many Europeans see Israel as a threat to world
peace.
(AP, 11/3/03)
2003 Nov 3, Israel's Minister
of the Environment said the Dead Sea is dying, and only a major
engineering effort can save it.
(AP, 11/4/03)
2003 Nov 3, A suicide bomber,
Sabih Abu Saud (16), blew himself up near an army checkpoint in the
West Bank, killing himself but causing no other casualties.
(AP, 11/3/03)(SFC, 11/4/03, p.A10)
2003 Nov 3, Russia's richest
man, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, already jailed on fraud and tax evasion
charges, resigned as head of the Russian oil giant Yukos.
(AP, 11/3/04)
2003 Nov 3, Saudi police
battled militants in the streets of the holy city of Mecca, killing
two of the suspects and uncovering a large cache of weapons. Police
arrested six al-Qaida suspects.
(AP, 11/3/03)(AP, 11/4/03)
2003 Nov 3, Spanish authorities
closed the border with the British colony of Gibraltar before the
arrival of a virus-stricken cruise ship carrying some 2,000
passengers. More than 400 passengers on the ship fell ill with a
norovirus after the ship left Southampton, England, for a
Mediterranean voyage on Oct. 20.
(AP, 11/3/03)
2003 Nov 4, Following a
conservative outcry over a made-for-TV movie about former President
Ronald Reagan, CBS scrapped plans to televise "The Reagans," sending
it off to the Showtime cable network instead.
(AP, 11/4/04)
2003 Nov 4, Republicans picked
up two governorships in the South. Haley Barbour ousted
Mississippi's Democratic incumbent Ronnie Musgrove. Rep. Ernie
Fletcher won Kentucky's top job ousting Democrats from power after
32 years.
(AP, 11/5/03)(SFC, 11/5/03, p.A16)
2003 Nov 4, In Arizona Mexican
President Vicente Fox stressed the importance of continuing a
dialogue on immigration issues with the United States as he started
a tour of 3 border states.
(AP, 11/5/03)
2003 Nov 4, A shootout in
Arizona left 4 dead and 5 wounded along I-10. Police described a car
chase and gun battle among immigrant smugglers.
(WSJ, 11/5/03, p.A1)
2003 Nov 4, Richard M. Scrushy,
former chairman of HealthSouth Corp., was indicted for participating
in a nearly $3 billion accounting fraud.
(WSJ, 11/4/03, p.A3)
2003 Nov 4, California
firefighters gained control over record south state fires that
killed 20 people and destroyed over 3,570 homes.
(WSJ, 11/4/03, p.A1)
2003 Nov 4, It was reported
that world sulfur stocks were at record highs and that the energy
industry produces some 64 million tons a year, far more than needed.
(WSJ, 11/4/03, p.A1)
2003 Nov 4, The Minasa Bone, an
Indonesian fishing boat with 14 Kurds aboard, sought asylum on
Melville Island, Australia. The government quickly moved to separate
Melville Island from Australia for migratory purposes and forced the
boat back to Indonesia.
(Econ, 11/22/03, p.41)
2003 Nov 4, In eastern England
Luke Walmsley (14) died from a single stab wound to the heart at
Birkbeck School in the village of North Somercotes, near Louth.
Police charged a 15-year-old boy with murder after the fatal
stabbing.
(AP, 11/6/03)
2003 Nov 4, Charles Causley
(86), English poet, died.
(Econ, 11/22/03, p.85)
2003 Nov 4, Richard
Arthur Wollheim, a philosophy professor whose writing on visual art
and psychoanalysis made him one of the field's most innovative
thinkers, died in London. He set out his views about visual art in
"Painting as an Art," (1987). He was credited with coining the term
"Minimalism" in his 1965 essay "Minimal Art," about monochromatic
painting and Marcel Duchamp's piecing together of everyday objects
into artworks. His 1968 book "Art and Its Objects" also won high
praise. In 2006 his memoir “Germs” was published posthumously.
(AP, 11/8/03)(WSJ, 10/28/06, p.P12)
2003 Nov 4, Germany's defense
minister dismissed the head of the country's elite special forces
after the general praised a conservative lawmaker under
investigation for alleged anti-Semitic remarks.
(AP, 11/4/03)
2003 Nov 4, Kenyan-born former
physicist M.G. Vassanji was awarded this year's Giller Prize,
Canada's most glamorous and lucrative literary award. He took home
C$25,000 prize for his novel, "The In-Between World of Vikram Lall."
(AP, 11/5/03)
2003 Nov 4, In Nigeria pirates
armed with automatic rifles and dressed in camouflage fatigues
ambushed a police boat in the troubled oil delta. 5 officers were
missing and presumed killed.
(AP, 11/6/03)
2003 Nov 4, Russia's embattled
Yukos oil giant said it appointed Simon Kukes (56), a Russian-born
US citizen as new chief executive to replace jailed chairman Mikhail
Khodorkovsky, who resigned a day earlier.
(AP, 11/4/03)(SFC, 11/4/03, p.A3)
2003 Nov 4, Sri Lanka's Pres.
Kumaratunga suspended Parliament and deployed troops around the
capital after firing three key cabinet ministers who were trying to
coax Tamil rebels back into talks to end a 20-year civil war. Her PM
and arch foe, Ranil Wickremessinghe, was in Washington to confer
with Pres. Bush.
(AP, 11/4/03)(WSJ, 11/6/03, p.A1)(SFC, 11/7/03,
p.A3)
2003 Nov 5, Pres. Bush met with
Congo Pres. Joseph Kabila, who sought assurances of continued US
humanitarian aid. The US has committed $77 million this year.
(SFC, 11/6/03, p.A3)
2003 Nov 5, President Bush
signed a bill outlawing the procedure known by its critics as
''partial-birth abortion.'' Less than an hour later, a federal judge
in Nebraska issued a temporary restraining order against the ban. In
2007 the US Supreme Court upheld the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act.
(WSJ, 11/6/03, p.A1)(AP, 11/5/08)
2003 Nov 5, Democratic
presidential hopeful Howard Dean apologized for urging Democrats to
court Southern whites who displayed Confederate flags on their
pickup trucks.
(AP, 11/5/04)
2003 Nov 5, In Seattle, Wa.,
Gary Leon Ridgeway pleaded guilty 48 consecutive times for the Green
River murders that began in 1982. On Dec 18 he was sentenced to 48
consecutive life terms and ordered to pay $480,000.
(SFC, 11/6/03, p.A1)(SFC, 12/19/03, p.A3)
2003 Nov 5, Mexican President
Vicente Fox asked New Mexico state leaders for better treatment of
illegal immigrants from his country.
(AP, 11/5/03)
2003 Nov 5, Bobby Hatfield
(63), the tenor half of The Righteous Brothers, who made "You've
Lost That Lovin' Feeling" a worldwide hit, was found dead in a
Kalamazoo, Mich., hotel. An autopsy revealed that his death was
triggered by acute cocaine intoxication.
(AP, 11/6/03)(SFC, 1/8/04, p.E5)
2003 Nov 5, Cambodia's three
main parties agreed to form a tripartite coalition government with
Prime Minister Hun Sen at the helm, ending a deadlock from
inconclusive elections.
(AP, 11/5/03)
2003 Nov 5, Chinese tycoon
Aikelamu Aishayoufu was reported to be missing. His Xinjiang Hops
Co. ran up liabilities totaling $100 million.
(WSJ, 11/5/03, p.A1)
2003 Nov 5, In Georgia
opposition parties protested for a 2nd day, accusing President
Eduard Shevardnadze's government of rigging the results of
parliamentary elections.
(AP, 11/5/03)
2003 Nov 5, In Sri Lanka Pres.
Kumaratunga declared a state of emergency.
(Econ, 11/8/03, p.41)
2003 Nov 5, Two buses collided
in northern Tanzania, killing at least 25 people.
(AP, 11/5/03)
2003 Nov 6, Pres. Bush signed
the $87.5 billion spending bill for Afghanistan and Iraq.
(WSJ, 11/7/03, p.A1)(AP, 11/6/04)
2003 Nov 6, Federal judges in
New York and California blocked a new ban on certain late-term
abortions, a day after President Bush signed it into law.
(AP, 11/6/04)
2003 Nov 6, The US Mint
unveiled the new nickel
(AP, 11/6/04)
2003 Nov 6, Gene scientists
published a map in Nature that shows how DNA controls protein
interactions in the fruit fly.
(WSJ, 11/7/03, p.A1)
2003 Nov 6, Two American
soldiers were killed near Baghdad and along the Syrian border.
Polish forces suffered their first combat death when a Polish major
was fatally wounded in an ambush south of the capital.
(AP, 11/6/03)
2003 Nov 6, In the Congo
Republic 9 people have died in a suspected outbreak of the deadly
Ebola virus in a remote forest region where 120 were killed by the
disease earlier this year.
(Reuters, 11/7/03)
2003 Nov 6, In India workers
burned down a house and killed 21 people from a rival trade union in
a battle over jobs at an Indian tea farm.
(AP, 11/6/03)
2003 Nov 6, Indonesia extended
martial law and its military offensive in Aceh for 6 months.
(SFC, 11/7/03, p.A9)
2003 Nov 6, In Saudi Arabia 2
suspected militants blew themselves up in Mecca when security forces
tried to arrest them. A 3rd was shot to death by police during a
raid in Riyadh.
(AP, 11/6/03)
2003 Nov 7, The US and Russia
signed an agreement under which Russia would retrieve, within the
next 5 to 10 years, uranium from research reactors in 17 countries.
(SSFC, 11/23/03, p.A16)
2003 Nov 7, The US Labor Dept.
reported an increase of 126,000 jobs outside the farm sector for
October.
(SFC, 11/8/03, p.A1)
2003 Nov 7, The New Hampshire
Supreme Court ruled that a lesbian affair did not constitute
adultery under state law.
(SFC, 11/8/03, p.A2)
2003 Nov 7, The Cincinnati
Stock Exchange, located in Chicago, renamed itself the National
Stock Exchange. The CBOE owned 68% of it.
(Econ, 11/15/03, p.69)
2003 Nov 7, Prof. Donald
Griffin (88) of Harvard, leading proponent of animal consciousness,
died. "There is now abundant evidence of non-human cognition and
consciousness."
(WSJ, 11/28/03, p.B1)
2003 Nov 7, France and Russia
signed an accord that is intended to pave the way for the eventual
launch of Russian rockets from a French launch pad in South America.
(AP, 11/7/03)
2003 Nov 7, In Tikrit, Iraq, an
Army Black Hawk helicopter crashed, apparently shot down by
insurgents, killing all six U.S. soldiers aboard. 2 other soldiers
were killed near Mosul.
(AP, 11/7/03)
2003 Nov 7, The Israeli Health
Ministry announced the recall of Remedia, a Kosher infant formula,
following 3 reported infant deaths. A production error had cut
vitamin B-1.
(AP, 11/9/03)(WSJ, 11/12/03, p.A1)
2003 Nov 7, The first UN peace
missions to Liberia's rebel-held far east found deserted towns
emptied of all but looting insurgents, and terrorized civilians
under rebel grip or lying rotting, dead, in the bush.
(AP, 11/8/03)
2003 Nov 7, Arab-dominated
Mauritania held a presidential vote hoping to bring the West African
nation's 1st change of power without a coup. Pres. Maaoya Sid'Ahmed
Taya won the vote.
(AP, 11/6/03)(AP, 11/9/03)
2003 Nov 7, The defending
champion US baseball team failed to qualify for the 2004 Athens
Olympics, losing to Mexico 2-1 in the quarterfinals of a qualifying
tournament in Panama City, Panama.
(AP, 11/7/08)
2003 Nov 7, Philippine security
officers shot and killed the country's former top civil aviation
official and a navy reserve officer as they seized the Manila
airport control tower at gunpoint.
(AP, 11/8/03)
2003 Nov 8, Howard Dean
announced he would opt out of the system for publicly financing
elections, and its imposed limits, to better compete against Pres.
Bush.
(SSFC, 11/9/03, p.A1)
2003 Nov 8, The new $188
million Carquinez Bridge in Vallejo, Ca., was dedicated. Costs
reached $340 million with the approaches. Traffic began with massive
tie-ups on Nov 11. It was named the Al Zampa Bridge, in honor of
bridge worker Al Zampa (d.2000 at 95). A Nov 16th date was pushed
forward a week to allow Gov. Davis to officiate.
(SFC, 10/2/03, p.A15)(SFC, 10/17/03, p.A22)(SFC,
11/8/03, p.A19)(SFC, 11/12/03, p.A1)
2003 Nov 8, The AIDS infection
rate in Botswana was reported to be 22% and that few people were
taking advantage of treatment programs.
(SFC, 11/8/03, p.A14)
2003 Nov 8, In Colombia
Arcangel Clavijo, a member of the Liberal Party, was shot and killed
in a nightclub near Cali.
(AP, 11/9/03)
2003 Nov 8, In Iraq insurgents
killed two US paratroopers and wounded another west of Baghdad. In
Tikrit US F-16s battered suspected targets. 5 Iraqis were killed and
16 taken custody in "Operation Ivy Cyclone."
(AP, 11/8/03)
2003 Nov 8, In Saudi Arabia a
suicide car bombing that devastated a Riyadh housing complex,
killing 17 people and wounding more than 120. Officials pointed to
al-Qaida terrorists as responsible.
(SSFC, 11/9/03, p.A1)(AP, 11/8/04)
2003 Nov 8, Rebels in northern
Uganda killed more than 100 civilians in raids over the last five
days. The Lord's Resistance Army raided villages in Lira district.
(AP, 11/10/03)
2003 Nov 9, Endpcnoise.com, a
Vancouver, Washington-based custom outlet, was reported to
specialize in creating nearly silent PCs. These PCs can drop their
noise levels to 25 or 26 decibels, while a human's lowest hearing
threshold is generally considered to be about 20 decibels. A busy
road is about 80 decibels and a quiet bedroom at night is about 30
decibels.
(Reuters, 11/9/03)(www.endpcnoise.com)
2003 Nov 9, Art Carney (b.1918)
died in Chester, Conn. He played Jackie Gleason's sewer worker pal
Ed Norton in the TV classic "The Honeymooners" and went on to win
the 1974 Oscar for best actor in "Harry and Tonto."
(AP, 11/11/03)(SFC, 11/12/03, p.A2)
2003 Nov 9, Gordon Onslow (90),
abstract painter, died in Inverness, Ca.
(SFC, 11/13/03, p.A19)
2003 Nov 9, In Sao Paulo,
Brazil, 87 inmates attempted a prison escape through a 390-foot
tunnel. 48 were captured and 8 died when the tunnel collapsed.
(AP, 11/10/03)
2003 Nov 9, Martha Lucia
Ramirez, Colombia's first woman defense minister, resigned and she
refused to take questions from reporters.
(AP, 11/10/03)
2003 Nov 9, Guatemala held
presidential elections. Polls showed that former Guatemala City
Mayor Oscar Berger (57) was statistically tied with center-left
engineer Alvaro Colom (52).
(AP, 11/7/03)
2003 Nov 9, In central Iran a
crowded bus collided with a truck and a second truck then smashed
into the wreckage of the two vehicles, killing 36 people and
wounding 7 others.
(AP, 11/9/03)
2003 Nov 9, In Iraq a US
military police soldier was killed in a rocket-propelled grenade
attack south of Baghdad. In Sadr City Muhanad al-Kaabi, a
US-appointed district chairman, was shot dead following an argument
with a US soldier guarding his council's headquarters.
(AP, 11/10/03)(WSJ, 11/12/03, p.A16)
2003 Nov 9, Israel's Cabinet
narrowly approved a hotly contested prisoner swap with Lebanese
Hezbollah guerrillas, by a 12-11 vote.
(AP, 11/9/03)
2003 Nov 9, Japanese PM
Junichiro Koizumi's ruling bloc won a majority in the country's
parliamentary elections. The opposition made big gains, narrowing
the ruling coalition's majority on parliament and dampening its
hopes for a strong mandate to carry out ambitious economic and
political reform.
(AP, 11/9/03)(AP, 11/9/08)
2003 Nov 9, In Mauritania armed
security forces arrested Mohamed Ould Khouna Haidalla, the top
losing challenger from presidential elections in this Arab-dominated
desert nation, detaining him after an overnight standoff at his
campaign headquarters.
(AP, 11/9/03)
2003 Nov 9, Palestinian PM
Ahmed Qureia announced the formation of a Cabinet and said he will
present it to parliament this week. It left Yasser Arafat in control
of security forces.
(AP, 11/9/03)
2003 Nov 9, Former Gov. Pedro
Rossello won Puerto Rico's pro-statehood nomination for governor in
a primary, clearing the way for him to run again in the territory's
elections next year.
(AP, 11/9/03)
2003 Nov 9, In South Korea
labor activists and students battled riot police in one of the most
violent protests in years. Dozens were injured. Protesters,
estimated by police at 35,000 and by the labor confederation at
100,000, rallied in central Seoul to protest damages lawsuits that
managers have filed against union leaders accused of staging illegal
strikes.
(AP, 11/9/03)
2003 Nov 9, Pope John Paul II
in St. Peter's Square beatified two Spaniards, an Italian, a Belgian
and a Frenchwoman.
(AP, 11/9/03)
2003 Nov 9, I was reported that
Tuvalu officials were searching nearby islands for relocation due to
rising sea water. They planned to use some $45 million acquired by
selling the .tv internet suffix.
(SSFC, 11/9/03, p.C6)
2003 Nov 10, Democrat John
Kerry shook up his faltering presidential campaign, replacing
campaign manager Jim Jordan with Mary Beth Cahill.
(AP, 11/10/08)
2003 Nov 10, Federal regulators
allowed customers to switch home phone numbers to their cell phones.
(AP, 11/10/04)
2003 Nov 10, A World Trade
Organization panel upheld a ruling that U.S. duties on steel imports
were illegal.
(AP, 11/10/04)
2003 Nov 10, Irv Kupcinet (91),
Chicago newspaper columnist and TV personality, died.
(AP, 11/10/04)
2003 Nov 10, The US State Dept.
distanced itself from a congressional push to capture toppled
Liberian leader Charles Taylor in Nigeria via a $2 million reward.
(SFC, 11/15/03, p.A9)
2003 Nov 10, In Burundi Hutu
rebels bombarded the capital with rockets, killing 5 people,
destroying part of the Chinese Embassy and striking the home of a
U.S. military attache.
(AP, 11/10/03)
2003 Nov 10, With 20 percent of
the vote counted, former Guatemala City Mayor Oscar Berger had 47.6
percent of the vote compared with 26.4 percent for center-left
candidate Alvaro Colom and 11.2 percent for retired Gen. Efrain Rios
Montt.
(AP, 11/10/03)
2003 Nov 10, A top Iranian
official said that his country had suspended its enrichment of
uranium and sent a letter to the IAEA accepting additional
inspections of its nuclear facilities.
(AP, 11/10/03)
2003 Nov 10, PM Junichiro
Koizumi's ruling party clawed its way back to a simple majority in
parliament following elections that strengthened the main opposition
party.
(AP, 11/10/03)
2003 Nov 10, Canaan Sodindo
Banana (b.1936), the first black president of Zimbabwe (1980-1987),
died after a long illness. In 1998, Banana was sentenced to 10 years
in prison for his role in a gay sex scandal, but served only 6
months.
(AP, 11/11/03)(Econ, 11/29/03, p.85)
2003 Nov 11, President Bush's
top foreign advisers summoned L. Paul Bremer, Iraq's U.S.
administrator, for hurried White House talks focused on their
growing frustrations with the Iraqi Governing Council and a logjam
in transferring political power to Iraqis.
(AP, 11/11/04)
2003 Nov 11, It was reported
that gene scientists had determined that a genetic variation helped
slowed the creation of bad cholesterol and helped explain why some
people lived longer. [see 1974]
(WSJ, 11/11/03, p.A1)
2003 Nov 11, Toronto's Roy
Halladay won the American League Cy Young Award.
(AP, 11/11/08)
2003 Nov 11, In Galveston,
Texas, Robert A. Durst, NY multimillionaire who admitted to
butchering his neighbor Morris Black, was acquitted of the man's
murder.
(SFC, 11/12/03, p.A1)
2003 Nov 11, An Afghan soldier
fired on a coalition convoy at a checkpoint in southern Afghanistan,
killing 1 Romanian soldier and wounding a convoy member before
escaping.
(AP, 11/12/03)
2003 Nov 11, The British
government said it wants to introduce compulsory identity cards to
protect against illegal immigration, welfare fraud and terrorism.
Implementation is years away.
(AP, 11/11/03)
2003 Nov 11, In Beijing former
President Clinton called on China and the US to overcome their
differences on trade, saying the two powers must learn to work
together to conquer common threats like AIDS, terrorism and global
warming.
(AP, 11/11/03)
2003 Nov 11, Colombia's housing
and environment minister stepped down, becoming the 3rd member of
President Alvaro Uribe's Cabinet forced out in a week.
(AP, 11/11/03)
2003 Nov 11, The commander of
the Colombian National Police and five other senior police officers
resigned following evidence that the lawmen in Medellin dined in the
most exclusive restaurants, bought expensive jewelry and staged
lavish parties, all on government money.
(AP, 11/12/03)
2003 Nov 11, In Colombia a
radio talk show host was shot dead outside her home in the coastal
city of Santa Marta.
(AP, 11/11/03)
2003 Nov 11, Dominican Republic
police fired rubber bullets at rock-throwing protesters during a
general strike. At least 6 people were reported killed and 60
injured.
(AP, 11/12/03)
2003 Nov 11, In Iraq US troops
opened fire on a truck carrying live chickens near the tense town of
Fallujah, killing 5 civilians aboard the vehicle, including a father
and his two sons.
(AP, 11/12/03)
2003 Nov 11, In Iraq an
explosion on a road frequently used by British troops killed 6
civilians in Basra. The military detained about 20 people suspected
of links to al-Qaida.
(AP, 11/11/03)
2003 Nov 11, The Kurdish
guerrilla group that battled the Turkish army for some 15 years
announced that it was dissolving itself and was planning to form a
new group that would likely would pursue Kurdish rights through
negotiations. The Kurdistan Workers Party changed its name to the
Congress for Freedom and Democracy in Kurdistan, or KADEK, last
year.
(AP, 11/11/03)
2003 Nov 11, Maldives Pres.
Maumoon Abdul Gayoom (65) was sworn in for a record sixth term,
becoming the longest-serving head of state in Asia.
(AP, 11/11/03)
2003 Nov 11, Mexican diplomat
Adolfo Aguilar Zinser (1949-2005), gave a speech to students at
Mexico City's Ibero-American University, in which he claimed that
the political and intellectual class of the United States sees
Mexico as "a country whose position is that of a back yard" (patio
trasero) and that Washington was only interested in "a relationship
of convenience and subordination" and "a weekend fling" (un noviazgo
de fin de semana). President Fox requested his resignation on 18
November.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolfo_Aguilar_Z%C3%Adnser)
2003 Nov 12, President Bush and
his top foreign advisers reviewed new strategies to speed the
transfer of political power in Iraq.
(AP, 11/12/04)
2003 Nov 12, US Senators began
a 40-hour marathon session over the Democrat's refusal to confirm
several of Pres. Bush's judicial nominees.
(SFC, 11/13/03, p.A1)
2003 Nov 12, Research showed
that Pfizer's drug Lipitor lowered LDL cholesterol levels.
(SFC, 11/13/03, p.A1)
2003 Nov 12, Actor Jonathan
Brandis (27) died in Los Angeles.
(AP, 11/12/04)
2003 Nov 12, Penny Singleton
(b.1908), film actress born as Dorothy McNulty, died. She played in
28 movies and was the voice of Blondie on radio (1939-1950). She was
also the voice of Jane Jetson in the futuristic TV cartoon.
(SFC, 11/15/03, p.A23)
2003 Nov 12, In Argentina
thunderstorms swept across the country, causing widespread damage
and at least 12 deaths from accidents, falling trees and
electrocutions.
(AP, 11/12/03)
2003 Nov 12, In Colombia Gen.
Jorge Enrique Mora, commander of the armed forces, became the latest
senior official to quit his post. President Alvaro Uribe chose an
old friend, Jorge Alberto Uribe, as the new defense minister.
(AP, 11/13/03)
2003 Nov 12, A convoy carrying
radioactive waste from a French reprocessing plant reached a storage
site in northern Germany.
(AP, 11/13/03)
2003 Nov 12, In Iraq a suicide
truck bomber attacked the headquarters of Italy's paramilitary
police in Nasiriyah, killing 31 people, including 18 Italians, and
possibly trapping others.
(AP, 11/12/03)(AP, 11/13/03)
2003 Nov 12, Imelda Ortiz
Abdala, a former Mexican consul to Lebanon, was arrested on charges
of helping a smuggling ring move Arab migrants into the United
States from Mexico. Federal agents over the previous 2 days arrested
alleged ring leader Salim Boughader Mucharrafille along with alleged
collaborators Melissa Ataja Valdez and Orlando Alfaro, in Tijuana.
Ortiz Abdala was released in Feb 2005 after Foreign Relations
Department officials testified that she acted properly and was never
in a position to authorize visas on her own, according to Mexican
court documents.
(AP, 11/13/03)(AP, 7/15/05)
2003 Nov 13, Pres. Bush said
the US wants Iraqis to take more responsibility for governing their
troubled country and said coalition forces are determined to prevail
over terrorists.
(AP, 11/13/03)
2003 Nov 13, The US Energy Dept
reported that Dr. Craig Venter and colleagues had assembled a
bacteriophage containing 5,386 DNA base pairs.
(SFC, 11/14/03, p.A7)
2003 Nov 13, Alabama Chief
Justice Roy Moore, who had refused to remove his granite Ten
Commandments monument from the state courthouse, was thrown off the
bench by a judicial ethics panel for having "placed himself above
the law."
(AP, 11/13/04)
2003 Nov 13, Eric Gagne of the
Los Angeles Dodgers won the National League Cy Young Award.
(AP, 11/13/04)
2003 Nov 13, Baseball officials
said 5% of anonymous samples showed steroids present, triggering
mandatory tests next year.
(WSJ, 11/14/03, p.A1)
2003 Nov 13, Dana Stubblefield,
SF 49er defensive lineman, made false statements to an IRS agent
just days before drug tests showed he had taken steroids. In 2008 he
pleaded guilty to lying about his use of performance-enhancing
drugs. He was the first football player prosecuted in the BALCO
steroid scandal.
(SFC, 1/19/08, p.B1)
2003 Nov 13, Cocaine was
reported to generate as much as $500 million of Bolivia's $8.5
billion economic output. Nearly 30,000 acres of coca production was
allowed for domestic use.
(WSJ, 11/13/03, p.A14)
2003 Nov 13, In Haiti hundreds
of government opponents protested in Port-au-Prince, calling for the
resignation of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide because of deepening
poverty and insecurity in the Caribbean country.
(AP, 11/13/03)
2003 Nov 13, Mitoyo Kawate, a
114-year-old Japanese woman who just weeks ago assumed the title of
the world's oldest person, died. The oldest person is now Charlotte
Benkner, of North Lima, Ohio, born Nov. 16, 1889.
(AP, 11/13/03)
2003 Nov 13, Palestinian and
Israeli officials said they expect their leaders to meet for peace
talks, possibly within 10 days.
(AP, 11/13/03)
2003 Nov 13, Svetozar Marovic,
Serbia-Montenegro's president, apologized in Sarajevo for the pain
his country inflicted upon Bosnia during the 1992-95 war.
(AP, 11/14/03)
2003 Nov 13, Serbia dissolved
its parliament and announced early elections, signaling the collapse
of the government three years after the ouster of Slobodan
Milosevic. PM Zoran Zivkovic to agree, under pressure from political
defectors and Milosevic supporters, to set a new parliamentary vote
for Dec. 28, a year ahead of schedule.
(AP, 11/14/03)
2003 Nov 13, In central Vietnam
Tropical Storm Nepartak triggered floods and landslides that killed
at least 49 people.
(AP, 11/15/03)
2003 Nov 14, The Bush
administration announced that it intends to hand over sovereignty to
the Iraqis by June 30, 2004.
(SSFC, 4/11/04, p.A22)
2003 Nov 14, The White House
honored winners of the National Medal for the Humanities.
(SFC, 11/14/03, p.I10)
2003 Nov 14, John Kerry became
the second Democratic hopeful to opt out of public financing for his
presidential run, following the example of rival Howard Dean.
(AP, 11/14/04)
2003 Nov 14, In Pittsburgh,
Pa., a 3rd person died from an outbreak of hepatitis A that infected
nearly 600 people. They all had recently eaten at a Chi-Chi's
Mexican mall restaurant. Green onions were blamed for the outbreak.
(SFC, 11/15/03, p.A3)(AP, 11/16/03)(SFC,
11/22/03, p.A5)
2003 Nov 14, Paul Martin
completed his 13-year ascent to the top of Canadian politics,
claiming the leadership of the governing Liberal Party to guarantee
he will succeed Jean Chretien, who is retiring as prime minister.
(AP, 11/14/03)
2003 Nov 14, China and India
began 1st ever joint naval exercises.
(SFC, 11/13/03, p.A7)
2003 Nov 14, In Colombia some
800 members of the Cacique Nutibara block of the AUC paramilitary
said they would lay down their arms on Nov 25.
(SFC, 11/15/03, p.A3)
2003 Nov 14, In Greece gay
protesters smooched in public to demonstrate against Greek TV
regulators who fined a station $116,000 for broadcasting a scene of
two men kissing.
(AP, 11/14/03)
2003 Nov 14, In Haiti riot
police fired tear gas at thousands of rock-throwing protesters as a
demonstration against President Jean-Bertrand Aristide was
overpowered by throngs of supporters of the Haitian leader.
(AP, 11/15/03)
2003 Nov 14, Near Tikrit, Iraq,
an Apache helicopter attacked and killed 7 people believed to have
been preparing a rocket attack on a US base.
(AP, 11/14/03)
2003 Nov 14, In Israel 4 former
security chiefs warned that the country is headed for disaster
unless PM Ariel Sharon reverses course and moves to settle the
conflict with the Palestinians.
(AP, 11/14/03)
2003 Nov 14, In southern Russia
an explosion apparently caused by a remote-controlled bomb ripped
through a house, killing 4 Interior Ministry soldiers and wounding
at least 8.
(AP, 11/14/03)
2003 Nov 14, Maj. Gen. Paul
Rwarakabije, the leader of a rebel group that includes fighters who
participated in Rwanda's 1994 genocide surrendered to Rwandan
government forces.
(AP, 11/15/03)
2003 Nov 15, In Louisiana
Democratic Lt. Gov. Kathleen Blanco (60) defeated conservative
Indian-American Bobby Jindal with 52 percent of the vote in a runoff
election.
(AP, 11/16/03)
2003 Nov 15, Dorothy Loudon
(70), actress, died.
(AP, 11/15/04)
2003 Nov 15, Laurence Tisch
(80), NY billionaire, died at NYU Medical Center. He and his brother
Preston Robert gained control of Loews movie house chain in 1960 and
developed the business into a conglomerate of hotels, insurance,
cigarette manufacturers, movie theaters, oil tankers and watch
making that served as a vehicle for other investments.
(SSFC, 11/16/03, p.A29)
2003 Nov 15, In Colombia
suspected FARC rebels threw grenades at two crowded bars in Bogota’s
"Zona Rosa," or Pink Zone nightclub district, injuring at least 42
people. In 2004 Arturo Montano (26) was convicted of terrorism by
Bogota's 5th Penal Court for the attacks.
(AP, 11/16/03)(AP, 10/13/04)
2003 Nov 15, In St. Nazaire,
France, a gangway to the Queen Mary 2, the world's largest passenger
ship, collapsed as people were boarding killing 16 people and
injuring 32 others. The victims were family members visiting
workers involved in construction of the nearly finished,
21-story-tall ocean liner.
(AP, 11/15/03)(AP, 11/16/03)
2003 Nov 15, The Iraqi
Governing Council and the US-led occupation administration in Iraq
signed an agreement to speed up the transfer of power to the IGC by
July, 2004, after a transitional government is selected and assumes
sovereignty.
(AP, 11/15/03)(WSJ, 4/19/04, p.A14)
2003 Nov 15, Two US Army Black
Hawk helicopters collided under fire and crashed in the northern
Iraqi city of Mosul, killing at least 17 soldiers.
(AP, 11/16/03)(SSFC, 11/16/03, p.A1)
2003 Nov 15, In Iraq insurgents
and looters overran US bases in Samara when soldiers left in an
effort to let Iraqis handle security.
(WSJ, 11/19/03, p.A1)
2003 Nov 15, Japanese officials
told Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld they were confident their
country would not be left vulnerable by any agreements between the
US and North Korea. They also indicated they would like to send
troops to Iraq "as soon as possible."
(AP, 11/15/03)
2003 Nov 15, Mohamed Choukri
(68), a Moroccan writer whose tales about his experiences with drugs
and homosexuality were banned at home, died in Tangiers. His
best-known work, "For Bread Alone" (1981), was published in
Paris and told of his difficult adolescence.
(AP, 11/16/03)
2003 Nov 15, In Nepal a
roadside bomb believed planted by rebels killed a brigadier general
and three soldiers.
(AP, 11/15/03)
2003 Nov 15, In Turkey twin car
bombs exploded outside Istanbul synagogues filled with worshippers
during Sabbath prayers, killing at least 23 people and wounding more
than 300. In all 14 Muslims were killed. 6 Jews were killed at Beth
Israel.
(AP, 11/16/03)(SSFC, 11/16/03, p.A1)
2003 Nov 16, In Afghanistan
Bettina Goislard, a French UN worker, was shot and killed by a man
on a motorcycle who opened fire on her car. In 2004 Zia Ahmad and
Abdul Nabi were sentenced to death for the murder.
(AP, 11/16/03)(SFC, 2/11/04, p.A3)
2003 Nov 16, Burundi's
government signed a comprehensive power-sharing plan with the Hutu
FDD, country's largest rebel group, a major step toward ending a
10-year war that has killed at least 200,000 people.
(AP, 11/16/03)(Econ, 8/14/04, p.44)
2003 Nov 16, Serbia failed for
a 3rd time in just over a year to elect a president because voter
turnout was below the 50 percent minimum required by the law.
Tomislav Nikolic, head of the nationalist Serbian Radical Party, led
the vote.
(WSJ, 11/13/03, p.A1)(AP, 11/17/03)(Econ,
11/22/03, p.49)
2003 Nov 16, Catalans chose
among parties all pledging to seek greater autonomy or independence
from Spain in elections that will give the wealthy region a new
leader for the first time in almost a quarter century.
(AP, 11/16/03)
2003 Nov 17, John Allen
Muhammad was convicted of masterminding the 2002 sniper attacks in
the Washington DC region.
(SFC, 11/18/03, p.A1)
2003 Nov 17, Arnold
Schwarzenegger, who arrived in the United States 35 years ago as a
bodybuilder dreaming of fame and fortune, was sworn in as the 38th
governor of California in a low key inauguration ceremony. He
immediately rolled back the state's 300% increase in the vehicle
license fee, which would have produced some $4 billion in annual
revenue.
(AP, 11/17/03)(SFC, 11/18/03, p.A1)
2003 Nov 17, Travelers and St.
Paul agreed to merge in a $16.4 billion deal that would create one
of the largest US property-casualty insurers.
(WSJ, 1/2/04, p.R12)
2003 Nov 17, Texas Rangers
shortstop Alex Rodriguez won the American League Most Valuable
Player award.
(AP, 11/17/04)
2003 Nov 17, An Egyptian
mediator reached agreement with Palestinian leaders to start
cease-fire talks among militants within 2 days.
(SFC, 11/18/03, p.A3)
2003 Nov 17, In Greece riot
squads fired tear gas to disperse groups protesters throwing
gasoline bombs and rocks at police guarding the US Embassy as
thousands marched during a rally held to mark the anniversary of a
student-led uprising in 1973. Demonstrations are held each year to
protest the belief that Washington gave vital support to the 1967-74
military dictatorship that crushed the student rebellion.
(AP, 11/17/03)
2003 Nov 17, Mexico dismissed
UN Ambassador Adolfo Aguilar following his comments that the US
regards Mexico as a 2nd-class country.
(SFC, 11/19/03, p.A17)
2003 Nov 18, Pres. Bush brought
a forceful defense of the Iraq invasion to skeptical Britons,
arguing that history proves war is sometimes necessary when certain
values are threatened.
(AP, 11/18/03)
2003 Nov 18, California Gov.
Schwarzenegger laid out a plan for a $15 billion bond issue to ease
the state budget crises.
(WSJ, 11/19/03, p.A1)
2003 Nov 18, A judge in
Modesto, Calif., ordered Scott Peterson to stand trial for the
killing of his wife, Laci, and their unborn son. Peterson was later
convicted and sentenced to death.
(AP, 11/18/08)
2003 Nov 18, The Massachusetts
Supreme Court ruled 4-3 that a ban on same sex marriage is illegal.
Lawmakers were given 180 days to allow gay marriages.
(SFC, 11/19/03, p.A1)(WSJ, 11/19/03, p.A1)
2003 Nov 18, Some 30 Taliban
guerrillas attacked a road checkpoint in southern Afghanistan,
killing three militiamen and wounding two others. The UN refugee
agency began pulling foreign staff out of Afghanistan after the
killing of French worker.
(AP, 11/19/03)(AP, 11/18/04)
2003 Nov 18, A Palestinian
gunman, his rifle wrapped in a prayer mat, walked to a West Bank
checkpoint and killed two Israeli soldiers at close range.
(AP, 11/18/03)
2003 Nov 18, The UN war crimes
tribunal issued an indictment against former Croatian Serb leader
Milan Babic on five counts of war crimes for a campaign of ethnic
cleansing in the Krajina region of Croatia early in the Balkan wars.
(AP, 11/18/03)(WSJ, 11/19/03, p.A1)
2003 Nov 18, In Zimbabwe police
broke up demonstrations across the country against President Robert
Mugabe's autocratic rule, arresting nearly 90 protesters, including
14 leaders of Zimbabwe's main labor federation.
(AP, 11/18/03)
2003 Nov 19, Shirley Hazzard
won the US National Book Award for her novel "The Great Fire." The
non-fiction prize went to Prof. Carlos Eire of Yale for "Waiting for
Snow in Havana," a memoir of his family living under Castro in Cuba.
(SFC, 11/20/03, p.A2)
2003 Nov 19, In London, Pres.
Bush urged Europe to put aside bitter war disagreements with the US
and work to build democracy in Iraq or risk turning the nation over
to terrorists.
(AP, 11/19/04)
2003 Nov 19, A US-Canadian
investigation found that the Aug. 14 blackout should have been
contained by operators at Ohio's FirstEnergy Corporation.
Investigators also faulted Midwest regional monitors.
(AP, 11/19/04)
2003 Nov 19, The 2-year-old
Transportation Security Administration (TSA) held a banquet at the
Grand Hyatt in Washington DC that cost $461,745 for some 600
honorees and as many guests.
(SFC, 10/15/04, p.A7)
2003 Nov 19, An American guided
missile frigate sailed into Ho Chi Minh City flying the US and
Vietnamese flags, becoming the first US warship to dock in the
communist country since the Vietnam War.
(AP, 11/19/03)
2003 Nov 19, Rebel holdouts in
Burundi clashed with government troops in a capital slum, killing 11
people, mainly noncombatants caught in the crossfire.
(AP, 11/20/03)
2003 Nov 19, In Canada Justice
Minister Martin Cauchon has ordered fugitive banker Rakesh Saxena to
surrender to Thailand to face allegations that he looted a Bangkok
bank.
(AP, 11/19/03)
2003 Nov 19, In Ramadi, Iraq, a
car bomb exploded late outside the home of a pro-American tribal
leader, killing one child.
(AP, 11/19/03)
2003 Nov 19, A Jordanian truck
driver fired on a crowd of tourists crossing into Israel, killing
one and wounding four, in an attack near the Red Sea resort of
Eilat. The gunman was killed by Israeli security personnel.
(AP, 11/19/03)
2003 Nov 19, South Africa said
it would provide free AIDS drugs.
(WSJ, 1/2/04, p.R12)
2003 Nov 19, Turkish
authorities arrested six people in connection with the suicide
bombings of two Istanbul synagogues.
(AP, 11/19/03)
2003 Nov 20, In Florida
ministers from 34 countries announced a framework to establish a
Free Trade Area of the Americas" (FTAA), as police clashed with
hundreds of demonstrators.
(SFC, 11/21/03, p.A12)(AP, 11/20/04)
2003 Nov 20, Michael Jackson
turned himself over to police in Santa Barbara, Ca., on an arrest
warrant alleging multiple counts of child molestation. He posted a
$3 million bail bond. Jackson was later acquitted at trial.
(AP, 11/20/08)
2003 Nov 20, Record producer
Phil Spector was charged with murder in the fatal shooting of
actress, Lana Clarkson, on Feb 3, 2003, at his home in Alhambra,
Calif.
(AP, 11/20/04)(SFC, 9/27/07, p.A2)
2003 Nov 20, Motor Trend named
the Toyota's hybrid Prius as "Car of the Year."
(AP, 11/20/03)
2003 Nov 20, Advanced Micro
Devices said it would build $2.4 billion chip factory in
Germany to produce microprocessors on 300-mm silicon wafers.
(SFC, 11/21/03, p.B1)
2003 Nov 20, Eugene Kleiner
(80), California pioneer venture capitalist, died.
(Econ, 12/6/03, p.79)
2003 Nov 20, In Canada Conrad
Black, newspaper magnate, stepped down as CEO of Hollinger Int'l.
following reports that he other top officials received unauthorized
payments of some $32.2 million.
(WSJ, 11/28/03, p.A1)
2003 Nov 20, David Dacko (76),
the first president of Central African Republic as an independent
nation (1960-1966, 1979-1981), died.
(AP, 11/21/03)
2003 Nov 20, Britain’s Criminal
Justice Act of 2003 received royal Assent. The reforms included an
allowance for a re-trial for certain crimes in the light of new and
compelling evidence, which amended the common-law principle of
double jeopardy.
(www.opsi.gov.uk/ACTS/en2003/2003en44.htm)
2003 Nov 20, Tens of thousands
of demonstrators in London burned an effigy of President Bush to
show their anger over the Iraq war.
(AP, 11/20/04)
2003 Nov 20, In Kirkuk, Iraq, a
bomb apparently hidden in a pickup truck exploded at the offices of
a US-allied Kurdish political party, killing five people and
wounding 40.
(AP, 11/20/03)
2003 Nov 20, A group of UN
agencies is asking for $221 million in international aid for North
Korea, where food shortages, poverty and poor health care services
have put the country in a state of "chronic emergency."
(AP, 11/20/03)
2003 Nov 20, The London Privy
Council ruled that Trinidad's mandatory death penalty for murder
convictions was unconstitutional, forcing the country to begin
giving discretion to judges when handing out sentences.
(AP, 11/21/03)
2003 Nov 20, In Turkey trucks
packed with explosives blew up at the HSBC London-based bank and the
British consulate. The 32 people were killed included London's
consul-general Roger Short. Some 450 people were wounded.
(AP, 11/20/03)(WSJ, 11/21/03, p.A1)(SFC, 12/1/03,
p.A16)
2003 Nov 21, Health officials
said a deadly outbreak of hepatitis A at a Chi-Chi's Mexican
restaurant in suburban Pittsburgh was probably caused by green
onions from Mexico.
(AP, 11/21/04)
2003 Nov 21, The Air Force
conducted a 2nd test of the "Mother of All Bombs," officially the
Massive Ordnance Air Blast, in Florida. It was 1st tested Mar 11.
(AP, 11/21/03)
2003 Nov 21, In northern
Afghanistan at least 60 suspected Taliban and Taliban sympathizers
were released from Shibergan jail in Jawzjan province.
(AP, 11/22/03)
2003 Nov 21, In Bolivia
assailants shot and killed Jessica Nicole Borda (22), the daughter
of an American consular official, during a carjacking attempt in the
eastern city of Santa Cruz.
(AP, 11/21/03)
2003 Nov 21, In Brazil Pres.
Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva pledged to provide homesteads for 400,000
poor farm families by 2006. His Bolsa Familia plan merged 4 income
transfer programs into one with payments to the poorest families of
up to 95 reais ($33) a month.
(Econ, 10/25/03, p.35)(AP, 11/22/03)
2003 Nov 21, In Colombia Rev.
Jose Rubin Rodriguez, a Catholic priest who was missing for a week,
was found shot to death. The army captured a suspected rebel who it
says coordinated the kidnapping of eight foreign backpackers two
months ago.
(AP, 11/22/03)
2003 Nov 21, More than a dozen
rockets fired from donkey carts slammed into Iraq's Oil Ministry and
two downtown Baghdad hotels used by foreign journalists and civilian
defense contractors.
(AP, 11/21/04)
2003 Nov 21, Peru's Pres.
Toledo apologized for the 70,000 deaths from the country's 20-year
battle with the Shining Path insurgency, and promised to punish
officers that a scathing report blamed for many of the worst abuses.
(AP, 11/22/03)
2003 Nov 22, A Medicare
prescription drug bill narrowly passed the House, 220-215, following
a dusk-to-dawn debate.
(AP, 11/22/04)
2003 Nov 22, North Dakota
student Dru Sjodin (22) was last seen at the Grand Forks, ND, mall,
where she worked. Her body was found the following April near
Crookston, Minn. Suspect Alfonso Rodriguez Jr., released from prison
6-months before the murder, pleaded innocent to kidnapping resulting
in Sjodin's death. In 2006 a jury found Rodriguez (53) guilty of
kidnapping and killing Sjodin and was sentenced to death. North
Dakota’s last execution was in 1905.
(SSFC, 4/18/04, p.A13)(AP, 11/22/04)(SFC,
8/31/06, p.A7)(SFC, 9/23/06, p.A3)
2003 Nov 22, North Dakota
student Dru Sjodin (22) was last seen at the Grand Forks, ND, mall,
where she worked. Her body was found the following April near
Crookston, Minn. Suspect Alfonso Rodriguez Jr., released from prison
6-months before the murder, pleaded innocent to kidnapping resulting
in Sjodin's death. In 2006 Rodriguez (53) was found guilty of
kidnapping and killing Sjodin.
(SSFC, 4/18/04, p.A13)(AP, 11/22/04)(SFC,
8/31/06, p.A7)
2003 Nov 22, In China a gas
explosion at the Sundian coal mine in Hunan province killed 14
people, while 9 were still missing.
(AP, 11/24/03)
2003 Nov 22, Opposition
supporters broke into Georgia's Parliament and took it over,
scuffling with lawmakers and forcing President Eduard Shevardnadze
to flee as thousands of protesters outside demanded his resignation.
(AP, 11/22/03)
2003 Nov 22, In India suspected
separatist rebels on bicycles shot and killed 11 workers in
northeastern Assam state, which has been plagued by clashes between
people native to the region and those from the neighboring area of
Bihar. The dispute has been chiefly about access to government
railroad jobs.
(AP, 11/22/03)
2003 Nov 22, In Iraq suicide
attackers detonated bomb-packed vehicles at 2 police stations in
Kahn Bani Saad and Baquoba. 11 police officers and 5 civilians were
killed.
(AP, 11/22/03)(SSFC, 11/23/03, p.A18)
2003 Nov 22, In Israel gunmen
shot and killed 2 private Israeli guards at a construction site for
the disputed barrier near Jerusalem.
(SSFC, 11/23/03, p.A17)
2003 Nov 22, In Lithuania
thousands of protesters rallied near President Rolandas Paksas'
office in Vilnius, demanding his resignation amid allegations that
he has ties with a businessman involved with organized crime.
(AP, 11/22/03)
2003 Nov 22, Five Pakistani
prisoners arrived home after being freed by American authorities
from the US detention facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
(AP, 11/22/03)
2003 Nov 22, A methane
explosion in a Turkish coal mine killed at least three miners and
trapped another seven in the collapsed mine.
(AP, 11/22/03)
2003 Nov 23, Adolfo “Big Al”
Bruno (57), a regional Mafia boss, was killed in Springfield, Mass.
In 2008 Frankie Roche (35), a low level Mafia member, admitted to
the murder.
(SFC, 4/18/08, p.A4)
2003 Nov 23, In Afghanistan a
transport helicopter carrying US troops that crashed just north of
Kabul, killing five Americans and injuring seven.
(AP, 11/22/04)
2003 Nov 23, Russian special
forces killed 17 militants near the Chechen village of Serzhen-Yurt.
The Kremlin later displayed passports belonging to an Algerian, 3
Turks and Thomas Fischer (25), a German, who were among the dead.
(SFC, 12/25/03, p.A11)(WSJ, 10/14/04, p.A14)
2003 Nov 23, The Croatian
Nationalist Democratic Union (HDZ), led by Ivo Sanader, won
parliamentary elections.
(AP, 11/24/03)(Econ, 11/29/03, p.47)
2003 Nov 23, Georgian President
Eduard Shevardnadze signed his resignation papers as leaders of
protesters already occupying parliament urged tens of thousands of
supporters to seize more organs of state power and some military
units defected to the jubilant protesters thronging the capital's
streets. Nino Burdzhanadze, leader of the United Democrats
opposition, declared herself acting president and announced a new
election within 45 days.
(AP, 11/23/03)(SSFC, 11/23/03, p.A3)
2003 Nov 23, Hong Kong
residents voted in elections seen as a showdown between pro-Beijing
politicians and democratic candidates. Voters turned out in record
numbers to hand the territory's top pro-Beijing party a stunning
defeat in local elections.
(AP, 11/23/03)(AP, 11/24/03)
2003 Nov 23, The Indonesian
military reported it had killed six suspected rebels and captured
four others during clashes in Aceh province.
(AP, 11/23/03)
2003 Nov 23, In Iraq the
Governing Council named Rend Rahim Francke, an Iraqi-American woman
and veteran lobbyist who has criticized Washington as being
shortsighted in Iraq, as its ambassador to the United States.
(AP, 11/23/03)
2003 Nov 23, In Iraq gunmen
killed two American soldiers driving through Mosul, and then a crowd
swarmed the scene, looting the soldiers' vehicle and pummeling their
bodies. Another soldier was killed in a roadside bombing north of
Baghdad.
(AP, 11/23/03)
2003 Nov 23, Myanmar's military
government released 4 top opposition party members from house
arrest, but pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi and 4 others
continued in detention.
(AP, 11/23/03)
2003 Nov 24, Pres. Bush signed
a $401.3 billion Pentagon spending bill. The president then traveled
to Fort Carson, Colo., where he paid tribute to the sacrifices of
U.S. troops in Iraq.
(WSJ, 11/25/03, p.A1)(AP, 11/24/08)
2003 Nov 24, A new US FCC
regulation allowed cell phone users to transfer their numbers to a
different carrier beginning today.
(SFC, 11/24/03, p.A1)
2003 Nov 24, The US Dept. of
Commerce said it would impose tariffs on Chinese-made television
sets that it ruled were being sold below fair market price in the
US.
(SFC, 11/27/03, p.C3)
2003 Nov 24, A Virginia jury
decided that John Allen Muhammad, convicted of masterminding the
2002 sniper attacks in the Washington DC region, should be executed.
(SFC, 11/25/03, p.A3)
2003 Nov 24, Warner Music was
born when Edgar Bronfman Jr. and a group of investors paid $2.6
billion for Time Warner’s music division. In 2011 oil magnate Len
Blavatnik agreed to pay $3.3 billion for Warner Music Group.
(Econ, 5/14/11, p.82)
2003 Nov 24, Warren Spahn (82),
the Hall of Fame pitcher who won more games than any other
left-hander in history, died in Broken Arrow, Ok.
(AP, 11/24/03)
2003 Nov 24, British PM Tony
Blair and French President Jacques Chirac confronted the sensitive
issue of European defense and in a show of unity announced plans for
a small rapid-reaction force of EU peacekeepers.
(AP, 11/24/03)
2003 Nov 24, The Croatian
Nationalist Democratic Union (HDZ), which led the drive to
independence and later into isolation, began negotiating with
potential partners to form a new government after winning
parliamentary elections.
(AP, 11/24/03)
2003 Nov 24, The US-appointed
government raided the offices of Al-Arabiya television, banned its
broadcasts from Iraq for broadcasting an audiotape a week ago of a
voice it said belonged to Saddam Hussein.
(AP, 11/24/03)
2003 Nov 24, Gunmen in Mosul
ambushed US soldiers on patrol with a roadside bomb then opened fire
on them, wounding one.
(AP, 11/24/03)
2003 Nov 24, In Russia an
early-morning fire raced through a Moscow dormitory packed with
students from Africa, Asia and Latin America, killing at least 32
people and injuring 139. The toll climbed to 42 with the death of a
Chinese student who suffered serious burns.
(AP, 11/24/03)(AP, 12/18/03)
2003 Nov 25, The US Senate gave
final congressional approval to historic Medicare legislation
combining a new prescription drug benefit with measures to control
costs before the baby boom generation reaches retirement age.
(WSJ, 11/3/04, p.A6)(AP, 11/25/08)
2003 Nov 25, The US Commerce
Dept. Reported profits at American companies rose 30% in the 3rd
quarter compared to a year earlier.
(WSJ, 11/26/03, p.A1)
2003 Nov 25, Gail Knisley (62)
was shot and killed while riding in a car on a highway in Columbus,
Ohio. It was the only fatality in a series of shootings that
terrified area drivers. A suspect, Charles A. McCoy Jr., was
arrested March 17, 2004. McCoy later pleaded guilty to manslaughter
and 10 other charges, and was sentenced to 27 years in prison.
(AP, 11/25/04)(AP, 11/25/08)
2003 Nov 25, In Cambodia PM Hun
Sen's nephew was arrested on murder charges for allegedly shooting
to death two people after a car crash.
(AP, 11/25/03)
2003 Nov 25, In Colombia 800
fighters of a feared right-wing militia piled their weapons and
ammunition on the floor in a disarmament ceremony touted by the
government as a first step toward ending four decades of war. The
army recovered a body believed to be that of a Japanese businessman
abducted more than three years ago.
(AP, 11/25/03)
2003 Nov 25, In Colombia
Abelardo Forero (91), a journalist and politician who tried to
soothe a nation wracked by violence, died. In 1978, Forero launched
a television show, "The Past in the Present," that brought to life
Colombia's tumultuous history. The award-wining program ran for 15
years.
(AP, 11/26/03)
2003 Nov 25, In Congo 2 ferries
collided in a storm on Mai-Ndombe lake. At least 182 people were
killed and more than 100 others were missing.
(AP, 11/27/03)(AP, 11/28/03)
2003 Nov 25, Georgian lawmakers
set a new presidential election for Jan 4. The foreign debt stood at
$1.8 billion, the unemployment rate was 30% and the average monthly
salary was $20.
(AP, 11/25/03)(SFC, 11/26/03, p.A13)
2003 Nov 25, The Indian and
Pakistani armies agreed to stop firing across their frontier,
including in disputed Kashmir, starting at midnight in a further
easing of tensions between the nuclear-armed neighbors.
(AP, 11/25/03)
2003 Nov 25, In southern India
an explosion at a state-run factory that makes detonators killed at
least 10 workers.
(AP, 11/25/03)
2003 Nov 25, Sales of Mexican
green onions plunged after a hepatitis outbreak in the US was traced
to northwestern Mexico, forcing farmers in this valley to defend the
safety of their produce and find ways to stay afloat financially.
(AP, 11/25/03)
2003 Nov 25, Nigeria's
President Olusegun Obasanjo said he will surrender ousted Liberian
leader Charles Taylor to face a war crimes trial if Liberia asks.
(AP, 11/25/03)
2003 Nov 25, Saudi police
killed 2 militants and seized a car bomb ready for detonation in
post Ramadan celebrations.
(WSJ, 11/26/03, p.A1)
2003 Nov 25, The UN said AIDS
will kill 3 million people this year and infect 5 million. The
global HIV tally was put at 40 million.
(WSJ, 11/26/03, p.A1)
2003 Nov 25, In Yemen security
forces arrested Saudi-born Mohammed Hamdi al-Ahdal (32), the alleged
mastermind of the attacks on the USS Cole, at a hide-out west of the
capital, San'a. Al-Ahdal was later sentenced to three years for the
French tanker attack, but was not charged in the Cole case.
(AP, 11/26/03)(SFC, 11/26/03, p.A10)(AP,
11/25/08)
2003 Nov 26, Human rights
activist Gao Zhan pleaded guilty in Alexandria, Va., to illegally
selling American high-tech items with potential military uses to
China. She had been recently freed from a Chinese prison after the
US government interceded on her behalf. Gao later received a reduced
sentence of seven months in prison for her cooperation with
authorities.
(AP, 11/26/04)
2003 Nov 26, In Georgia Mikhail
Saakashvili (35), a US educated lawyer, said he would run for
president as the sole candidate of the opposition National Movement
party. His campaign later became known as the “rose revolution.”
(SFC, 11/27/03, p.A9)(Econ, 11/17/07, p.16)
2003 Nov 26, Ayatollah Sadeq
Khalkhali (77), a judge known for sentencing hundreds of people to
death following Iran's revolution, died.
(AP, 11/27/03)(Econ, 12/13/03, p.86)
2003 Nov 26, Maj. Gen. Abed
Hamed Mowhoush, an air defense general captured Oct. 5 in a raid
near the Syrian border, died. He was being questioned while in
American custody in Qaim near the Syrian border when he lost
consciousness after complaining he didn't feel well. In 2004 4 US
soldiers were charged with murder.
(AP, 11/27/03)(SFC, 10/5/04, p.A3)
2003 Nov 26, Japan threatened
to impose $85 million in retaliatory duties on American imports
unless the US backs away from steel tariffs ruled unfair by the WTO.
(AP, 11/26/03)
2003 Nov 26, Northern Ireland
voted for representatives to their provincial legislature.
Hard-liners defeated moderates in Northern Ireland's legislative
elections.
(AP, 11/26/04)
2003 Nov 26, Israeli troops in
the Gaza Strip killed 2 Palestinians and wounded one after the
soldiers disturbed a group of men apparently setting up an ambush on
a road used by Jewish settlers.
(AP, 11/26/03)
2003 Nov 26, Taiwan arrested
Maj. Pai Chin-yang (42), an intelligence officer, on charges of
spying for rival China to raise money to pay off stock market debts.
It was the 3rd espionage case announced by the military in less than
a month.
(AP, 12/3/03)
2003 Nov 26, The UN Children's
Fund warned that AIDS has already orphaned more than 11 million
African children under the age of 15, and "the worst is yet to
come."
(AP, 11/26/03)
2003 Nov 26, The UN nuclear
watchdog agency, IAEA, condemned Iran over an 18-year cover-up of
its nuclear energy program and said future violations of
non-proliferation obligations would not be tolerated.
(AP, 11/26/03)
2003 Nov 27, Pres. Bush flew to
Iraq under extraordinary secrecy and security to spend Thanksgiving
with US troops.
(AP, 11/28/03)
2003 Nov 27, Researchers in
Cleveland reported on a gene that causes heart attacks.
(SFC, 11/28/03, p.C11)(WSJ, 11/28/03, p.B1)
2003 Nov 27, In Grenada a
record 64 candidates from six parties, including 2 independents,
competed for the chamber's 15 seats. PM Keith Mitchell's governing
New National Party won parliamentary balloting by a slim margin.
(AP, 11/27/03)
2003 Nov 27, Indian security
forces battled rebels in villages along the border in Kashmir and
suspected insurgents detonated a grenade in a busy market. The
violence left 12 people dead.
(AP, 11/27/03)
2003 Nov 27, Mexican government
prosecutors said that they've uncovered a document showing that
soldiers tortured suspected rebel prisoners during the 1970s,
sometimes forcing them to drink gasoline and then setting them
afire.
(AP, 11/27/03)
2003 Nov 27, In Mexico City
union members, left-wing activists and farmers by the thousand
marched to the central plaza in a major display of opposition to the
president's plans to raise taxes on food and medicine and sell
state-owned assets.
(AP, 11/27/03)
2003 Nov 27, In Peru police
clashed with highland peasants blocking an Andean highway to protest
against mining pollution, leaving 2 demonstrators dead and over 20
people injured.
(AP, 11/28/03)
2003 Nov 27, Talal
al-Rasheed, a prominent Saudi poet, was shot to death by attackers
while on a hunting trip in Algeria.
(AP, 11/30/03)
2003 Nov 27, Taiwanese
lawmakers passed a historic proposal that gives the president the
power to hold an independence vote if China tries to use force to
make the island unify with the mainland.
(AP, 11/27/03)
2003 Nov 27, At the Vatican the
Dalai Lama visited Pope John Paul II.
(SFC, 11/28/03, p.A3)
2003 Nov 28, President Bush
returned to his ranch in Crawford, Texas, after a secret, nearly
36-hour journey that took him to Iraq for a Thanksgiving visit with
U.S. troops.
(AP, 11/28/04)
2003 Nov 28, In Ohio
authorities said for the 1st time they had linked the Nov. 25 death
of Gail Knisley to at least one of 10 other reports of shots fired
at vehicles along I-270.
(AP, 11/29/03)
2003 Nov 28, It was reported
that the New Zealand mud snail had invaded trout streams in Northern
California. They were capable of stripping entire river systems of
algae and had already infested trout streams in Montana.
(SFC, 11/28/03, p.A21)
2003 Nov 28, It was reported
that British artist Damien Hirst, winner of the 1995 Turner Prize,
had paid Charles Saatchi some $15 million to buy back about 12 of
his earlier works.
(SFC, 11/28/03, p.I21)
2003 Nov 28, In Bulgaria 5 men
were convicted and sentenced to life in prison without chance of
parole for the 1996 assassination of former Prime Minister Andrei
Lukanov.
(AP, 11/28/03)
2003 Nov 28, Konrad Adenauer,
chancellor from 1949 to 1963, won the most votes in a survey
conducted by a public television station to name the greatest German
of all time. Martin Luther came in 2nd and Karl Marx 3rd.
(AP, 11/29/03)
2003 Nov 28, AIDS in Guatemala
was reported to kill an estimated 10 people a day.
(SFC, 11/28/03, p.C2)
2003 Nov 28, The US suspended
$49 million in aid payments to Nicaragua's judiciary, a day after
the court told America to stay out of its business. This followed
escalating tensions between Washington and Nicaragua after a
Sandinista judge released former president Arnoldo Aleman from
prison 2 days earlier to house arrest, citing health concerns.
(AP, 11/28/03)
2003 Nov 28, In Northern
Ireland hard-liners defeated moderates in the Nov 26 legislative
elections. The Democratic Unionists won 30 seats in the 108-member
Assembly. The Ulster Unionists won 27 and Sinn Fein, the IRA-linked
party, won 24.
(AP, 11/28/03)(SFC, 11/29/03, p.A3)
2003 Nov 28, In South Korea
opposition leader Choe Byung-ryol began Day 3 of his hunger strike
against Pres. Roh Moo-hyun and corruption allegations against his
former aides. The standoff has paralyzed Parliament and derailed
deliberation on hundreds of bills.
(AP, 11/28/03)
2003 Nov 28, Pres. Roh Moo-hyun
said that he decided to send troops to Iraq hoping it would
encourage the US to continue to work to resolve the North Korean
nuclear crisis.
(AP, 11/28/03)
2003 Nov 28, A Myanmar court
sentenced 9 people to death for high treason, including the editor
of a sports magazine. The government said the suspects were accused
of plotting to overthrow Myanmar's military junta through bombings
and assassinations.
(AP, 12/3/03)
2003 Nov 28, Pres. Robert
Mugabe threatened to pull Zimbabwe out of the Commonwealth after the
54-nation grouping of Britain and its former territories barred him
from an upcoming summit in Nigeria.
(AP, 11/28/03)
2003 Nov 29, A Chechen leader
wanted in Russia on charges of terrorism and murder has been granted
refugee status in Britain. A British judge had rejected a Russian
government request to extradite Akhmed Zakayev earlier this month.
(AP, 11/29/03)
2003 Nov 29, China said it
broke diplomatic relations with Kiribati after the tiny Pacific
island nation opened ties with rival Taiwan.
(AP, 11/29/03)
2003 Nov 29, In central Congo a
Soviet-made plane crashed, killing 33, including 13 people on the
ground.
(AP, 11/29/03)(AP, 12/2/03)
2003 Nov 29, In Iraq US
senators Hillary Rodham Clinton and Jack Reed met with local
officials in the oil-rich northern city of Kirkuk. Attackers in
Mahmudiyah killed 7 members of a Spanish intelligence team as it
returned from a mission. In northern Iraq gunmen ambushed and
murdered two Japanese diplomats and their Iraqi driver.
(AP, 11/29/03)(SSFC, 11/30/03, p.A1)(AP,
11/30/03)
2003 Nov 29, A Japanese rocket
carrying two spy satellites for monitoring North Korea failed to
reach orbit and had to be destroyed, space officials said, a blow to
Japan's space program.
(AP, 11/29/03)
2003 Nov 29, Bhaddanta Vinaya
(93), one of Myanmar's most revered Buddhist monks and a spiritual
adviser to pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, died.
(AP, 11/30/03)
2003 Nov 29, Beyonce Knowles,
Bono, Peter Gabriel and other musicians from around the world took
to the stage for an AIDS benefit concert hosted by former South
African President Nelson Mandela.
(AP, 11/30/03)
2003 Nov 30, Walt Disney
Company vice chairman Roy E. Disney stepped down from the board of
directors.
(AP, 11/30/04)
2003 Nov 30, In Cincinnati,
Ohio, a 350-pound black man died after being clubbed by police. An
autopsy showed that Nathaniel Jones (41) had an enlarged heart and
that his blood contained cocaine and PCP.
(SFC, 12/2/03, p.A3)
2003 Nov 30, Barber B. Conable
Jr. (81), former U.S. congressman and World Bank chairman, died in
Sarasota, Fla.
(AP, 11/30/04)
2003 Nov 30, Gertrude Ederle
(98), the first woman to swim the English Channel, died in Wyckoff,
N.J.
(AP, 11/30/04)
2003 Nov 30, In Brazil Todd and
Michelle Staheli were beaten to death in bed at home in an exclusive
Rio de Janeiro neighborhood. Todd Staheli (39), an American
executive with Shell oil company, and his wife were found slain the
next day. In 2004 Jociel Conceicao dos Santos (20), a handyman,
recanted a confession and denied he killed the American couple. He
blamed two other Brazilians for the crime. In 2006 Jossiel Conceicao
dos Santos (22) was convicted and sentenced to 25 years in prison
for killing the American couple.
(AP, 12/1/03)(AP, 3/5/06)
2003 Nov 30, In western Iraq
guerrillas killed two U.S. soldiers and wounded a third in an
ambush. Gunmen shot and killed 2 South Korean electricians and
wounded 2 others as they drove apparently to a power transmission
plant they were working at in Tikrit.
(AP, 11/30/03)
2003 Nov 30, The US military
said 54 Iraqis were killed in the northern city of Samarra as US
forces used tanks and cannons to fight their way out of simultaneous
ambushes while delivering new Iraqi currency to banks. Residents
said the next that the casualty figure was much lower and that the
dead were mostly civilians.
(AP, 12/1/03)(SFC, 12/2/03, p.A1)
2003 Nov 30, A 3rd day of
storms in Honduras left at least 3 people dead.
(SFC, 12/1/03, p.A3)
2003 Nov 30, A bus carrying
Kuwaitis returning from the funeral of a Shiite Muslim religious
leader overturned in southern Iraq, killing at least 15 people.
(AP, 11/30/03)
2003 Nov 30, In Malaysia 2
passenger buses collided on a windy road in the Kuala Lipis
district, killing at least 14 people.
(AP, 11/30/03)
2003 Nov 30, Some 200
Palestinians attacked Palestinian negotiators traveling to Geneva
for the signing ceremony of symbolic deal, reached by former Israeli
and Palestinian negotiators, that would establish a Palestinian
state with unprecedented concessions by both sides.
(AP, 11/30/03)
2003 Nov 30, A Gaza Strip car
explosion in Rafah killed Yusuf Matar, an Islamic Jihad activist.
(SFC, 12/1/03, p.A3)
2003 Nov 30, Syria handed over
22 suspects to Turkey in connection with the Nov 16 suicide bombings
in Istanbul.
(SFC, 12/1/03, p.A16)
2003 Nov, Cpl. Dustin Berg, a
national Guardsman from Indiana, killed an Iraqi police officer and
then shot himself in the stomach to give the impression of a
gunfight to block investigation. In 2005 Berg pleaded guilty to
negligent homicide. His sentence included 18 months in prison and a
bad conduct discharge.
(SFC, 7/26/05, p.A6)
2003 Nov, Jennifer West and
colleagues at Rice Univ. described a sophisticated way of
cauterizing cancers using precisely engineered "nanoshells."
(Econ, 11/8/03, p.79)
2003 Nov, In China Jiang Lijun
(39) was sentenced to four years in prison for posting Internet
articles calling for the overthrow of the Communist Party. In 2006
it was reported that Yahoo's Hong Kong unit gave authorities a draft
e-mail that had been saved on Jiang's account. Yahoo also provided
information in the cases of Li Zhi and Shi Tao.
(AP, 4/19/06)
2003 Nov, Drought conditions in
China's Hunan province forced Changsha, the provincial capital, to
institute rolling blackouts.
(Econ, 3/27/04, p.43)
2003 Nov, Wim Duisenberg,
president of the European Central Bank, retired and presented a bell
to his successor Jean-Claude Trichet for keeping order during
meetings.
(WSJ, 12/2/03, p.A16)
2003 Nov, Hungary’s government
under PM Peter Medgyessy introduced a bonus monthly payment to all
retirees that became known as the “13th month.”
(WSJ, 3/25/09, p.A10)(http://tinyurl.com/c4dxl4)
2003 Nov, The World Bank
approved increased loans to Indonesia in return for an
anti-corruption commission and strengthened government procurement
methods.
(SFC, 12/2/03, p.A13)
2003 Nov, At least 104 soldiers
were killed in Iraq this month including 79 Americans.
(SFC, 12/2/03, p.A18)
2003 Nov, In Peru Lee Heifetz,
daughter of Israeli Ambassador Zvi Heifetz, was arrested after she
tried to board a flight to Holland with 10 pounds of cocaine. She
was sentenced to six years and eight months.
(AP, 6/21/05)
2003 Nov, In Syria NewBoy
Design Studio introduced the Fulla doll, a modest looking doll in
Arab dress designed to reflect Arab values. The doll was
manufactured at the same factory in Hong Kong that makes the Barbie
doll.
(SFC, 11/24/05,
p.A31)(www.un-instraw.org/revista/hypermail/alltickers/en/0111.html)
2003 Dec 1, US Rep. Bill
Janklow went on trial in Flandreau, S.D., charged with manslaughter
in the death of a motorcyclist who'd collided with his automobile.
Janklow was convicted and served 100 days in jail.
(AP, 12/1/04)
2003 Dec 1, Alfonso Rodriguez
Jr. (50), described by authorities as a predatory sex offender was
arrested in Crookston, Minn., and charged with kidnapping in the
disappearance of Dru Sjodin, a North Dakota college student,
who may have been abducted last month while talking on her cell
phone.
(AP, 12/2/03)
2003 Dec 1, Boeing Company
chairman and CEO Phil Condit resigned unexpectedly. Boeing was
involved in a series of procurement violations that also led to the
firing of CFO Michael Sears, who ended up serving time in prison for
illegal employment negotiations. In 2006 Boeing agreed to pay $615
million to end 3 years of Justice Department investigations.
(AP, 12/1/04)(WSJ, 5/15/06, p.A1)
2003 Dec 1, Clark Kerr (92),
former UC president (1958-1967), died in El Cerrito, Ca.
(SFC, 12/2/03, p.A1)
2003 Dec 1, In Canada a
coalition of energy and forest companies and Indian tribes and
environmental groups announced a framework for forest and wetland
conservation to conserve at least 50% of Canada's sub-Arctic boreal
forests.
(SFC, 12/1/03, p.A7)
2003 Dec 1, A strong earthquake
rumbled through a swath of western China's mountainous Xinjiang
region, killing at least 11 people and collapsing hundreds of homes
in Ili Kazakh Autonomous Prefecture near the border with Kazakhstan.
(AP, 12/1/03)
2003 Dec 1, French diplomats
and other Foreign Ministry staff in 126 countries walked off the job
in a one-day strike to protest planned budget cuts.
(AP, 12/2/03)
2003 Dec 1, India and Pakistan
agreed to restore airline overflight and landing rights by Jan. 1,
2004.
(AP, 12/1/04)
2003 Dec 1, Israeli troops
launched a sweeping raid on Ramallah, killing a 9-year-old boy and 3
Hamas gunmen and leaving 60 people homeless after blowing up their
apartment building.
(AP, 12/1/03)
2003 Dec 1, North Korea said
the US military conducted at least 150 spy flights against it in
November and accused Washington of "watching for an opportunity to
crush" the communist regime.
(AP, 12/1/03)
2003 Dec 1, A Lithuanian
Parliament investigation concluded that the office of Pres. Rolandas
Paksas has links to organized crime. This prompted calls for his
resignation.
(SFC, 12/2/03, p.A12)
2003 Dec 1, In Mexico Isidro
Galeana (65), a former state judicials police commander, was
declared a fugitive after a judge ordered his arrest on suspicion of
kidnapping alleged leftists during the Mexican government's campaign
against radical activists in 1974.
(AP, 12/2/03)
2003 Dec 1, A report laid bare
a corporate scandal at Skandia, Sweden's largest insurer.
(Econ, 12/6/03, p.67)
2003 Dec 1, Dignitaries from
around the world, including former Pres. Jimmy Carter, gathered in
Geneva to sign a draft peace accord, called the Geneva Accords,
drawn up between Israeli and Palestinian activists.
(SFC, 12/1/03, p.A1)
2003 Dec 2, The Supreme Court
ruled unanimously that after knocking, police don't have to wait
longer than 20 seconds before breaking into the home of a drug
suspect.
(AP, 12/2/04)
2003 Dec 2, Authorities in Ohio
announced that they had linked 12 shootings along a five-mile
stretch of interstate around Columbus, including one that killed a
woman and another that broke a window at an elementary school. A
suspect was arrested the following March. Charles A. McCoy Jr.,
later pleaded guilty to manslaughter and 10 other charges, and was
sentenced to 27 years in prison.
(AP, 12/2/04)(AP, 12/2/08)
2003 Dec 2, In northern
Afghanistan, Abdul Rashid Dostum and Atta Mohammed, 2 main feuding
warlords, handed over tanks and cannons to the fledgling national
army.
(AP, 12/2/03)(SFC, 12/3/03, p.A3)
2003 Dec 2, British authorities
arrested Babar Ahmad (29), a computer specialist and British
citizen. He was accused by the US of running websites used to raise
money for terrorists and for supplying them with gas masks and night
vision goggles. The Metropolitan Police paid out £60,000 in
compensation to Ahmad, following civil court action in 2009. In 2010
four British officers faced criminal charges for assaulting Ahmad
during his arrest. On June 3, 2011, constables Roderick James-Bowen,
Mark Jones, Nigel Cowley, and John Donohue were acquitted of claims
that they assaulted Babar Ahmad.
(SFC, 8/13/10,
p.A2)(www.freebabarahmad.com/thestory.php)(AFP, 6/3/11)
2003 Dec 2, Alan Davidson (79),
a career diplomat who shared his knowledge of exotic cuisines in a
series of best-selling books, died in London. His books included:
"Mediterranean Seafood" (1972), "Seafood of South East Asia" and
"North Atlantic Seafood" (1979).
(AP, 12/5/03)
2003 Dec 2, Surging floodwaters
killed three men and swept a woman off a bridge in storms that
lashed southern France.
(AP, 12/3/03)
2003 Dec 2, In northern India a
bus skidded off a steep mountain road and fell into a river, killing
at least 27 passengers and injuring 30 others.
(AP, 12/2/03)
2003 Dec 2, US troops have
captured or killed a "big fish" in a large military operation in
Kirkuk. American soldiers arrested dozens of people there in an
overnight raid.
(AP, 12/2/03)
2003 Dec 2, Israeli troops
killed an armed Palestinian trying to flee in the West Bank town of
Jenin.
(AP, 12/2/03)
2003 Dec 2, Nigeria dismissed a
human rights report that accused the government of killing
opposition activists and stifling free speech, calling the charges
"jaundiced and misconceived."
(AP, 12/2/03)
2003 Dec 2, A senior adviser to
President Vladimir Putin said that Russia cannot ratify the Kyoto
Protocol limiting greenhouse gas emissions, dealing a mortal blow to
the pact that required Russia's ratification to take effect.
(AP, 12/2/03)
2003 Dec 2, In Venezuela
opposition leaders claimed that more than 3.6 million people had
signed a petition demanding a recall referendum on Venezuelan
President Hugo Chavez.
(AP, 12/2/03)
2003 Dec 3, US federal
authorities arrested 57 Hells Angles Motorcycle club members in 5
Western states on drugs, firearms and racketeering charges. The
charges stemmed from a casino brawl in Laughlin, Nev., in Apr. 2002
that left 3 dead.
(SFC, 12/4/03, p.A1)(SFC, 12/5/03, p.A25)
2003 Dec 3, A California state
commission denied a Texas company's plan to sell GloFish,
genetically-altered glow-in-the-dark fish. National sales of the
transgenic fish were set for Jan.
(SFC, 12/4/03, p.A2)
2003 Dec 3, A Colorado state
judge in Denver declared the new school voucher plan to be
unconstitutional.
(SFC, 12/4/03, p.A3)
2003 Dec 3, It was reported
that England planned to spend $17 billion to transform its health
care system with information technology to make all medical records
available in a secure central database.
(WSJ, 12/3/03, p.B1)
2003 Dec 3, David Hemmings
(62), British film actor, died after shooting scenes for "Samantha's
Child." In 1966 he starred as the photographer in Antonioni's
"Blowup."
(SFC, 12/5/03, p.A27)
2003 Dec 3, The head of the
Iraqi Governing Council renewed his demand that a proposed
transitional legislature be elected by Iraqi voters, a move opposed
by U.S. occupation officials. Leaders of the top political parties
agreed with the US-led administration to create a militia picked by
the parties and governing council.
(AP, 12/3/03)(SFC, 12/4/03, p.A16)
2003 Dec 3, Ivory Coast
security forces fired tear gas at protesters who rallied for a 3rd
day outside the main French military base, demanding that
peacekeepers withdraw to allow resumed government attacks on rebels.
(AP, 12/3/03)
2003 Dec 3, A UN tribunal
convicted and sentenced a radio news director and a newspaper editor
to life imprisonment for their role in promoting the 1994 Rwandan
genocide.
(AP, 12/4/03)
2003 Dec 3, In northern Senegal
a passenger bus and a cement truck collided, killing 22 people and
injuring 35 others.
(AP, 12/3/03)
2003 Dec 3, It was reported
that Syria's president had agreed to a proposal to halt violence
along Israel's northern border if Israel promises to end flights
over Lebanon and not attack its territory.
(AP, 12/4/03)
2003 Dec 4, Pres. Bush lifted
tariffs on imported steel and averted a trade war with Europe.
(SFC, 12/5/03, p.A20)
2003 Dec 4, It was reported
that some 29 million Americans selected "none" for their religious
affiliation in recent polls.
(SFC, 12/4/03, p.A1)
2003 Dec 4, Barry Bonds, SF
homerun star, told a grand jury that he used a clear substance and a
cream supplied by BALCO, but that he never thought they were
steroids. The SF Chronicle obtained a transcript of his testimony in
2004.
(SFC, 12/3/04, p.A1)
2003 Dec 4, Toy seller FAO
Schwartz filed for bankruptcy.
(SFC, 12/5/03, p.B2)
2003 Dec 4, It was reported
that scientists saw 2003 set to become the 3rd hottest year since
modern temperature records began. The warmest since 1880 was 1998
followed by 2002.
(WSJ, 12/4/03, p.A10)
2003 Dec 4, Federal prosecutor
Jonathan Luna was attacked after leaving his office in Baltimore
around midnight. His body was found 6 hours later, stabbed 36 times
apparently in a furious fight for his life before drowning in a
Pennsylvania creek. Luna was involved in the prosecution of rapper
Deon Lionel Smith (32) and Walter Oriley Poindexter.
(AP, 12/5/03)(SFC, 12/5/03, p.A6)
2003 Dec 4, In eastern Kosovo
Sgt. Daryl Brooks (43), a US peacekeeper, was found dead with a
gunshot wound in a concrete bunker inside the U.S. military base
Camp Monteith.
(AP, 12/6/03)
2003 Dec 4, The Australian
government said it will join a U.S. program to build a missile
defense system, calling the threat of ballistic missiles too grave
to ignore.
(AP, 12/4/03)
2003 Dec 4, Congo health
officials were investigating the poison deaths of 64 people,
allegedly from a potion used to ward off evil spirits. A Roman
Catholic priest, who allegedly administered the drink, fled the
village of Bosobe early last week after people started falling ill.
(AP, 12/5/03)
2003 Dec 4, In India election
results showed the ruling Hindu nationalist party wrested control
from the opposition in three of four state legislatures.
(AP, 12/4/03)
2003 Dec 4, In Kisumu, Kenya,
Tommy Thompson, US Sec. of Health and Human Services, dedicated a
new $6.4 million field laboratory to be operated by the CDC. It was
the largest of its kind in Africa. The local TB and malaria rates
were among the highest in the world.
(SFC, 12/5/03, p.A5)
2003 Dec 4, South Korea's
parliament, for the first time in 49 years, overrode a presidential
veto to clear the way for an independent investigation into
corruption allegations against three former aides of President Roh
Moo-hyun.
(AP, 12/4/03)
2003 Dec 4, El Salvador's
government ignores and sometimes contributes to widespread labor
abuses, Human Rights watch said in a new report.
(AP, 12/4/03)
2003 Dec 4, Palestinians opened
formal talks in Egypt aimed at forging a cease-fire they hope will
induce Israel to halt its attacks on militants and lead to renewed
peace negotiations.
(AP, 12/4/03)(WSJ, 12/5/03, p.A1)
2003 Dec 4, Interpol put ousted
Liberian leader Charles Taylor on its most-wanted list, issuing a
"red notice" calling for his arrest on war crimes charges in Sierra
Leone's civil war.
(AP, 12/4/03)
2003 Dec 5, A federal judge in
Utah threw out the case against two civic leaders accused of bribery
in their efforts to bring the 2002 Winter Games to Salt Lake City.
(AP, 12/5/08)
2003 Dec 5, The two makers of
flu shots in the United States, Chiron and Aventis Pasteur,
announced they had run out of vaccine and would not be able to meet
a surge in demand.
(AP, 12/5/04)
2003 Dec 5, Yahoo Inc. said it
is working on technology to combat e-mail spam by changing the way
the Internet works to require authentication of a message's sender.
(AP, 12/6/03)
2003 Dec 5, In eastern
Afghanistan 6 children were crushed to death by a collapsing wall
during an assault by U.S. forces on a weapons compound.
(AP, 12/10/03)
2003 Dec 5, Shanghai's
government reported that its population has surged to more than 20
million people, soaring by 3 million over the past year amid a flood
of job seekers from other parts of China.
(AP, 12/5/03)
2003 Dec 5, Hard-line
vigilantes attacked a close aide to Iran's president as he was about
to give a speech, repeatedly punching and kicking him, his wife.
(AP, 12/5/03)
2003 Dec 5, Israeli military
allowed a market in the divided West Bank city of Hebron to open for
the first time in more than a year.
(AP, 12/5/03)
2003 Dec 5, The Israeli
military shot and killed two Palestinians, armed with grenades and
an explosive device, crawling toward a security barrier separating
the Gaza Strip from Israel.
(AP, 12/6/03)
2003 Dec 5, A shrapnel-filled
bomb believed strapped to a suicide attacker ripped apart a commuter
train near Chechnya, killing 44 people and wounding nearly 200.
Pres. Putin called it an attempt to disrupt weekend parliamentary
elections.
(AP, 12/5/04)
2003 Dec 5, A bus plunged into
a valley in the northern Mexico state of Zacatecas, killing 15
people and injuring 15 others.
(AP, 12/6/03)
2003 Dec 5, In Nigeria in the
opening session of the summit of Britain and its former colonies
British PM Tony Blair urged African leaders not to lift Zimbabwe's
suspension from the Commonwealth.
(AP, 12/5/03)
2003 Dec 5, Syria continued to
reject US pressure to hand over an estimated $250 million that
Saddam Hussein's regime had deposited there.
(WSJ, 12/5/03, p.A1)
2003 Dec 5, In Tunisia an
informal, two-day summit brought leaders from five southern European
countries together with five of their counterparts from across the
Mediterranean.
(AP, 12/5/03)
2003 Dec 6, Army became the
first team to finish 0-13 in major college history after a 34-6 loss
to Navy.
(AP, 12/6/04)
2003 Dec 6, Defense Secretary
Donald H. Rumsfeld met with senior American commanders in Iraq, and
was assured that a recent switch to more aggressive anti-insurgency
tactics had begun to pay off.
(AP, 12/6/04)
2003 Dec 6, The Northeast's
first major snowstorm of the season threatened near whiteout
conditions from Pennsylvania to Maine after piling up nearly a foot
of snow, delaying flights and creating hazardous driving conditions
blamed for at least 10 deaths.
(AP, 12/6/03)(WSJ, 12/8/03, p.A1)
2003 Dec 6, In Kandahar,
Afghanistan, a bomb exploded in a bazaar, wounding about 20 people,
at least three seriously, in an attack that a Taliban spokesman said
targeted, but missed, American soldiers who shop there.
(AP, 12/6/03)
2003 Dec 6, In eastern
Afghanistan a US air strike apparently killed 9 children and a
suspected militant near the village of Hutala.
(AP, 12/7/03)(SFC, 12/8/03, p.A12)
2003 Dec 6, In the beach resort
of Sanya, China, Miss Ireland, 19-year-old Rosanna Davison, won the
Miss World competition. Second place went to Miss Canada, Nazanin
Afshin-Jam, while the host country's Miss China, Guan Qi, took
third.
(AP, 12/6/03)
2003 Dec 6, The Europe and
North Africa summit ended a 2-day meeting in Tunisia. The group,
formed in 1990, gathered leaders from North Africa — Algeria,
Tunisia, Morocco, Mauritania and Libya — with leaders from France,
Italy, Spain, Portugal and Malta.
(AP, 12/6/03)
2003 Dec 6, Paul Louis Halley
(b.1934) French founder of Promodes (later Carrefour SA), died in a
light plane crash.
(WSJ, 4/15/08,
p.B2)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Louis_Halley)
2003 Dec 6, Guatemala former
president and Gen. Carlos Arana Osorio (85), a hard-line
conservative who ruled from 1970 to 1974, died in a Guatemala City
military hospital.
(AP, 12/6/03)
2003 Dec 6, Hundreds of
thousands of people marched through Rome to protest government plans
to reform Italy's pension system, which economists say can no longer
sustain itself.
(AP, 12/6/03)
2003 Dec 6, Saudi Arabia issued
the names and photos of its 26 most wanted terrorist suspects and
increased protection around Western housing compounds in the
capital.
(AP, 12/7/03)
2003 Dec 6, Sudan's vice
president and the leader of rebels fighting a 20-year civil war
resumed their talks on a comprehensive peace deal, boosted by a
landmark visit by rebels to the capital, Khartoum.
(AP, 12/6/03)
2003 Dec 7, Daniel Morcombe
(13) was last seen waiting for a bus in northern Queensland. In 2011
west coast truck driver Brett Peter Cowan (41) was charged with
Morcombe's abduction, murder and interfering with his corpse. Police
confirmed that three bones recently found at Beerburrum State Forest
belonged to Morcombe.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disappearance_of_Daniel_Morcombe)(AFP,
8/28/11)
2003 Dec 7, Grayson Perry (43),
British artist, was named winner of the 20th annual Turner Prize. He
decorated ceramic vases with disturbing images and texts.
(SFC, 12/9/03, p.D8)
2003 Dec 7, Tropical Storm
Odette lashed the Dominican Republic with torrential rains,
prompting thousands to flee their homes and killed at least 8 people
before it dissipated over the Atlantic.
(AP, 12/8/03)
2003 Dec 7, A group of 160
Colombian paramilitary fighters handed over their weapons, becoming
the second faction of outlawed right-wing militias to do so in less
than two weeks.
(AP, 12/8/03)
2003 Dec 7, Voters on the
French Caribbean islands of Guadeloupe and Martinique rejected
reforms to their legislatures that opponents had criticized as a
step toward independence from France.
(AP, 12/8/03)
2003 Dec 7, Former Guatemala
Pres. Arnoldo Aleman, dogged by corruption allegations for years,
was convicted of embezzling millions of dollars from his
impoverished country and sentenced to 20 years in prison.
(AP, 12/8/03)
2003 Dec 7, In Indian-held
Kashmir an overcrowded bus skidded off a steep mountain road and
plunged 1,500 feet into a gorge, killing 23 passengers and injuring
13 others.
(AP, 12/7/03)
2003 Dec 7, In southern India
Hindu-Muslim clashes broke out overnight in Hyderabad, killing at
least five and injuring 27.
(AP, 12/7/03)
2003 Dec 7, Insurgents attacked
a U.S. military patrol in northern Iraq, killing one soldier and
wounding two.
(AP, 12/7/03)
2003 Dec 7, In Liberia
government troops launched U.N.-sponsored disarmament.
(AP, 12/7/03)
2003 Dec 7, A Nicaraguan judge
sentenced former Pres. Aleman to 20 years for diverting some $100
million in government funds to his campaigns.
(WSJ, 12/8/03, p.A1)
2003 Dec 7, Palestinian
militants rejected a comprehensive truce offer to Israel despite
intense pressure from Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia and Egypt to sign
onto a deal.
(AP, 12/8/03)
2003 Dec 7, Russia held Duma
elections. The pro-Kremlin United Russia party won about 36% of the
vote. Ultra-nationalists and Communists each won 13%.
(AP, 12/7/03)(WSJ, 12/8/03, p.A1)
2003 Dec 7, Saudi security
forces stormed a gas station and killed one of the country's most
wanted terrorist suspects and a second militant.
(AP, 12/8/03)
2003 Dec 7, Zimbabwe pulled out
of the Commonwealth rather than endure a suspension after members in
Nigeria decided to extend the southern African country's suspension
from the organization of Britain and its former colonies.
(AP, 12/7/03)
2003 Dec 8, Pres. Bush signed
into law the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and
Modernization Act (also called the Medicare Modernization Act or
MMA). It was the biggest expansion of Medicare since its creation in
1965. The $400 billion Medicare overhaul bill included a provision
to put away pre-tax money into interest bearing accounts to save for
medical expenses.
(SFC, 12/9/03, p.A1)(WSJ, 12/16/03, p.D1)
2003 Dec 8, The Bush
administration joined European human rights officials in expressing
concern about the fairness of Russian parliamentary elections on
Sunday that delivered big victories to allies of Russian President
Vladimir Putin.
(AP, 12/8/03)
2003 Dec 8, Congress approved
legislation to stem the flood of unwanted junk e-mail known as
"spam."
(AP, 12/8/04)
2003 Dec 8, US District Judge
James Ware ruled that US toxic cleanup law doesn't apply abroad. A
suit by Filipinos sought that the US government be required to
assess pollution near 2 former military bases.
(SFC, 12/12/03, p.A6)
2003 Dec 8, US Rep. Bill
Janklow, R-S.D., resigned after being convicted in the traffic death
of a motorcyclist, Randy Scott.
(AP, 12/8/04)
2003 Dec 8, In Abbeville, S.C.,
Arthur Bixby and his son Stephen (36) killed 2 police officers
during a 13-hour standoff. They refused to give up some of their
land for a highway.
(SFC, 12/10/03, p.A6)
2003 Dec 8, The US military
launched its largest postwar offensive against Taliban and al-Qaida
insurgents, sending 2,000 soldiers into a lawless swath of
Afghanistan to put down a wave of attacks.
(AP, 12/8/03)
2003 Dec 8, Cuban pianist Ruben
Gonzalez (84), who found new fame in the mid-1990s playing with
Compay Segundo's Buena Vista Social Club band, died in Havana.
(AP, 12/9/03)
2003 Dec 8, In Greece a special
tribunal convicted the mastermind, chief gunman and 13 other members
of the November 17 cell for killings and attacks spanning a
generation.
(AP, 12/8/03)
2003 Dec 8, Russian military
documents confirmed that dozens of rockets outfitted with dirty
bombs appeared to be missing from the military airport at Tiraspol,
the capital of Transdniestria.
(SFC, 12/9/03, p.A13)(Econ, 7/2/05, p.46)
2003 Dec 8, In Nigeria the
Commonwealth summit of 54-nations, representing nearly one-third of
the world's 6 billion people, ended with Western nations blaming
Zimbabwe for its own growing international isolation.
(AP, 12/8/03)
2003 Dec 8, Three tourists were
kidnapped in southeastern Iran while cycling from the historical
city of Bam to Zahedan. Drug smugglers demanded $6 million in
ransom.
(AP, 12/9/03)
2003 Dec 9, Jeffrey and Michael
Derderian, owners of a Rhode Island nightclub, and Dan Biechele, the
tour manager for the rock band Great White, were indicted on charges
related to the February 20 fire that killed 100 people. In 2006 a
judge gave the owners 4 years and probation.
(AP, 12/9/04)(SFC, 5/10/06, p.A7)(WSJ, 9/30/06,
p.A1)
2003 Dec 9, The Dutch cargo
ship Stellamare capsized at the Port of Albany, NY.
(SFC, 12/19/03, p.D10)
2003 Dec 9, Chinese Premier Wen
Jiabao visited with Pres. Bush for talks on trade, Taiwan and other
issues.
(WSJ, 12/9/03, p.A1)
2003 Dec 9, Former Vice
President Al Gore endorsed Howard Dean for the Democratic
presidential nomination.
(AP, 12/9/03)
2003 Dec 9, Paul Simon (75),
former Illinois Senator (1984-1997), died in Springfield. His work
included 13 published books.
(SFC, 12/10/03, p.A2)
2003 Dec 9, Shanghai reported
plans to ban bicycles from its major roads next year, banishing
China's most popular form of transportation to make more room for
cars.
(AP, 12/9/03)
2003 Dec 9, French police
arrested Gorka Palacios Alday, the alleged military leader of the
banned Basque separatist group ETA, along with three accomplices.
(AP, 12/9/03)
2003 Dec 9, In Talafar, Iraq, a
suicide bomber blew up a car packed with explosives at the gates of
a military barracks, injuring 41 American troops and six Iraqi
civilians. Hours earlier, 3 soldiers died in a road accident in
central Iraq, and 3 civilians died when a Baghdad mosque was
rocketed.
(AP, 12/9/03)
2003 Dec 9, In Japan PM
Junichiro Koizumi's Cabinet approved the dispatch of about 1,000
soldiers to help in the reconstruction of Iraq.
(AP, 12/9/03)
2003 Dec 9, North Korea offered
an apparent counterproposal to a U.S.-backed plan to resolve the
standoff over its nuclear program, saying it would freeze the
project in return for energy aid and being removed from Washington's
list of countries that sponsor terrorism.
(AP, 12/9/03)
2003 Dec 9, In southern Mexico
Salvatrucha gang members attacked illegal immigrants from Central
America on a train, killing three people and wounding four in the
latest in a series of violent incidents in the region. The Mara
Salvatrucha spanned Central America. It was named for its Salvadoran
founders, who claimed to be as wise as trout.
(AP, 12/10/03)(Econ, 5/22/04, p.31)
2003 Dec 9, In Russia a female
suicide bomber blew herself up outside the National Hotel across
from Moscow's Red Square. At least 6 bystanders were killed and at
least 14 wounded.
(AP, 12/9/03)(SFC, 12/10/03, p.A3)
2003 Dec 9, The Global
Commission on International Migration was launched by the United
Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan and a number of governments in
Geneva.
(Econ, 10/8/05, p.86)(www.gcim.org/en/)
2003 Dec 9, Former Pres.
Frederick Chiluba, Zambia's first democratically elected president,
went on trial before a packed courtroom, accused of stealing
millions of dollars from state coffers during his decade in power.
(AP, 12/9/03)
2003 Dec 10, U.S. allies that
opposed the war in Iraq were angered and surprised by Deputy Sec. of
Defense Paul Wolfowitz's decision to bar their companies from
bidding for $18.6 billion worth of reconstruction contracts, with
France questioning its legality and Canada threatening to halt aid.
The 63-nation eligibility list excluded Germany, France, Russia and
China.
(AP, 12/10/03)(WSJ, 12/10/03, p.A1)(Econ,
12/13/03, p.30)
2003 Dec 10, A divided Supreme
Court upheld the broadest restrictions on campaign donations in
nearly 30 years.
(AP, 12/10/04)
2003 Dec 10, An appeals court
ordered a new trial for Lionel Tate, a Florida teen sentenced to
life for causing the death of a 6-year-old playmate, Tiffany Eunick.
Originally convicted of first-degree murder, Tate pleaded guilty to
2nd-degree murder and went free in January 2004.
(AP, 12/10/08)
2003 Dec 10, Scientists
reported on a partial list of genes that make people human based on
comparisons with the chimpanzee genome.
(AP, 12/12/03)(www.genome.gov/11509418)
2003 Dec 10, Robert Bartley
(66), conservative head of the WSJ editorial pages, died.
(Econ, 1/3/04, p.63)
2003 Dec 10, An Int'l. Court
sentenced former Bosnian-Serb Col. Dragan Obrenovic (40) to 17 years
in prison for his role in the slaughter of more than 7,000 men and
boys in Srebrenica, Bosnia. [see July 6, 1995]
(AP, 12/11/03)
2003 Dec 10, It was reported
that China was forcibly repatriating some 100 North Korean refugees
each week and the 852 were detained in camps awaiting deportation.
(SFC, 12/10/03, p.A16)
2003 Dec 10, The presidents of
Egypt and Iran met for the 1st time since 1979. Iran's rulers
authorized the signing of a UN nuclear deal.
(WSJ, 12/11/03, p.A1)
2003 Dec 10, Ethiopian
officials appealed for US$380 million for food and medicine to care
for more than 7 million people who will go hungry next year if
international aid doesn't make up for a chronic food shortfall.
(AP, 12/10/03)
2003 Dec 10, Aslan Abashidze
(65), a former Soviet bureaucrat who has ruled the region of
Adzharia since Georgia's 1991 independence, refused to accept
Georgia's interim leadership or parliament.
(AP, 12/10/03)
2003 Dec 10, Iraq's
U.S.-installed interim government established a special tribunal to
deal with crime against humanity committed by Saddam Hussein's
regime.
(AP, 12/10/03)
2003 Dec 10, Iraq's Health
Ministry has ordered a halt to a count of civilians killed during
the war and told its statistics department not to release figures
compiled so far.
(AP, 12/10/03)
2003 Dec 10, Journalist Michael
Weisskopf (57) was seriously wounded when a grenade thrown into an
Army Humvee exploded as he attempted to throw it back out.
(SFC, 12/12/03, p.A22)
2003 Dec 10, In Mosul, Iraq, 2
US soldiers were killed. In a Baghdad suburb armed men robbed a
government bank of almost $1.4 billion dinars ($800,000).
(SFC, 12/11/03, p.A17)
2003 Dec 10, Four Latvian
climbers plunged hundreds of feet to their deaths on Mount Cook, New
Zealand's highest peak.
(AP, 12/10/03)
2003 Dec 10, In Liberia
rampages by ex-government fighters left at least nine people dead in
Monrovia. All but one of the deaths came in fighting between U.N.
troops and the ex-militiamen.
(AP, 12/10/03)
2003 Dec 10, The Nobel Prize
awards ceremony were held in Sweden and Norway. Iranian democracy
activist Shirin Ebadi, the first Muslim woman to win the Nobel Peace
Prize, accepted the award in Oslo, Norway.
(AP, 12/10/03)(AP, 12/10/08)
2003 Dec 10, The World Summit
on the Information Society began a 3-day meeting in Geneva, Switz.
(SSFC, 12/7/03, p.C2)
2003 Dec 11, US officials
delayed a conference for companies seeking $18.6 billion in
reconstruction contracts in Iraq by eight days until Dec. 19.
(AP, 12/11/03)
2003 Dec 11, Pentagon officials
said efforts to create a new Iraqi army to help take over the
country's security have suffered a setback with the resignations of
a third of the soldiers trained.
(AP, 12/11/03)
2003 Dec 11, A new 2nd home for
the National Air and Space Museum opened in Chantilly, Va., some 28
miles west of the original's home in Washington D.C.
(AP, 12/11/04)
2003 Dec 11, US health
officials reported an early flu outbreak had hit all 50 states and
was widespread in 24.
(AP, 12/11/04)
2003 Dec 11, Striking Kroger
workers in West Virginia, Kentucky and Ohio ratified a new contract.
The strike began Oct 13.
(SFC, 12/12/03, p.B4)
2003 Dec 11, The DJIA closed
over 10,000 (10,008) for the 1st time in over 18 months.
(WSJ, 1/2/04, p.R12)
2003 Dec 11, ASEAN members met
for a 2-day summit in Tokyo. Japan joined the 10 Southeast Asian
nations in a pledge to expand trade and join forces on regional
security.
(AP, 12/11/03)
2003 Dec 11, In Quebec, Canada,
labor protests left hundreds of buses idle at the beginning of a day
of province wide protests against Premier Jean Charest's government.
(AP, 12/11/03)
2003 Dec 11, In China's far
northwest a coal mine fire in Urumqi killed nine miners, and rescue
efforts were hampered by repeated gas explosions.
(AP, 12/13/03)
2003 Dec 11, In Ecuador
teachers striking for raises and parents demanding better schools
clashed with police in protests that sought symbolically to take
over the capital's downtown.
(AP, 12/11/03)
2003 Dec 11, A French panel
recommended a national ban on Islamic head scarves, Jewish skullcaps
and large crucifixes at public schools.
(WSJ, 12/12/03, p.A1)
2003 Dec 11, A German court
freed a Moroccan accused of supporting the Sept. 11 al-Qaida terror
cell in Hamburg, saying there was new evidence he did not know about
the plot.
(AP, 12/11/04)
2003 Dec 11, In Haiti police
fired tear gas and warning shots at thousands of students calling
for President Jean-Bertrand Aristide's ouster, as four private radio
stations shut down because government supporters called in death
threats.
(AP, 12/11/03)(SFC, 12/12/03, p.A3)
2003 Dec 11, In Iraq a suicide
bomber killed 1 US soldier and wounded 14 others at a military base
in Ramadi.
(SFC, 12/12/03, p.A22)
2003 Dec 11, In Israel
explosives at a currency exchange in Tel Aviv killed 3 people and
wounded 12 in what was labeled a criminal matter.
(SFC, 12/12/03, p.A16)
2003 Dec 11, The Italian
Parliament imposed controls on medically assisted reproduction.
(SFC, 12/12/03, p.A17)
2003 Dec 11, Ahmadou Kourouma,
Ivorian writer, died. His 5th novel, incomplete, was published in
French in 2004.
(Econ, 8/28/04, p.76)
2003 Dec 11, The UN children's
fund said some 65 million girls worldwide are kept out of school,
increasing the risks that they will suffer from extreme poverty, die
in childbirth or from AIDS and pass those dangers on to future
generations.
(AP, 12/11/03)
2003 Dec 11, Uzbekistan said it
will let the US station troops to help fight terrorism, but would
not permit permanent deployment.
(WSJ, 12/12/03, p.A1)
2003 Dec 12, Pres. Bush said
that Halliburton, VP Dick Cheney's former company, should repay the
government if it overcharged for gasoline delivered in Iraq under a
prewar contract.
(AP, 12/12/03)(WSJ, 12/12/03, p.A1)
2003 Dec 12, Pres. Bush signed
legislation calling for economic penalties against Syria for not
doing enough to fight terrorism.
(SFC, 12/13/03, p.A3)
2003 Dec 12, In California
Hispanics protested the repeal of a law allowing illegal immigrants
to get driver's licenses, taking to the streets in a statewide
boycott of schools and businesses.
(AP, 12/12/03)(SFC, 12/12/03, p.A1)
2003 Dec 12, It was reported
that researchers had found a gene in worms that was responsible for
drunkenness.
(WSJ, 12/12/03, p.A1)
2003 Dec 12, Former Azerbaijani
Pres. Geidar Aliev (Heydar Aliyev, b.1923), a former KGB general and
Communist Party chief who brought stability to a nation plagued by
insurgencies, died at the Cleveland Clinic.
(AP, 12/12/03)(SFC, 12/13/03, p.A20)
2003 Dec 12, In London,
England, Mick Jagger (b.1943) of the Rolling Stones was knighted.
(SFC, 12/13/03, p.A2)
2003 Dec 12, Paul Martin was
sworn in as Canada's 21st prime minister with a vow to make drastic
changes in the way the country is run.
(AP, 12/12/03)
2003 Dec 12, Chinese Premier
Wen Jiabao arrived in Mexico in a bid to extend a string of recent
diplomatic and economic successes in North America. In 2002 China
shipped $6.3 billion in goods to Mexico, undercutting many local
goods.
(SFC, 12/4/03, p.A22)(AP,
12/12/03)
2003 Dec 12, Insurgents
detonated a bomb alongside a U.S. military convoy west of Baghdad on
Friday, killing one soldier and wounding two others.
(AP, 12/12/03)
2003 Dec 12, Several people
fell ill across Italy after drinking apparently tainted bottled
mineral water, the latest in a scare that has prompted prosecutors
to launch investigations across the nation.
(AP, 12/13/03)
2003 Dec 12, Ivory Coast state
security forces repulsed an assault near the state television
station after a two-hour battle that left 18 people dead.
(AP, 12/12/03)
2003 Dec 12, Japan pledged $3
billion in new aid to southeast Asia and promised to work with the
region to bolster security ties, liberalize trade and create a broad
"economic partnership.
(AP, 12/13/03)
2003 Dec 12, In South Korea
Park Jie-won, a confidant of former Pres. Kim Dae-jung, was
convicted and sentenced to 12 years in jail for taking $12.5 million
in bribes from a major conglomerate and illegally remitting money to
North Korea ahead of a 2000 inter-Korean summit.
(AP, 12/12/03)
2003 Dec 12, Three Dutch
Protestant churches formally agreed to put aside their ideological
differences and merge, the culmination of a process that began more
than 40 years ago.
(AP, 12/12/03)
2003 Dec 12, Fadwa Toukan
(b.1917), Palestinian poet, died in Nablus at age 86.
(SSFC, 12/14/03, p.A31)
2003 Dec 12, A UN conference on
climate control closed in Milan, Italy. Many countries planned to go
ahead with their Kyoto Protocol commitments to reduce greenhouse gas
emissions.
(AP, 12/13/03)
2003 Dec 12, Keiko the killer
whale (27), whose early life inspired the film "Free Willy," died in
Norway of apparent pneumonia.
(SFC, 12/13/03, p.A1)
2003 Dec 13, Oklahoma
quarterback Jason White won the Heisman Trophy.
(AP, 12/13/04)
2003 Dec 13, William Roth Jr.
(82), former Delaware Senator, died. He was 1st elected to Congress
in 1966 and served 5 terms as a senator. He helped created the
popular Roth retirement account and the Kemp-Roth tax cuts. His
wrote the book "The Power to Destroy" (1999), a look at the IRS.
(SFC, 12/15/03, p.A2)(WSJ, 12/15/03, p.A1)
2003 Dec 13, Oscar Schachter
(88), pioneer of int'l. law, died in NYC. He helped establish the
legal framework of the United Nations.
(SSFC, 12/28/03, p.A29)
2003 Dec 13, In Canada Paul
Martin, in one of his first acts as prime minister, cancelled the
scandal-plagued federal advertising sponsorship program. It had
begun in 1996 under PM Chretien to promote federalism in Quebec, but
turned into a slush fund for the Liberal Party.
(AP, 12/13/03)(Econ, 11/5/05, p.42)
2003 Dec 13, More than 250 US
agribusiness representatives traveled to Cuba for sales talks,
marking the 2nd anniversary of the first US commercial food
shipments to the island.
(AP, 12/13/03)
2003 Dec 13, EU efforts to seal
its first-ever constitution collapsed, after leaders in Brussels
could not agree on the best way to divvy power once the bloc adds 10
new members next year.
(AP, 12/13/03)
2003 Dec 13, Tens of thousands
of students took to the streets of three German cities, protesting
government plans to slash funding for universities.
(AP, 12/13/03)
2003 Dec 13, Indonesian troops
gun downed at least three suspected rebels, including the first
female insurgent killed in the current offensive, and captured eight
others during clashes in the war-torn province of Aceh.
(AP, 12/14/03)
2003 Dec 13, American forces
captured a bearded and haggard-looking Saddam Hussein in an
underground hide-out on a farm in Adwar near his hometown of Tikrit.
2 other Iraqis were arrested. Small arms and $750,000 in bills were
also seized. The 55 most-wanted Iraqis and their status, according
to U.S. Central Command: 39 were in custody, 13 remained at large, 2
were confirmed killed and one was reported killed.
(AP, 12/14/03)(SFC, 12/15/03, p.A13)
2003 Dec 13, Israeli troops
fired on a taxi that drove through a West Bank checkpoint, killing a
female passenger.
(AP, 12/13/03)
2003 Dec 13, Chinese Premier
Web Jiabao sought to assure Mexican leaders that their country's
economy is not threatened by China's lower wages and cheaper goods,
saying the two nations are partners, not rivals.
(AP, 12/13/03)
2003 Dec 13, Pres. Alejandro
Toledo demanded the resignation of Peru's first-ever female PM and
her 15-minister Cabinet in the wake of rumors about her personal
life. A political rival was spreading rumors that she is a lesbian.
(AP, 12/13/03)
2003 Dec 13, Philippine Foreign
Secretary Blas Ople (76), a key ally of President Gloria Macapagal
Arroyo in her support for Washington's war on terror, died of a
heart attack.
(AP, 12/14/03)
2003 Dec 14, Jeanne Crain
(b.1925), film star, died in Santa Barbara.
(SFC, 12/15/03, p.A24)
2003 Dec 14, In Afghanistan a
landmark constitutional convention began with solemn prayers.
(AP, 12/14/03)
2003 Dec 14, Brazil's ruling
Workers Party expelled four leftist lawmakers after they voted
against the party on crucial legislation being sought by President
Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
(AP, 12/15/03)
2003 Dec 14, In southwestern
England 2 dozen people suffered burns to their faces, hands and arms
in a suspected acid attack at a pub in Bristol.
(AP, 12/15/03)
2003 Dec 14, Chad's government
signed a cease-fire with rebel forces at the end of talks in Burkina
Faso.
(AP, 12/14/03)
2003 Dec 14, Elections in
northern Cyprus ended in a deadlock with the pro-EU opposition and
pro-government parties splitting the 50 parliamentary seats. EU
members have said that Turkey must help reunite the island before it
can realize its own membership aspirations.
(AP, 12/15/03)(WSJ, 12/15/03, p.A13)
2003 Dec 14, In Baghdad a
suspected suicide attacker detonated a car bomb killing at least 17
people and wounding 35 others. A US soldier was killed trying to
diffuse a roadside bomb. Ryan Manelick, A US contract worker for
Ultra Services, was shot to death near Camp Anaconda. He was an
associate of Kirk von Ackerman, who disappeared Oct 9. Manelick had
told Army investigators kickbacks were being made to a US Army
officer.
(SFC, 12/15/03, p.A15)(SSFC, 2/13/05, p.A14)
2003 Dec 14, Venice threw
itself a party to celebrate the rebirth of the La Fenice, following
a $90 million restoration, with a gala concert that drew the Italian
president, European royalty and Italy's glitterati.
(AP, 12/15/03)(SFC, 12/15/03, p.A2)
2003 Dec 14, In Nepal Fighting
between suspected rebels and security forces intensified over the
weekend, killing at least 70 people in separate attacks across the
Himalayan kingdom.
(AP, 12/14/03)
2003 Dec 14, In Pakistan Pres.
Musharraf survived an assassination attempt when a bomb exploded on
a bridge just after his motorcade crossed. In 2005 a military court
found 6 air force personnel guilty of trying to assassinate
Musharraf and 4 were sentenced to death.
(SFC, 12/15/03, p.A6)(WSJ, 10/5/05, p.A1)
2003 Dec 14, Palestinians fired
a barrage of mortars at Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip and
Israeli troops killed a fugitive from the Islamic Jihad group in the
West Bank.
(AP, 12/14/03)
2003 Dec 15, The Bush
administration proposed a market-based system of pollution controls
that required power companies to cut mercury pollution by nearly 70%
over the next 15 years, but let them decide for themselves how to
meet the overall limits.
(SFC, 12/16/03, p.A5)
2003 Dec 15, The US Navy seized
a boat carrying nearly two tons of hashish in the Persian Gulf. It
was soon considered as the first hard evidence of al-Qaida links to
drug smuggling.
(AP, 12/19/03)
2003 Dec 15, Charles Cullen
(43), a former nurse, was charged with murder after telling
prosecutors that he killed 30-40 severely ill patients in
Pennsylvania and New Jersey since 1987 by injecting them with drugs.
Cullen later pleaded guilty to killing 29 people and attempting to
kill six others; he was sentenced to 18 life prison terms.
(SFC, 12/17/03, p.A3)(WSJ, 4/30/04, p.A1)(SFC,
5/20/04, p.A3)(AP, 12/15/08)
2003 15, The late Sen. Strom
Thurmond's family acknowledged Essie Mae Washington-Williams' claim
that she was his illegitimate mixed-race daughter.
(AP, 12/15/04)
2003 Dec 15, In Cleburne,
Texas, Joanne Webb, housewife and sales rep for Passion Parties,
answered to obscenity charges for selling a vibrator to undercover
narcotics officers posing as a dysfunctional married couple.
(SFC, 12/16/03, p.A2)
2003 Dec 15, Motorola chose
Edward Zander, former president of Sun Microsystems, to succeed
Christopher Galvin as CEO.
(WSJ, 1/2/04, p.R12)
2003 Dec 15, The royal army of
Bhutan seized a camp near its border with India that they believe
housed the headquarters of a major Indian separatist group.
(AP, 12/16/03)
2003 Dec 15, The IMF extended
for 15 months a $34 billion loan agreement with Brazil.
(WSJ, 12/16/03, p.A15)
2003 Dec 15, Cambodia's prime
minister ordered the destruction of the country's surface-to-air
missiles to prevent them from falling into the hands of terrorists.
Hun Sen issued the order after a meeting in Phnom Penh with U.S.
Ambassador Charles Ray.
(AP, 12/16/03)
2003 Dec 15, At least 25 gunmen
crossed from Chechnya into the Russian region of Dagestan, killing
at least 3 border guards and seizing hostages in a remote mountain
village.
(AP, 12/15/03)
2003 Dec 15, From China it was
reported that Liu Dalin (71), founder and curator of the Chinese
Sexual Culture Museum, was moving his collection from Shanghai to
Tongli. His 3,700 items covered 6,000 years of human sexuality in
the world's most populous nation.
(AP, 12/15/03)
2003 Dec 15, In northern
Colombia rebel leaders said they will release four Israelis and a
Briton during the next several days, after holding the foreigners
hostage for three months.
(AP, 12/16/03)
2003 Dec 15, Chancellor Gerhard
Schroeder salvaged a deal to which he has tied his political future,
a plan to spur Germany's economy by cutting taxes, trimming
welfare-state benefits and loosening stringent worker protection
laws.
(AP, 12/15/03)
2003 Dec 15, In Iraq a suicide
bomber driving a four-wheel drive taxi killed eight Iraqi policemen
in an attack on a station in Baghdad's northern outskirts.
(AP, 12/15/03)
2003 Dec 15, Israeli soldiers
shot dead 2 Palestinians in Gaza.
(WSJ, 12/16/03, p.A1)
2003 Dec 15, In Italy Calisto
Tonzi, head of Parmalat SpA, one of the world's biggest dairy firms,
resigned. [see Dec 19]
(Econ, 12/20/03, p.95)
2003 Dec 15, In Pakistan police
arrested 10 people suspected of links to the Taliban and al-Qaida in
two nighttime raids at Rawalpindi.
(AP, 12/16/03)
2003 Dec 15, In Peru Pres.
Alejandro Toledo, with his popularity dropping, swore in a new
Cabinet chief and several ministers. Toledo named congressman Carlos
Ferrero to replace Prime Minister Beatriz Merino.
(AP, 12/15/03)
2003 Dec 15, The UN said it was
suspending for a month a disarmament campaign in war-battered
Liberia so it can improve a camp for former combatants.
(AP, 12/15/03)
2003 Dec 16, The 3rd film
episode of "Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring" opened.
(SFC, 12/17/03, p.A1)
2003 Dec 16, Pres. Bush signed
legislation to curb unsolicited commercial e-mails and a bill to
establish a national museum devoted to black history.
(WSJ, 12/17/03, p.A1)(AP, 12/16/04)
2003 Dec 16, Pres. Bush signed
a measure that made WW II Filipino American veterans eligible for
full Veterans Affair health care. Previous benefits were at half the
rate of US veterans. Veterans in the Philippines did not qualify.
(SFC, 12/17/03, p.A2)(SFC, 12/30/03, p.A15)
2003 Dec 16, U.S. special envoy
James A. Baker III said France, Germany and the US agreed to seek
reductions in Iraq's foreign debt within the Paris Club of creditor
nations.
(AP, 12/16/03)(SFC, 12/17/03, p.A18)
2003 Dec 16, US borrowing from
foreign investors stood at $1.5 billion a day.
(WSJ, 12/16/03, p.A1)
2003 Dec 16, Actress Madlyn
Rhue died in Los Angeles at age 68.
(AP, 12/16/04)
2003 Dec 16, In Afghanistan
several dozen delegates broke away from a crucial constitutional
assembly to celebrate the inauguration of the Kabul-Kandahar
highway, a vital artery linking the capital with the lawless and
poverty-stricken south.
(AP, 12/16/03)
2003 Dec 16, In Canada Robert
Lorne Stanfield (89), former leader of the federal Tories, died.
Stanfield led the Progressive Conservatives from 1967 to 1976.
(AP, 12/17/03)
2003 Dec 16, Chechen rebels,
who fought their way into the neighboring Dagestan region and
occupied a village, released all their hostages and fled, avoiding
capture.
(AP, 12/16/03)
2003 Dec 16, A fire broke out
at Denmark's North Sea Museum, destroying much of the building
housing Europe's largest aquarium.
(AP, 12/17/03)
2003 Dec 16, In Haiti a strike
to press for the ouster of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide closed
down schools, stores and banks in Port-au-Prince.
(AP, 12/16/03)
2003 Dec 16, A cyclone tore
into India's southeastern coast, killing 11 people.
(AP, 12/16/03)
2003 Dec 16, U.S. troops killed
11 guerrilla attackers, some of whom released a flock of pigeons to
signal the Americans' approach, in an ambush in a town north of
Baghdad.
(AP, 12/16/03)
2003 Dec 16, In central Somalia
rival militias battled over barren desert lands in fighting that
killed at least 31 people and wounded 50 others.
(AP, 12/17/03)
2003 Dec 16, Taiwan's lawmakers
banned the selling of dog meat and introduced heavy fines for
killing pets for food or fur.
(AP, 12/18/03)
2003 Dec 17, The US CDC
reported that the average age of US women for their 1st child was
25.1 years, up from 21.4 in 1970.
(WSJ, 12/18/03, p.A1)
2003 Dec 17, The Bush
administration reached a free-trade deal with El Salvador,
Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua for immediate duty-free access to
half of all US farm exports and 80% of consumer goods.
(WSJ, 12/18/03, p.A1)
2003 Dec 17, George Ryan,
former governor of Illinois, was indicted by a federal grand jury on
charges of racketeering. Ryan was alter convicted and sentenced to 6
1/2-years in federal prison sentence for racketeering.
(SFC, 12/18/03, p.A2)(AP, 12/17/08)
2003 Dec 17, Wally Hedrick
(75), Beat-era artist, died at his home in Sonoma County, Ca.
(SFC, 12/24/03, p.A16)
2003 Dec 17, In Britain Ian
Huntley, a former school caretaker, was convicted of murdering two
10-year-old girls in 2002. He had previously been investigated for
sex crimes. Huntley was sentenced to two life terms.
(AP, 12/17/03)(Econ, 1/21/06, p.53)
2003 Dec 17, The British
government announced the first reported case of a person dying from
the human form of mad cow disease after a blood transfusion from an
infected donor.
(AP, 12/17/04)
2003 Dec 17, China Life,
China's biggest life insurer, debuted on the NY stock exchange.
(Econ, 12/20/03, p.104)
2003 Dec 17, The fifth outbreak
in two years of the deadly Ebola virus in a the Republic of Congo
has so far killed 29 people.
(AP, 12/17/03)
2003 Dec 17, In France Pres.
Jacques Chirac announced his decision to pass a law banning Islamic
head scarves and other conspicuous religious symbols in public
schools.
(AP, 12/18/03)
2003 Dec 17, In Greece a court
handed multiple life sentences to the leader, chief assassin and
three other members of the November 17 terror organization.
(AP, 12/17/03)
2003 Dec 17, Haiti police
stormed and shut down a pro-opposition radio station, smashing
studio equipment in what they said was a search for weapons.
(AP, 12/18/03)
2003 Dec 17, In Baghdad an
explosives-laden truck speeding toward a police station slammed into
a bus and blew up before dawn, killing at least 10 Iraqis.
(AP, 12/17/03)
2003 Dec 17, In Iraq guerrillas
ambushed a U.S. military patrol with small arms fire, killing one
soldier at al-Karmah in northwest Baghdad. The soldier's death
brings the number of U.S. soldiers killed in combat to 314 since the
war started on March 20.
(AP, 12/18/03)
2003 Dec 17, Suspected
followers of Saddam Hussein shot to death Muhannad al-Hakim a
representative of a major Shiite political party and a member of the
Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution.
(AP, 12/18/03)
2003 Dec 17, South Korea agreed
to send 3,000 troops to Iraq in 2004.
(WSJ, 12/18/03, p.A1)
2003 Dec 17, NATO's Secretary
General Lord Robertson ended a tumultuous four-year term.
(AP, 12/17/03)
2003 Dec 17, In the Ukraine a
bus veered off a mountain road and plunged into a deep ditch on the
Crimean peninsula, killing 17 people and injuring 19 others.
(AP, 12/18/03)
2003 Dec 18, A federal judge in
NY ruled that Pres. Bush does not have the power to order that a US
citizen captured in this country be held indefinitely as an enemy
combatant. Federal judges in SF ruled that the administration's
policy of imprisoning some 600 non-citizens in Cuba without access
to US legal protection raises concerns under US and Int'l. law.
(SFC, 12/19/03, p.A1)
2003 Dec 18, Lee Boyd Malvo
(18) was convicted in Virginia for his role in the 2002 sniper
shootings.
(SFC, 12/19/03, p.A3)
2003 Dec 18, Michael Jackson
was formally charged with child molesting and administering an
intoxicating agent.
(WSJ, 12/19/03, p.A1)
2003 Dec 18, A judge in Seattle
sentenced confessed Green River Killer Gary Ridgway to 48
consecutive life terms.
(AP, 12/18/04)
2003 Dec 18, RealNetworks filed
a federal anti-trust suit against Microsoft, alleging it has tried
to use it monopoly power in PC operating systems to unlawfully
dominate the digital media market. A settlement was reached in 2005.
(SFC, 10/12/05, p.C2)
2003 Dec 18, The US Census
Bureau reported the population had grown to 291 million, and would
reach 300 million in 4 years.
(WSJ, 12/19/03, p.A1)
2003 Dec 18, An Ohio school
district suspended classes after bullet holes were found in 2 of its
buses.
(WSJ, 12/19/03, p.A1)
2003 Dec 18, The NYSE named
John Thain, president of Goldman Sachs, as CEO.
(WSJ, 1/2/04, p.R12)
2003 Dec 18, Mark Anthony
Fregia, while driving with his girlfriend and 2 children, set their
car on fire near the I-80 freeway exit at Pinole, Ca. Erin Weaver
was severely burned and the 2 children burned to death in the car.
Fregia fled the scene in a stolen car but was caught the next day.
In 2007 Fregia was convicted of 2 counts of murder and attempted
voluntary manslaughter.
(SFC, 12/20/03, p.A17)(SFC, 12/4/07, p.B2)
2003 Dec 18, Charles Berlitz
(90), linguist and author, died in Florida. His books included "The
Bermuda Triangle" (1974), and "Native Tongues," a compendium of
language history.
(SFC, 1/5/04, p.B5)
2003 Dec 18, Bhutan's royal
army killed at least 90 Indian separatist guerrillas in three days
of fighting to shut down their bases in the tiny Himalayan nation.
the Bhutanese army reported six to seven fatal casualties.
(AP, 12/18/03)
2003 Dec 18, Dragan Nikolic
(46), former Bosnian Serb prison camp commander who allowed his
troops to rape, torture and murder his Muslim prisoners, was
sentenced to 23 years in jail at the U.N. war crimes tribunal in the
Hague.
(AP, 12/18/03)
2003 Dec 18, The Cayman Islands
banned fishing in grouper spawning areas for eight years, citing a
sharp decline in the species' population. The ban took effect of Dec
29.
(AP, 12/19/03)
2003 Dec 18, Israel's PM Sharon
said that if talks with Palestinians failed, Israel would
unilaterally withdraw from some settlements in order to establish a
more defensible border.
(SFC, 12/19/03, p.A17)
2003 Dec 18, Iran signed a key
accord opening its nuclear facilities to unfettered and unannounced
inspections.
(AP, 12/18/03)
2003 Dec 18, The Lithuanian
Parliament launched impeachment proceedings against Pres. Rolandas
Paksas over charges that his office had connections with organized
crime.
(SFC, 12/19/03, p.A3)
2003 Dec 18, President Vladimir
Putin told Russians that he would seek a second term in the March 14
election. He also agreed to renegotiate debt relief for Iraq.
(AP, 12/18/03)(SFC, 12/19/03, p.A9)
2003 Dec 19, New plans revealed
that the signature NYC skyscraper at the World Trade Center site
will be a 1,776-foot glass tower that twists into the sky, topped by
energy-generating windmills and a spire that evokes the Statue of
Liberty. The plan was produced after months of contentious
negotiations between Daniel Libeskind, who designed the overall
five-building site plan, and David Childs, the lead architect for
the Freedom Tower.
(AP, 12/20/03)(SFC, 12/20/03, p.A1)
2003 Dec 19, U.S. troops
mistakenly shot and killed three Iraqi police officers and wounded
two others, thinking they were bandits.
(AP, 12/20/03)
2003 Dec 19, Hope Lange (70),
film actress, died in Santa Monica.
(SFC, 12/22/03, p.A20)
2003 Dec 19, Les Tremayne (90),
film actor, died.
(AP, 12/19/04)
2003 Dec 19, An Ontario court
ruled that the Canadian government discriminated against same-sex
couples by denying pension benefits to survivors whose partners died
before 1998. Benefits were made retro-active to April 17, 1985.
(SFC, 12/21/03, p.A14)
2003 Dec 19, China said it has
issued rules restricting exports of missile, nuclear and biological
technologies that can be used to make or deliver weapons of mass
destruction.
(AP, 12/20/03)
2003 Dec 19, Colombia's
attorney general charged the crew of a military helicopter with
involuntary manslaughter for killing 17 civilians with a bomb during
a 1998 clash with rebels.
(AP, 12/21/03)
2003 Dec 19, Fisheries
ministers of the 15 European Union nations reached a compromise deal
to protect dwindling stocks of cod, hake and other species.
(AP, 12/19/03)
2003 Dec 19, German lawmakers
adopted a package of tax cuts and looser employment laws.
(SFC, 12/20/03, p.A3)
2003 Dec 19, Israelis ushered
in the eight-day Hanukkah holiday.
(AP, 12/19/03)
2003 Dec 19, Parmalat SpA, an
Italian food giant, reported a $4.9 billion shortfall. Soon another
$3.6 billion in bonds was also in question. Parmalat planned to file
for bankruptcy protection in what turned into the biggest corporate
fraud in Europe's history. Parmalat employed 36,000 people in 29
countries. Fausto Tonna, former chief financial officer, soon
acknowledged that there was systematic falsification of accounts for
some 15 years. In 2001 an auditor in Brazil had raised an alarm over
financial transactions. The accounting scandal reached $17 billion.
(SFC, 12/24/03, p.B1)(WSJ, 12/26/03, p.C1)(WSJ,
3/29/04, p.A3)(Econ, 8/6/05, p.57)
2003 Dec 19, Japan announced
that it will begin building a missile defense system.
(AP, 12/19/03)
2003 Dec 19, Libyan leader
Moammar Gadhafi, after secret negotiations with the United States
and Britain, agreed to halt his nation's drive to develop nuclear
and chemical weapons and the long-range missiles to deliver them.
Libya admitted to nuclear fuel projects, including possessing
centrifuges and centrifuge parts used in uranium enrichment. Libya
showed American and British inspectors a significant quantity of
mustard agent. Libya acknowledged it intended to acquire equipment
and develop capabilities to create biological weapons. Libya
admitted "elements of the history of its cooperation with North
Korea" to develop extended-range Scud missiles.
(AP, 12/19/03)(AP, 12/20/03)
2003 Dec 19, Wim Sombroek
(b.1934), Dutch soil researcher, died. He was the first modern
investigator of terra preta, Amazonian dark earths, the carbon-rich
soils developed by ancient civilizations in what was once thought to
be a pristine wilderness.
(http://tinyurl.com/afgo8j)(Econ, 8/29/09,
p.69)(www.iuss.org/popup/Wim_Sombroek.htm)
2003 Dec 19, In the Philippines
landslides and floods left least 127 people dead, and dozens were
still missing and feared dead.
(AP, 12/20/03)(AP, 12/21/03)(AP, 12/22/03)
2003 Dec 19, Venezuela's
opposition turned in 3.4 million signatures to demand a recall
referendum on Hugo Chavez' rule.
(AP, 12/19/03)
2003 Dec 19, In Zimbabwe riot
police shut down the printing plant of the only independent daily
newspaper, defying a court order that overturned a government ban.
(AP, 12/19/03)
2003 Dec 20, Friends and
relatives of Michael Jackson descended on his Neverland Ranch to
show their support for the entertainer as he fought child
molestation charges.
(AP, 12/20/04)
2003 Dec 20, Lt. Gen.
David W. Barno, the new U.S. commander in Afghanistan said he will
use his forces to open up the lawless south and east to development
aid, in a tactical switch to beat a stubborn insurgency threatening
next year's elections.
(AP, 12/20/03)
2003 Dec 20, A rescue team
picked up two injured British adventurers after their helicopter
crashed in the Antarctic during a round-the world voyage. Jennifer
Murray and Colin Bodill, who were attempting to circumnavigate the
Earth across both poles, were found "safe and well."
(AP, 12/20/03)
2003 Dec 20, In Chechnya 10
Russian servicemen were killed in rebel attacks over 24 hours.
(AP, 12/21/03)
2003 Dec 20, A German bus
swerved off a Belgian highway, crashed against a concrete divider
and caught fire, killing 12 people and injuring dozens more.
(AP, 12/20/03)
2003 Dec 20, Insurgents
attacked pipelines and an oil storage depot in three parts of Iraq,
setting fires that blazed for hours and lost millions of gallons of
oil.
(AP, 12/21/03)
2003 Dec 20, The third year of
fighting between Israelis and Palestinians saw a decline in the
number of people killed, according to an AP count. Violence claimed
nearly 800 lives in 2003.
(AP, 12/20/03)
2003 Dec 20, A Lebanese
military court convicted 32 people of bombing American and British
businesses, and imposed sentences ranging from three months to life
imprisonment.
(AP, 12/20/03)
2003 Dec 20, Spain's PM Jose
Maria Aznar paid a surprise visit to Spanish troops in Iraq.
(AP, 12/20/03)
2003 Dec 20, Four Venezuelan
National Guard soldiers were killed in an ambush while patrolling an
area near the Colombian border.
(AP, 12/21/03)
2003 Dec 21, Tom Ridge, head of
the US Department of Homeland Security, announced that the
government was elevating the national terror alert warning to "Code
Orange," an upgrade from the "Code Yellow" elevated status.
(AP, 12/22/03)
2003 Dec 21, Time magazine's
named The American soldier, who bears the duty of "living with and
dying for a country's most fateful decisions," as Person of the
Year.
(AP, 12/21/03)
2003 Dec 21, Dave Dudley (75),
pioneer of truck-driving country songs, died. His hits included "Six
Days on the Road."
(SSFC, 12/28/03, p.E10)
2003 Dec 21, Guinea's longtime
leader Lansana Conte was expected to easily win another term as
president in elections after an opposition boycott left a
little-known parliamentarian as the only challenger for the post.
(AP, 12/21/03)
2003 Dec 21, In Honduras crowds
at a Christmas toy giveaway at National Stadium surged out of
control, and a 7-year-old girl was killed and about 80 other people
were injured. Television station, Compania Televisora, has run the
charity giveaway for eight years, and many businesses contributed
toys to the event.
(AP, 12/21/03)
2003 Dec 21, Israeli troops
conducted a series of raids in the West Bank city of Nablus,
arresting Hamas leader Adnan Asfour and killing a 5-year-old
Palestinian boy.
(AP, 12/21/03)
2003 Dec 21, More than 150
people were killed in mudslides in the Philippines. [see Dec 19]
(AP, 12/21/04)
2003 Dec 21, Oleg Troyanovsky
(84), Soviet diplomat, died.
(AP, 12/21/04)
2003 Dec 21, The Sudan
government and rebels have moved a step closer to ending their
20-year civil war after agreeing on how to divide the country's oil
revenue.
(AP, 12/21/03)
2003 Dec 21, A vessel, carrying
some 60 migrants from Jordan, Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan, left the
Turkish Mediterranean resort of Marmaris late Dec 20 and was heading
to the Greek island of Rhodes when it sank.
(AP, 12/22/03)
2003 Dec 22, A federal deadline
for Sept 11 related injury claims was set for midnight. A final
tally showed 4,033 claims for the 2001 WTC attack.
(SFC, 12/30/03, p.A4)
2003 Dec 22, A federal judge
ruled the Pentagon couldn't enforce mandatory anthrax vaccinations
for military personnel.
(AP, 12/22/04)
2003 Dec 22, A 6.5 earthquake
jolted the central California coast. Marilyn Zafuto (55) and
Jennifer Myrick (20) were killed in Paso Robles when the 1892
Mastagni Building and its 15-foor clock tower collapsed. Damages
from the San Simeon quake were estimated at some $100 million.
(AP, 12/23/03)(SFC, 12/23/03, p.A1)(SFC,
12/24/03, p.A1)
2003 Dec 22, Leaders of Arab
countries from the Persian Gulf agreed to form a pact to combat
terrorism and praised Washington for planning to transfer power to
Iraqis by mid-2004.
(AP, 12/22/03)
2003 Dec 22, Brazil's Pres.
Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva signed a sweeping gun-control law in an
effort to rein in what he called "an epidemic of murder by
firearms."
(AP, 12/23/03)
2003 Dec 22, China put forth
legislation to change its constitution to protect private property
rights for the first time since the 1949 communist revolution, a key
step in making capitalism its economy's driving force.
(AP, 12/22/03)
2003 Dec 22, Colombian rebels
freed four Israelis and a Briton held hostage for 101 days.
(AP, 12/22/04)
2003 Dec 22, An international
human rights group criticized a peace agreement giving soldiers and
rebels temporary immunity from prosecution for atrocities committed
against civilians in Burundi's 10-year civil war.
(AP, 12/22/03)
2003 Dec 22, Egyptian Foreign
Minister Ahmed Maher (68) was attacked by Islamic extremists at the
Al Axsa mosque in Jerusalem. He said the incident would only
strengthen his country's resolve to settle the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict.
(AP, 12/23/03)(SFC, 12/23/03, p.A3)
2003 Dec 22, In Haiti an armed
gang opened fire on anti-government protesters during a clash that
killed one man and left President Jean-Bertrand Aristide facing
growing unrest. A radio station later reported that the death toll
rose to eight.
(AP, 12/22/03)(AP, 12/25/03)
2003 Dec 22, In Iraq a roadside
bomb exploded near a U.S. military convoy, killing two American
soldiers and an Iraqi translator.
(AP, 12/22/03)
2003 Dec 22, Ivory Coast rebel
officials said they will rejoin a power-sharing government meant to
secure peace after a nine-month civil war in the divided West
African nation.
(AP, 12/22/03)
2003 Dec 22, The UN Security
Council voted unanimously to maintain sanctions on Liberia including
an arms embargo and a ban on importing diamonds from the west
African nation.
(AP, 12/23/03)
2003 Dec 22, Poland's Pres.
Aleksander Kwasniewski made an unannounced visit to the headquarters
of Polish-led peacekeepers in Iraq.
(AP, 12/22/03)
2003 Dec 22, Pakistan
acknowledged that some scientists participating in its nuclear
program may have been involved in the proliferation of sensitive
technology.
(AP, 12/22/03)
2003 Dec 22, Russia agreed to
write off 65% of the debt owed by Iraq.
(WSJ, 12/23/03, p.A1)
2003 Dec 22, South Korea and
Japan began negotiations on establishing a free-trade agreement
between the East Asian economic powerhouses.
(AP, 12/22/03)
2003 Dec 22, The South Korean
government dispatched hundreds of soldiers to farms to help
slaughter chickens and ducks in an effort to contain a contagious
bird flu spreading throughout the country.
(AP, 12/22/03)
2003 Dec 22, The world's
richest lottery spread $2.2 billion in Christmas cheer throughout
Spain, including to a village whose name means luck.
(AP, 12/22/03)
2003 Dec 23, The Bush
administration reversed a 2001 Clinton policy and opened some
300,000 acres of Alaska's Tongass National Forest to possible
logging or other development. The plan affirmed a Clinton plan from
1997.
(SFC, 12/24/03, p.A4)
2003 Dec 23, A Virginia jury
recommended a sentence of life in prison for Lee Boyd Malvo.
(AP, 12/23/03)
2003 Dec 23, New York Gov.
George Pataki posthumously pardoned comedian Lenny Bruce for his
1964 obscenity conviction.
(AP, 12/23/04)
2003 Dec 23, A cow, slaughtered
in Washington state on Dec 9, was reported to have tested positive
for mad cow disease, the 1st such US case. The $2.6 billion beef
export industry was hit as 7 nations quickly suspended imports of US
beef: Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, Taiwan and
Australia. The infected Holstein was imported into the United States
from Canada about two years ago. A US beef recall soon spread to 8
states and Guam.
(AP, 12/24/03)(SFC, 12/24/03, p.A1)(AP,
12/27/03)(SFC, 12/29/03, p.A1)
2003 Dec 23, Flooding in
central Bolivia killed at least 19 people and left 40 missing, most
of them passengers on a bus that was swept away by a swollen river.
(AP, 12/24/03)
2003 Dec 23, Canada's Supreme
Court ruled that marijuana possession would remain a criminal
offense even as PM Paul Martin pressed to eliminate jail sentences
for people caught with small amounts.
(SFC, 12/24/03, p.A3)
2003 Dec 23, A blowout occurred
at a natural gas field near Chongqing in Kaixian County. Fumes from
the gas well in China's southwest killed at least 233 people and
forced some 41,000 to flee a 10-square-mile death zone. Technicians
capped it Dec 27.
(AP, 12/25/03)(SFC, 12/27/03, p.A8)(SFC,
12/29/03, p.A3)
2003 Dec 23, In Colombia a bus
explosion that killed at least four people and injured more than 30
others was called an accident.
(AP, 12/24/03)
2003 Dec 23, In Croatia Ivo
Sanader (b.1953) began serving as prime minister. He resigned office
in 2009.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivo_Sanader)
2003 Dec 23, An Israeli raid on
the Rafah refugee camp killed 9 Palestinians and left over 40
wounded in the worst violence in the Gaza Strip in two months. Hours
earlier Israel lost its first two soldiers in a month of relative
calm.
(AP, 12/23/03)(AP, 12/24/03)
2003 Dec 23, The Dutch National
Flu Center said more than 15 of every 10,000 Dutch citizens have flu
symptoms, enough to qualify the current outbreak as an epidemic.
(AP, 12/23/03)
2003 Dec 23, The South Korean
Cabinet approved a plan to send 3,000 troops to the northern oil
town of Kirkuk as early as April.
(AP, 12/23/03)
2003 Dec 23, Myanmar's largest
guerrilla group said it is committed to peace talks with the
military government, but it wants future rounds held in the Thai
capital to preserve neutrality.
(AP, 12/23/03)
2003 Dec 23, Kriangsak Chomanan
(b.1917), an army general who became PM of Thailand in 1977 through
a series of coups, died at age 87. He helped steer Thailand to
democracy.
(AP, 12/23/03)(Econ, 1/10/04, p.76)
2003 Dec 23, Venezuelan
opposition leaders turned in more than a million signatures to
demand recall referendums against 26 lawmakers aligned with
President Hugo Chavez.
(AP, 12/24/03)
2003 Dec 24, A US federal
appeals court blocked the Bush administration from implementing a
major environmental rule change that would have allowed power plants
to upgrade their facilities without installing anti-pollution
equipment.
(SFC, 12/25/03, p.A3)
2003 Dec 24, Several Air France
flights to Los Angeles were cancelled stranding hundreds of people
in Paris on Christmas Eve amid fears of a terrorist attack.
(AP, 12/24/03)
2003 Dec 24, It was reported
that U.S. and Russian experts recovered 37 pounds of weapons-grade
uranium, enough to develop a nuclear warhead, from a closed atomic
facility in Bulgaria.
(AP, 12/24/03)
2003 Dec 24, Caroline Weiss
Law, Texas oil heiress, died on her 85th birthday. She left 52 major
art works, valued at $60-85 million, and $25 million cash to
establish an endowment for the Houston Museum of Fine Arts.
(SFC, 2/13/04, p.D12)
2003 Dec 24, In Iraq a string
of separate bombings killed 6 civilians and 3 American soldiers.
(AP, 12/24/03)
2003 Dec 24, Madagascar's
former PM Didier Ratsiraka was sentenced to 12 years of hard labor
and ordered to pay $7.6 million in damages for his role in last
year's election crisis that led to the formation of two governments.
(AP, 12/24/03)(Econ, 1/1/05, p.34)
2003 Dec 24, Pakistan's Pres.
Gen. Pervez Musharraf agreed to step down as head of the armed
forces by the end of 2004, part of a deal with the hardline Islamic
opposition to end a long standoff that has stalled this nation's
return to democracy. Musharraf also agreed to scale back some of the
special powers he decreed himself after taking power in a 1999
military coup.
(AP, 12/24/03)
2003 Dec 24, Ukraine's
parliament, the Verkhovna Rada, gave initial approval to
constitutional amendments allowing the president to be elected by
the legislature rather than by popular vote.
(AP, 12/24/03)(WPR, 3/04, p.28)
2003 Dec 25, Near San
Bernadino, Ca., 16 people were killed at a youth camp after
mudslides, triggered by heavy rain, swept down the San Gabriel
Mountains recently scorched by wildfire. 2 of the 14 people killed
were at a KOA campground near Devore.
(SFC, 12/27/03, p.A1)(SFC, 12/29/03, p.A1)(AP,
12/25/05)
2003 Dec 25, Florida's Gov. Jeb
Bush dedicated a faith-based prison.
(WSJ, 12/26/03, p.A1)
2003 Dec 25, In Schenectady,
NY, 2 home fires left 5 people dead. At least 4 people in one
fire were killed by shotgun blasts.
(SFC, 12/26/03, p.A5)
2003 Dec 25, A small plane
crashed after takeoff at the North Las Vegas and 6 family members
were killed.
(SSFC, 12/28/03, p.A3)
2003 Dec 25, A passenger plane
bound for Beirut crashed into the sea shortly after takeoff from the
west African nation of Benin and at least 138 people, mostly
Lebanese, were killed. Some 35 people survived.
(AP, 12/25/03)(SFC, 12/26/03, p.A3)(AP, 12/27/03)
2003 Dec 25, The British Beagle
2 spacecraft landed on Mars. The 73-pound lander was launched by the
European Space Agency June 2. Initial communication attempts failed,
but the Mars Express mother ship went into orbit for a planned 2
years of photography.
(SFC, 12/25/03, p.A1)(SFC, 12/26/03, p.A2)(SFC,
12/27/03, p.A2)
2003 Dec 25, China announced
steps to reduce overexpansion.
(SFC, 12/26/03, p.A3)
2003 Dec 25, A strong
earthquake shook the border of Costa Rica and Panama, killing an
infant and leaving dozens of others with mainly minor injuries.
(AP, 12/26/03)
2003 Dec 25, Guinea's ailing
President Lansana Conte was declared the victor in presidential
elections boycotted by the opposition, securing a landslide victory
with over 95 percent of the vote, according to provisional results.
(AP, 12/25/03)
2003 Dec 25, In Iraq leaders of
Sunni Muslim groups agreed to form a State Council for the Sunnis in
order to speak with a unified voice during the transition to Iraqi
governance.
(SFC, 12/26/03, p.A9)
2003 Dec 25, Israeli troops
shot and killed a Palestinian man carrying explosives toward a
Jewish settlement in Gaza.
(AP, 12/25/03)
2003 Dec 25, Israeli helicopter
gunships killed a senior Islamic militant and at least four other
people in a missile strike on a car in Gaza City.
(Reuters, 12/25/03)
2003 Dec 25, A suicide bombing
killed four Israelis near a bus stop outside Tel Aviv. The victims
were identified as 3 soldiers and a 17-year-old Israeli girl. At
least 13 other people were wounded. The PFLP identified the bomber
as Said Hanani (18) from the village of Beit Furik.
(AP, 12/26/03)(SFC, 12/26/03, p.A1)
2003 Dec 25, In Pakistan
bombers set off 2 massive blasts near Pres. Pervez Musharraf's
motorcade, killing 15 people in the 2nd assassination attempt
against Musharraf in 11 days. The president was unhurt, but at least
46 other people were wounded.
(AP, 12/25/03)(SFC, 12/26/03, p.A1)
2003 Dec 26, An avalanche in
Provo Canyon, Utah, left 3 snowboarders dead.
(SFC, 12/27/03, p.A5)
2003 Dec 26, In northern China
a fire raced through coal mine in Wu'an, a city in Hebei province,
killing 26 miners.
(AP, 12/27/03)
2003 Dec 26, A 6.6 earthquake
devastated the southeastern Iranian city of Bam, 630 miles southeast
of the capital Tehran. It leveled more than half the city's houses
and its historic mud-brick fortress. At least 26,000 people were
killed and over 10,000 injured. Iran appealed for international help
and promised to waive visas for foreign relief workers.
(AP, 12/27/03)(SFC, 12/30/03, p.A3)(AP,
1/2/04)(AP, 12/26/04)
2003 Dec 26, In Iraq an
American soldier died in a rebel ambush and two others were killed
in bomb explosions.
(AP, 12/26/03)
2003 Dec 26, Hamas, the Islamic
group responsible for most suicide bombings in three years of
violence, called off attacks inside Israel. In response, Israel will
hold off targeting Hamas leaders but will still go after other
Palestinian militants.
(AP, 12/27/03)
2003 Dec 26, Kelvin Stark, a
new Zealand pilot, was killed while flying a new PAC 750XL airplane
to California. The 17-passenger plane was billed as the 1st
passenger aircraft built in New Zealand and was specially designed
for skydiving.
(SFC, 12/27/03, p.A15)
2003 Dec 27, In Afghanistan
suspected al Qaeda fighters ambushed Afghan security forces near the
Pakistani border. A senior Afghan intelligence official was killed
along with 6 attackers.
(SSFC, 12/28/03, p.A14)
2003 Dec 27, Alan Bates (69),
British stage and film actor, died. His films included "Zorba the
Greek" and "Georgy Girl."
(SFC, 12/29/03, p.A12)
2003 Dec 27, China announced
its first suspected SARS case since July.
(AP, 12/27/03)
2003 Dec 27, An Indonesian army
tank accidentally ran over a public minibus on Java island, killing
18 people and injuring at least five.
(AP, 12/27/03)
2003 Dec 27, Governments around
the world rushed medical experts, rescue teams, water-purification
systems and tea to the earthquake-ravaged Iranian city of Bam.
(AP, 12/27/03)
2003 Dec 27, In Iraq insurgents
launched 3 coordinated attacks in the southern city of Karbala,
killing 13 people, including six Iraqi police officers, 2 Thai
soldiers and 5 Bulgarians.
(AP, 12/28/03)(SSFC, 12/28/03, p.A3)(WSJ,
12/29/03, p.A1)(AP, 12/27/04)
2003 Dec 27, Israeli troop
staged a huge raid in Nablus that left a Palestinian teenager dead
and 17 others wounded.
(SSFC, 12/28/03, p.A18)
2003 Dec 27, Juan Garcia Ponce
(71), a renowned Mexican art critic, translator and prize-winning
novelist, died. Ponce was born in Merida, the capital of Yucatan
state, on Sept. 22, 1932. The author of at least 50 books, Ponce
wrote novels, plays, screenplays and essays and was considered a
master of erotic literature.
(AP, 12/28/03)(SFC, 12/29/03, p.A12)
2003 Dec 27, Russia removed all
Soviet-built anti-aircraft missiles from its vast arms depots in a
Moldova province to prevent them from falling into the hands of
terrorists. The missiles were flown from Transdniestria Province to
Moscow.
(AP, 12/29/03)
2003 Dec 28, A motorhome
carrying 10 people went off I-15 near SLC, Utah, and 5 people were
killed including 4 children.
(SFC, 12/29/03, p.A3)
2003 Dec 28, Five Afghan
security officials were killed in Kabul when a suicide bomber they
had detained blew himself up.
(Reuters, 12/28/03)
2003 Dec 28, Guatemala's
presidential polls opened in a runoff featuring a former Guatemala
City mayor popular with the country's elite facing an engineer
backed by former leftist rebels.
(AP, 12/28/03)
2003 Dec 28, A roadside bomb
killed an American soldier and two Iraqi children in Baghdad.
(AP, 12/28/03)
2003 Dec 28, A team led by U.N.
nuclear chief Mohammed ElBaradei toured 4 atomic facilities in Libya
and found dismantled equipment. ElBaradei said Libya appeared to
reach only an experimental level in its attempts to enrich uranium,
essential for a nuclear bomb.
(AP, 12/29/04)
2003 Dec 28, In Serbia
parliamentary elections Slobodan Milosevic and Vojislav Seselj,
along as well as 2 others indicted for war crimes, contended for
seats.
(SSFC, 12/28/03, p.A18)
2003 Dec 29, The Bush
administration said it will require international air carriers in
certain cases to place armed law enforcement officers on cargo and
passenger flights to, from and over the United States.
(AP, 12/30/03)
2003 Dec 29, Paul Goldman, a
native of Uzbekistan, stabbed and killed Faina Zonis in the
Philadelphia suburb of Bensalem. Goldman soon fled the country.
Police found his parents dead by suicide on Jan 13. Goldman was
captured in France on Jan 20, 2004. Zonis committed suicide Apr 11,
2004.
(SFC, 1/17/04, p.A4)(SFC, 1/21/04, p.A3)(AP,
4/13/04)
2003 Dec 29, Actor Earl Hindman
(61), who'd played the mostly unseen neighbor Wilson on "Home
Improvement," died in Stamford, Conn.
(AP, 12/29/04)
2003 Dec 29, In Burundi gunmen
killed Monsignor Michael Courtney, the pope's ambassador, firing on
his car as he was returning from a funeral.
(AP, 12/29/03)
2003 Dec 29, China reported
that the China State Shipbuilding Corp. has broken ground on what it
says will be the world's biggest shipyard, a high-tech facility
capable of producing cruise ships and natural gas tankers at the
mouth of the Yangtze.
(AP, 12/29/03)
2003 Dec 29, The roof of a
centuries-old Ethiopian church carved out of rock collapsed while it
was packed with worshippers, killing at least 15 people. The
800-year-old Mewa Tsadkan Gabriel church was in a remote area some
310 miles northeast of the capital, Addis Ababa. It was built by
King Lalibela, who ruled there from the late 12th century to the
early 13th century.
(AP, 1/3/04)
2003 Dec 29, The Indonesian
Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) was established based on the
Law No. 30 of 2002.
(www.icac.org.hk/newsl/issue22eng/button3.htm)
2003 Dec 29, Rebels lobbed a
grenade and fired on U.S. soldiers searching homes for insurgents in
the northern city of Mosul, triggering a firefight that left three
Iraqis dead and two U.S. soldiers wounded.
(AP, 12/29/03)
2003 Dec 29, Japan pledged to
forgive "the vast majority" of its Iraqi debt if other Paris Club
nations do the same. China later said it would consider the idea.
(AP, 12/29/03)
2003 Dec 29, Oscar Berger, the
pro-business former mayor of Guatemala City won an easy victory in
the presidential run-off, four years after he left politics and
swore he would never come back. Berger won 54% vs. 46% for Alvaro
Colom.
(AP, 12/29/03)(Econ, 1/3/04, p.24)
2003 Dec 29, Poland and Israel
signed a deal worth some $350 million over the next 10 years to
provide the Polish army with some 2,700 state-of-the-art Israeli
anti-tank missiles.
(AP, 12/29/03)
2003 Dec 29, In Portugal 9 men
and one woman were charged with sexually abusing minors and
adolescents, rape and organizing a pedophile ring at the state-run
Casa Pia home. Among those indicted were 2 popular television
personalities, a lawmaker and a retired ambassador.
(AP, 12/30/03)
2003 Dec 29, It was reported
that some 4,400 issues of the book entitled "FSB blows up Russia"
and authored by former FSB agent Alexander Litvinenko, now exiled in
Britain, were confiscated en route from the western city of Pskov to
Moscow. Litvinenko, a former lieutenant colonel, charged the FSB
with involvement in the bombings on September 9 and 13, 1999 which
destroyed two buildings in Moscow, killing more than 200 people.
(AP, 12/30/03)
2003 Dec 29, In Serbia Vojislav
Seselj's Radical Party won weekend elections with 27% of the vote.
Nationalists won 82 seats but would have to negotiate with more
moderate parties to form a government. The Socialist Party led by
Slobodan Milosevic won 22 seats.
(WSJ, 12/29/03, p.A1)(SFC, 12/30/03, p.A10)(Econ,
1/3/04, p.35)
2003 Dec 29, Jaime de
Pinies, a longtime Spanish diplomat who served as president of the
United Nations General Assembly (1985), died in Madrid.
(AP, 12/31/03)
2003 Dec 30, The Bush
administration banned the use of meat from all sick or lame animals.
(SFC, 12/31/03, p.A1)
2003 Dec 30, The US FDA banned
the dietary supplement ephedra. Some 16,000 adverse reactions had
been reported along with 155 deaths.
(WSJ, 12/30/03, p.A1)(SFC, 12/31/03, p.A1)
2003 Dec 30, The Pentagon said
it will end an arrangement with Halliburton to import fuel into Iraq
due to recent government audits.
(SFC, 12/31/03, p.A9)
2003 Dec 30, FedEx agreed to
acquire Kinko's for $2.2 billion.
(WSJ, 12/31/03, p.A3)
2003 Dec 30, John Gregory Dunne
(b.1932), author, screenwriter and husband of Joan Didion, died in
NYC at age 71. His novels included "True Confessions" (1977).
(SFC, 1/1/04, p.A23)(SFC, 1/2/04, p.D1)
2003 Dec 30, In Cambodia former
Khmer Rouge head of state Khieu Samphan (72) acknowledged for the
first time that his regime committed genocide.
(AP, 12/30/03)
2003 Dec 30, In northeast China
an explosion at a fireworks factory in Tieling, Liaoning province,
killed at least 29 people. Authorities soon ordered more than 2,000
fireworks factories closed after a series of fatal explosions
"sounded warning bells for the industry."
(AP, 12/30/03)(AP, 1/3/04)
2003 Dec 30, In northern
Colombia leftist rebels attacked Pozo Azul, a village in Bolivar
state controlled by right-wing paramilitaries, killed 39 militia
fighters and a villager.
(AP, 12/31/03)
2003 Dec 30, Haiti police
hurled tear gas and fired warning shots in Port-au-Prince to break
up a protest by thousands of government opponents, wounding at least
two people.
(AP, 12/31/03)
2003 Dec 30, Anita Mui (40),
Canto pop diva and film actress, died in Hong Kong of cervical
cancer.
(SFC, 1/1/04, p.A23)(SFC, 1/10/04, p.D3)
2003 Dec 30, At least 34 Indian
soldiers were wounded in Kashmir when militants detonated a bomb in
a shop as the bus carrying the troops passed by.
(Reuters, 12/30/03)
2003 Dec 30, Miriam Naveira was
sworn in as the new chief justice of Puerto Rico's Supreme Court,
making her the first woman to hold the post.
(AP, 12/30/03)
2003 Dec 30, The Russian Tax
Ministry slapped a $3.3 billion bill for back taxes, fines and other
penalties on the oil giant Yukos.
(SFC, 12/31/03, p.B6)
2003 Dec 30, Ukraine's
Constitutional Court ruled that President Leonid Kuchma can run for
a third five-year term next year.
(AP, 12/30/03)
2003 Dec 31, Neal Batson ended
his tenure as bankruptcy examiner of Enron. The 18-month probe had a
final tab of $90 million. It included lawyer rates of as much as
$600 an hour.
(WSJ, 3/18/04, p.C1)
2003 Dec 31, Chicago
regained the title of America's murder capital. It finished 2003
with 599 homicides. That was down from 648 a year earlier and the
first time since 1967 that the total dipped below 600. Gary, Ind.,
appeared to finish 2003 with the nation's highest per capita
homicide rate for the ninth straight year.
(AP, 1/1/04)
2003 Dec 31, The JenniCam
website, begun by Jennifer Ringley in 1996, shut down. 7 years
earlier she installed a Web camera in her Pennsylvania college dorm
room and kept it on for 24 hours a day recording every detail of her
life.
(SFC, 12/12/03, p.B4)
2003 Dec 31, China offered to
allow Taiwan to fly unlimited numbers of direct charter flights to
the mainland in 2004, if the island's government agrees to allow
Chinese airlines to do the same the following year.
(AP, 12/31/03)
2003 Dec 31, In Indonesia a
bomb tore through a crowded New Year's concert in Aceh province,
killing 10 people, including three children. 45 were wounded.
(AP, 1/1/04)
2003 Dec 31, In Iraq gunfire
erupted in Kirkuk as hundreds of Arabs and Turkmen marched in
protest over fears of Kurdish domination in the oil-rich northern
city.
(AP, 12/31/03)(WSJ, 1/2/04, p.A1)
2003 Dec 31, A New Year's Eve
car bombing at the upscale Nabil restaurant in Baghdad killed 8
people and injured 35.
(AP, 1/1/04)(SFC, 1/1/04, p.A1)
2003 Dec 31, Security forces
boarded a bus in Macedonia and snatched a German citizen named
Khaled el-Masri (b.1963). For the next five months, el-Masri was a
ghost. Only a select group of CIA officers knew he had been whisked
to a secret prison for interrogation in Afghanistan. He was the
wrong guy. El-Masri was dumped in Albania in a remote hillside on
May 28, 2004, without explanation or apology. Five months later
Germany withdrew warrants for the arrest of 13 CIA agents.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khalid_El-Masri)(AP, 2/9/11)(SSFC,
3/6/11, p.F6)
2003 Dec 31, An avalanche swept
down Mount Tasman, one of New Zealand's tallest peaks, killing four
climbers and injuring two others.
(AP, 12/31/03)
2003 Dec 31, In the Philippines
a fire sparked by firecrackers swept through an old market in Lucena
City, killing at least 14 people who were trapped inside their
stalls.
(AP, 12/31/03)
2003 Dec 31, Vietnam sentenced
Nguyen Vu Binh (35) to 7 years in jai and 3 years house arrest for
writing an article in 2002 that circulated on the Internet
criticizing a border agreement between Vietnam and China.
(SFC, 12/31/03, p.A3)
2003 Dec, Pres. Bush signed the
National Nanotechnology Initiative into law. The current market
value of the industry was about $1 billion.
(Econ, 1/17/04, p.52)
2003 Dec, The US signed
the U.N. Convention Against Corruption, which requires countries to
cooperate in investigations and return funds to the countries where
they were stolen.
(AP, 1/12/04)
2003 Dec, Dennis Montgomery, a
California computer programmer, reported that hidden in the crawl
bars broadcast by Al Jazeera, someone had planted information about
specific American-bound flights from Britain, France and Mexico that
were hijacking targets. CIA officials rushed the information to
Pres. Bush, who ordered those flights to be turned around or
grounded before they could enter American airspace. Montgomery had
patented computer codes that he claimed could find terrorist plots
hidden in broadcasts of Al Jazeera. His codes were later believed to
be fake. In 2011 Montgomery faced charges of trying to pass $1.8
million in bad checks at Las Vegas casinos.
(SSFC, 2/20/11, p.A8)(http://tinyurl.com/5rur55y)
2003 Dec, George B. Kaiser,
head of Kaiser-Francis Oil, took over the LNG business of El Paso
Oil. This included the Energy Bridge technology for pumping natural
gas from new, specially-built off-shore vessels.
(WSJ, 7/23/04, p.A1)
2003 Dec, Angola's ruling party
chose Pres. Jose Eduardo dos Santos as its candidate for the next
general election.
(Econ, 12/13/03, p.8)
2003 Dec, The 40-story London
building at 30 St. Mary Axe, designed by Norman Foster, opened. Its
peculiar shaped was frequently compared to a gherkin.
(WSJ, 7/13/04, p.D8)(Econ, 12/4/04, TQ p.17)
2003 Dec, In Burundi the Forces
for the Defense of Democracy (FDD), the biggest Hutu rebel group,
joined Burundi's transitional government. FNL rebels under Agathon
Rwasa (39) continued to lob mortar shells into Bujumbura.
(Econ, 12/6/03, p.41)
2003 Dec, Jane Fonda traveled
to Guatemala to attract media attention to the cases of over 700
women slain since 2001. Legal investigations had only produced 32
arrests and 11 convictions.
(SFC, 12/30/03, p.E1)
2003 Dec, In Ozersk, Russia, a
concrete facility for storing nuclear material was completed with
more than $400 million in US funds. Loading it was expected to begin
in 2006.
(WSJ, 9/26/05, p.A1)
2003 Dec, WHO and UNAIDS
announced an initiative to get 3 million HIV-positive people in poor
and middle-income countries onto anti-retroviral drugs by the end of
2005. The initiative failed to reach half its goal.
(Econ, 4/1/06, p.64)
2003 Dec, Uruguay voters agreed
60-35% to keep a state monopoly over the oil industry.
(Econ, 12/13/03, p.8)
2003 Yale professors Ian Ayres
and Barry Nalebuff authored "Why Not," a how to guide for inventors
and other professors, (www.whynot.net).
(Econ, 10/25/03, p.)
2003 Raymond William Baker
authored “Islam Without Fear: Egypt and the New Islamists.”
(SFC, 7/10/04, p.A11)
2003 Bruce Berkowitz authored
"The New Face of War: How War Will Be Fought in the 21st Century."
(WSJ, 3/21/03, p.W1)
2003 Paul Berman authored
"Terror and Liberalism," an examination of their historical
relations. "The very idea of evil or mass unreason was terrifying to
the liberals, implying among other things that, war might be
required to resist it."
(WSJ, 4/8/03, p.D4)
2003 Sally Bowen, a 15-year
Lima resident, and Jane Holligan co-authored "The Imperfect Spy: The
Many Lives of Vladimiro Montesinos," about Peru's now-imprisoned
former intelligence chief. The book cited an imprisoned drug runner,
a former informant for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, as
saying that Fernando Zevallos, founder of Aero Continente airlines,
was a leading Peruvian drug trafficker. In 2004 Zevallos filed a
civil suit against Bowen, Holligan and the publisher.
(AP, 5/22/04)
2003 Todd Boyd, Univ. S. Cal.
professor, authored "The New H.N.I.C. – The Death of Civil Rights
and the Reign of Hip Hop. HNIC stands for "head niggas in charge."
(SSFC, 2/2/03, p.M6)
2003 Dan Brown authored the
best-seller thriller novel "The Da Vinci Code." The story held that
Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene and fathered a daughter; that
the Bible was put together by a 4th century emperor with a thing
against women; and that the Catholic Church is a criminal
conspiracy.
(SFC, 8/30/03, p.D1)(Econ, 5/20/06, p.34)
2003 Jay Burreson and Penny Le
Couter authored ""Napoleon's Buttons: How 17 Molecules Changed
History."
(SSFC, 6/8/03, p.M2)
2003 Former Pres. Jimmy Carter
authored his novel "The Hornet's Nest," set in Georgia and the
Carolinas during the US war for independence.
(WSJ, 11/7/03, p.W9)
2003 Jefferson Chase translated
"The Culture of Defeat: On National Trauma, Mourning and Recovery"
by Wolfgang Schivelbusch. His thesis is that the response of
vanquished nations to the experience of defeat "conforms to a
recognizable set of patterns or archetypes that recur across time
and national boundaries."
(SSFC, 4/20/03, p.M1)
2003 Noam Chomsky authored
“Hegemony of Survival: America’s Quest for Global Dominance.” In
2006 it became a best seller after Venezuela’s Pres. Hugo Chavez
urged Americans to read it.
(SFC, 9/23/06, p.A2)
2003 Gen. Wesley Clark authored
"Winning Modern Wars."
(WSJ, 10/17/03, p.W6)
2003 Robert Dallek authored "An
Unfinished Life," an 815-page political portrait of JFK.
(WSJ, 5/13/03, p.D5)
2003 Midge Decter
authored "Rumsfeld," a biography of the US Secretary of
Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld.
(WSJ, 10/14/03, p.D10)
2003 Richard Duncan authored
“The Dollar Crises.”
(Econ, 1/16/10, p.73)
2003 Rachel Ehrenfeld authored
“Funding Evil: How Terrorism is Financed and How to Stop It.” The
book sold 23 copies in Britain, over the Internet. She later lost a
libel case concerning the book brought in the English High Court of
Justice by Saudi businessman Khalid bin Mahfouz, who was awarded
₤100,000 ($160,000).
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Funding_Evil)(Econ,
1/2/10, p.42)
2003 Oxford Univ. published the
1st volume of its series “The Seven Deadly Sins.” Joseph Epstein led
with “Envy.” Wendy Wasserstein later followed with “Sloth,” Robert
Thurman with “Anger,” Simon Blackburn with “Lust,” Francine Prose
with “Gluttony,” Phyllis A. Tickle with “Greed,” and Michael Eric
Dyson with “Pride.”
(WSJ, 2/4/06, p.P8)
2003 Robert Fatton Jr. authored
"Haiti's Predatory Republic: The Unending Transition to Democracy."
(WSJ, 4/11/03, p.A11)
2003 Neil Fiske and Michael
Silverstein authored “Trading Up: The New American Luxury.”
(Econ, 5/30/09, SR p.4)
2003 Al Franken authored “Lies
and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the
Right.
(Econ, 1/3/04, p.59)
2003 The purported memoir “A
Million Little Pieces” by James Frey was published. In 2005 it was
endorsed by Oprah Winfrey and became a best seller. In 2006 Frey
acknowledged that much of the book was falsified.
(SFC, 1/27/06, p.A2)
2003 Robert W. Fuller authored
"Somebodies and Nobodies: Overcoming the Abuse of Rank," in which he
examined the abuse of power due to "rankism."
(SSFC, 4/6/03, p.M6)
2003 Dr. James Gee of the Univ.
of Wisconsin authored “What Video Games Have to Teach Us About
learning and Literacy.”
(Econ, 9/5/09, p.86)
2003 Dore Gold authored
"Hatred's Kingdom: How Saudi Arabia Supports the New Global
Terrorism."
(WSJ, 3/27/03, p.D7)
2003 Evan Gottlesman authored
"Cambodia: After the Khmer Rouge."
(WSJ, 4/25/03, W6)
2003 Molly Ivins and Lou Dubose
authored “Bushwhacked: Life in George W. Bush’s America.”
(Econ, 1/3/04, p.59)
2003 Tracy Kidder (b.1945)
authored “Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr Paul Farmer, A
Man Who Would Cure The World” the story of Dr. Farmer (b.1959) and
the health clinic Farmer founded in Haiti in 1987.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Farmer)(SFC,
2/8/08, p.E1)
2003 David Kushner authored
"Masters of Doom," an account of how John Carmack and John Romero
created the computer games "Doom" and "Quake."
(WSJ, 5/6/03, p.D5)
2003 Jackson Lears authored
"Something for Nothing," a view of history as a conflict between a
"culture of chance" and a "culture of control."
(WSJ, 1/28/03, p.D6)
2003 Micheline Maynard authored
"The End of Detroit: How the Big Three Lost Their Grip on the
American Car market."
(Econ, 10/11/03, p.82)
2003 John Micklethwaite and
Adrian Woolridge authored "The Company: A short History of a
Revolutionary Idea." It was a short history of corporations.
(WSJ, 5/7/03, p.D10)
2003 Madhusree Mukerjee, Indian
author, authored "The Land of the Naked People: Encounters With
Stone Age Islanders," a travel narrative of the Andaman Islands.
(SSFC, 8/17/03, p.M3)
2003 Walter K. Olson authored
"The Rule of Lawyers," a chronology of class-action abuses.
(WSJ, 1/21/03, p.D6)
2003 Ricardo Orizio, Italian
journalist, authored "Talk of the Devil: Encounters With Seven
Dictators." The dictators included Idi Amin (Uganda), Jean-Claude
Duvalier (Haiti), Jean-Bedel Bokassa (CAR), Mengistu Haile-Mariam
(Ethiopia), the widow of Enver Hoxha (Albania), Wojciech Jaruzelski
(Poland), and Mira Markovic, the wife of Slobodan Milosevic
(Serbia).
(SSFC, 5/4/03, p.M2)
2003 Mark Palmer authored
"Breaking the Real Axis of Evil: How to Oust the World's Last
Dictators by 2025."
(WSJ, 12/16/03, p.D10)
2003 DBC Pierre won the 2003
Booker Prize for his novel "Vernon God Little."
(SSFC, 10/26/03, p.M3)
2003 Anna Politkovskaya
authored “A Small Corner of Hell: Dispatches from Chechnya.”
(Econ, 10/4/03, p.80)
2003 San Diego Prof. Msgr. John
R. Portman edited “In Defense of Sin,” a volume extolling the
virtues of sinfulness. In 2007 Prof. Portman authored “:A History of
Sin: How Evil Changes, But Never Goes Away.”
(www.wpr.org/BOOK/020324b.html)
2003 Sir Martin Rees, British
astronomer, authored "Our Final Hour," in which he considered
restricting specific types of research to prevent irrational uses of
new technology.
(SFC, 4/14/03, p.A6)
2003 Anthony Sattin authored
"The Gates of Africa: Death, Discovery and the Search for Timbuktu.
(Econ, 12/20/03, p.126)
2003 Jonathan Schell authored
"The Unconquerable World: Power, Nonviolence and the Will of the
People." He proposed a 4-point prescription for world peace that
included a) abolishing all weapons of mass destruction; b)
redefining ideas of sovereignty; c) stopping crimes against
humanity; d) a league of democratic countries.
(SSFC, 5/11/03, p.M3)
203 Robert Sidney (1909-2008),
choreographer, authored “With Malice Towards Some: Tales From a Life
Dancing With Stars.”
(SFC, 4/2/08, p.B9)
2003 Steven Strogatz authored
"Sync: The Emerging Science of Spontaneous Order," in which he
argued that the universe is an orderly place marked by harmony and
cooperation.
(NW, 3/17/03, p.49)
2003 Gordon Sumner, better
known as Sting, authored "Broken Music: A Memoir."
(Econ, 12/13/03, p.83)
2003 Don Tapscott and David
Ticoll authored “The Naked Corporation.”
(http://tinyurl.com/4dbu4e8)(Econ, 2/26/11, p.77)
2003 Mike Tidwell authored
"Bayou Farewell: The Rich Life and Tragic Death of Louisiana's Cajun
Coast."
(SSFC, 3/30/03, p.M4)
2003 Lester Thurow authored
"Fortune Favors the Bold: What We Must Do to Build a New and Lasting
Global Prosperity."
(SSFC, 11/30/03, p.M2)
2003 William T. Vollman (45)
published his 3,352-page, 7-volume treatise on violence: "Rising Up
and Rising Down."
(SFC, 11/28/03, p.I1)
2003 David Foster Wallace
authored "Everything and More: A Compact History of infinity."
(SFC, 11/18/03, p.D1)
2003 Michael Watkins,
management professor at INSEAD, authored “The First 90 Days:
Critical Success Strategies for New Leaders at All Levels.”
(Econ, 7/15/06, p.65)
2003 Simon Winchester authored
"The Meaning of Everything."
(WSJ, 10/10/03, p.W12)
2003 James Wood authored the
novel "The Book Against God."
(SSFC, 6/15/03, p.M3)
2003 In Idaho a development
plan for Tamarack Resort, a ski village in Donelly, was approved
with support from the governor. Lifts opened in 2004, but in 2007
construction stopped as investor’s pulled back under a credit
crunch.
(WSJ, 7/7/08, p.A3)
2003 The internet site
“Dropping Knowledge” was founded in the summer by film director Ralf
Schmerberg, film producer Cindy Gantz, and Jackie Wallace, trustee
of the Wallace Global Fund.
(http://tinyurl.com/n66xm)
2003 A CIA report said that the
Al-Rajhi Bank in Saudi Arabia had served as a conduit for terrorist
transactions since at least the mid-1990s.
(WSJ, 1/26/07, p.A10)
2003 James Giffen, a US oil
consultant, was indicted in the US under the 1977 Foreign Corrupt
Practices Act. He was charged with accepting bribes from US
companies to gain access to Kazakhstan’s Tengiz oil field. Giffen
claimed he was working as a US intelligence asset.
(WSJ, 5/12/08, p.A6)
2003 Martin Grass, former CEO
of Rite Aid, pleaded guilty to fraud and agreed to cooperate with
the prosecution of former colleagues. He was later sentenced to 8
years in prison.
(Econ, 6/12/04, p.59)
2003 Street Sense, a Washington
DC newspaper for the homeless, was founded by Ted Henson (23) and
Laura Thompson Osuri (26). It followed the general business plane of
the North American Street Newspaper Association, a trade group
focused on homelessness.
(WSJ, 6/30/06, p.A1)
2003 The POW/MIA Accounting
group, tasked with accounting for US war veterans, was formed.
Headquarters was established at Hickam Air Force Base in Oahu,
Hawaii.
(SFC, 10/21/05, p.B10)
2003 The US Census Bureau
recognized micropolitan areas as locales with at least one town and
10-50 thousand people. 567 micropolises were identified in the
continental US.
(WSJ, 6/3/04, p.A1)
2003 The US Library of Congress
bought one of the world's rarest maps, the Waldseemuller world map
(1507), which was the first to name "America," for $10 million.
(AP, 1/12/10)
2003 The US prison population
grew this year 2.9% to almost 2.1 million. 1 of every 75 men living
in the US were in jail. Americans under the control of the criminal
justice system grew by 130,700 to a new high of nearly 6.9 million,
or 3.2% of the adult population.
(WSJ, 5/28/04, p.A1)(SFC, 7/26/04, p.A2)
2003 In California an Alameda
Superior Court ruled that Visa and MasterCard must refund $800
million in hidden foreign-exchange fees. In 2005 a California Court
of Appeal reversed the decision because the lead plaintiff never had
a Visa or MasterCard.
(SFC, 9/29/05, p.C3)
2003 The Florida Clean Air Act
became part of the state constitution. It prohibited smoking in
virtually all indoor public areas.
(WSJ, 1/27/04, p.D12)
2003 Iowa introduced its Help
Us Stop Hunger (HUSH) program. It urged hunters to donate surplus
venison to local food banks.
(WSJ, 11/20/06, p.A1)
2003 Ted Townsend, an Iowa
meat-packing tycoon, gave $3,000 in campaign contributions to
Republican Senator Chuck Grassley. In 2004 Grassley secured a $50
million from the federal budget for an indoor rainforest promoted by
Townsend.
(Econ, 1/28/06, p.29)
2003 Louisville, Ky., merged
with surrounding Jefferson County. Louisville Mayor Jerry Abramson
won the top job for “Louisville Metro.”
(Econ, 3/8/08, p.38)
2003 The Montana Human Rights
Network acquired more than 4,000 of white supremacist books from a
defecting member of The Creativity Movement’s state chapter that had
been located in Superior, Montana. The Network partnered with the
Holter Museum of Art to create Speaking Volumes, whereby artists
transformed the hate literature into pieces that stimulate community
dialogue about the dangers of bigotry.
(www.mhrn.org/publications/specialresearchreports/SonesGoffbriefing.pdf)
2003 MIT introduced the Int’l.
Genetically Engineered Machine (iGEM) competition.
(Econ, 9/5/09, TQ p.30)
2003 Texas Gov. Rick Perry
signed tort reform legislation, which capped non-economic damages in
medical lawsuits.
(Econ, 8/13/11, p.28)
2003 The Texas Enterprise Fund
was created during the 78th legislative session in response to
Governor Rick Perry's request in his 2003 State of the State address
for a special development fund of $390 million to help attract new
jobs and investment to the state.
(Econ, 8/20/11, p.28)(http://tinyurl.com/c2dsq4)
2003 A report from Texas
A&M Univ. showed that ionization fire detectors (smoke alarms)
take 15 minutes longer or more than photoelectric fire detectors to
detect smoldering fires. About 90% of US homes at this time
contained the ionization type, which were about $5 cheaper than the
photoelectric type.
(SSFC, 8/15/10, p.A12)
2003 In the US the ratio of
executive pay to that of the average worker stood at 301 to 1.
(Econ, 11/26/05, p.75)
2003 Bill Sagan, a Minneapolis
entrepreneur, spent over $5 million to buy rock ‘n’ roll memorabilia
from the archives of Bill Graham Presents. The collection was later
found to contain audio and video recordings from 1966-1999.
(WSJ, 12/13/05, p.B1)
2003 Russell Simmons, known as
the “godfather of hip-hop,” launched his Rush Visa charge card to
provide America’s estimated 60m-70m unbanked consumers with a
cheaper alternative to payday check cashers. Simmons made his first
fortune as the founder of Manhattan-based Def Jam records. In 2004
he sold his Phat Farm “urban apparel” business for 140 million.
(Econ, 10/18/08, p.78)
2003 Bethlehem Steel liquidated
and its assets were purchased by the Int'l. Steel Group.
(WSJ, 5/12/03, p.A6)
2003 Paul Allen, co-founder of
Microsoft Corp., established the Allen Institute for Brain Science
in Seattle, Wa., with a $100 million gift.
(SFC, 9/27/06, p.A9)
2003 Mickey Drexler stepped in
a CEO of J. Crew Group Inc., a clothing retailer, and proceded to
put in $10 million of his own money into the company. In 2010
Drexler (66) agreed to a $3 billion takeover by TPG Capital and
Leanard Green & Partners.
(SFC, 11/26/10, p.C2)
2003 Google bought Blogger, a
web service created by Evan Williams, that allowed anybody to create
a blog with a few clicks. Williams went on to create Twitter, a
service that allows users to send short messages in response to the
question: What are you doing.”
(Econ, 12/22/07, p.110)
2003 AOL spun off Mozilla.org
with a $2 million cash cushion. Ms. Mitchell Baker, former Netscape
attorney, turned Mozilla, creator of the Firefox web browser, into a
non-profit foundation.
(Econ, 12/17/05, p.64)(SFC, 1/28/08, p.E2)
2003 Philip Rosedale of Linden
Lab (f.1999) created SecondLife, a metaphysical universe, on the
Internet. The company sold virtual property and made money when
residents leased property by charging an average of $20 per virtual
“acre” per month. In 2008 Wagner James Au authored ”The making of
Second Life.”
(Econ, 4/22/06, Survey
p.16)(http://lindenlab.com/)(Econ, 9/30/06, p.78)(WSJ, 3/12/08,
p.D8)
2003 MySpace.com, an Internet
social networking website, was founded. By 2006 it was the 4th
biggest site on the Web. In 2009 Julia Angwin authored “Stealing
Myspace: The Battle to Control the Most Popular Website in America.”
(SFC, 3/10/06, p.A16)(SSFC, 3/29/09, Books p.J1)
2003 The Int’l. Civil Aviation
Association (ICOA) issued technical specifications for passports to
contain an integrated circuit to be activated by a radio signal to
broadcast stored data.
(Econ, 2/19/05, p.75)
2003 Scientists at the Univ. of
Texas found a way to spin nanotubes into fibers to make the world’s
toughest polymer.
(Econ, 1/1/05, Survey p.5)
2003 The ViroChip, invented by
Dr. Joseph DeRisi (33) of UC San Francisco, gained attention when it
spotted the virus that causes the epidemic form of pneumonia called
SARS.
(SFC, 9/10/08, p.B4)
2003 Near-field communications
(NFC) was finalized as an industry standard. The wireless technology
operated over very short ranges measured in centimeters.
(Econ, 12/10/05, TQ p.22)
2003 Arkansas Republican
Governor Mike Huckabee was diagnosed with type-2 diabetes. He
proceeded to loose 105 pounds and made improving public health a
priority of his last 2 years in office.
(Econ, 2/17/07, p.37)
2003 Oklahoma and Arkansas made
an agreement on phosphorus levels. Toxic run-off from poultry houses
in Arkansas was entering the Illinois river watershed, which
supplied water to eastern Oklahoma. In 2005 Oklahoma filed suit
against Arkansas for various violations related to high phosphorus
levels.
(Econ, 7/16/05, p.30)
2003 The first cold cathode
fluorescent lamps (CCFLs) debuted about this time.
(SSFC, 7/25/10, p.L5)
2003 The global catch of tuna
peaked at 4.3 million tons. It had risen steadily from 200,000 tons
in the early 1950s.
(Econ, 1/27/07, p.42)
2003 Jeff Bezos (39), founder
of Amazon.com, began buying property east of El Paso, Texas, for
Blue Origin LLC, his commercial space venture. By 2006 he had
acquired 290,000 acres. Commercial operations were planned to start
in 2010.
(WSJ, 11/10/06, p.A1)
2003 The population of
Massachusetts this year was about 6.4 million.
(Econ, 6/28/03, p.32)
2003 The population of Vermont
at this time was about 610,000.
(Econ, 6/28/03, p.32)
2003 Deaths from cancer in the
US dropped this year to 556,902 from 557,271 in 2002.
(WSJ, 2/9/06, p.D3)
2003 Abu Dhabi launched its
Etihad airline by royal decree. In 2004 it made an $8 billion order
for new airplanes.
(Econ, 6/5/10, p.76)
2003 Afghanistan's opium
farmers and traffickers earned $2.3 billion, 50% of the GDP.
Habitual drug users reached about 4% of the population.
(Econ, 1/17/04, p.35)
2003 The African Security
Council was established after 28 countries ratified protocols.
(Econ, 3/13/04, p.48)
2003 The Kimberley Process
Certification Scheme (KPCS) entered into force in 2003, when
participating countries started to implement its rules. The KP was
set up by governments, the diamond industry and NGOs to stop the
trade in rough diamonds that had helped pay for rebel groups and
governments to wage civil war. As of the end of 2009 the KP had 49
members representing 75 countries.
(Econ, 6/26/10, p.48)(www.kimberleyprocess.com/)
2003 In Argentina the
government of Nestor Kirchner approved a law that lifted all
restrictions on immigration from South America and guaranteed access
to public health and education to all migrants, including illegals.
(Econ, 3/10/07, p.35)
2003 In Argentina the
Justicialist Party failed to hold a primary this year leading the
courts to prohibit any presidential candidate from this using this
name.
(Econ, 2/16/08, p.46)
2003 Argentina’s population was
about 36 million. The population of Buenos Aires was some 12
million.
(AP, 4/26/03)(Econ, 11/19/05, p.81)
2003 Mark Latham (42) became
head of Australia’s Labor party.
(Econ, 9/24/05, p.53)
2003 Andrew Forrest, a former
stockbroker, founded Fortescue to mine iron ore in the Pilbara
region of Western Australia. The company’s first shipment to China
went out in May, 2008.
(Econ, 11/15/08, p.50)
2003 Australia’s 3 phone
companies began blocking service to stolen phones. By 2011 thefts of
stolen phones had droped 25% even as the number of mobile phones
increased from 15 million to 26 million.
(SFC, 12/3/11, p.C2)
2003 The first Homeless World
Cup tournament was held in Austria with just five countries
competing. The project aimed at helping homeless people turn their
lives around.
(AP, 9/29/06)
2003 Bolivia's former Pres.
Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada and Jose Sanchez Berzain, the former
defense minister, fled to the US. In 2007 a suit was filed against
both men for their October, 2003, crackdown on protestors that left
67 people dead. Sanchez Berzain was granted asylum in the US in
April 2007.
(SFC, 9/27/07,
p.A21)(www.boliviasolidarity.org/takeaction/latestactions/sanfran)(AP,
6/19/09)
2003 The introduction of
flex-fuel cars, vehicles that could run on ethanol as well as
regular petrol, took off in Brazil due to a policy that dated to the
1970s of promoting fuel derived from home-grown sugar cane.
(Econ, 9/24/05, p.79)
2003 Brazilian ranchers,
soybean farmers and loggers destroyed a chunk of the Amazon
rainforest about the size of Massachusetts.
(AP, 4/8/04)
2003 Vikas Swarup, Indian
diplomat, authored his novel “Q&A” while in London. The novel
was turned into the successful film “Slumdog Millionaire” (2008).
(Econ, 1/31/09, p.90)
2003 Amy Winehouse (b.1983),
British pop singer, released her first album, “Frank.” Her 2nd
album, “Back to Black,” came out in 2006.
(Econ, 7/30/11, p.53)
2003 Twenty20, a short form of
cricket designed for television, was introduced in England. The new
3-hour version rivaled the traditional version which lasted a
maximum a 5 days.
(Econ, 9/22/07, p.82)
2003 Britain and the US
negotiated a secret extradition treaty to make prosecuting
terrorists easier.
(Econ, 2/25/06, p.61)
2003 Britain merged its
communications and broadcasting watchdogs into a single body called
Ofcom.
(Econ, 10/14/06, Survey p.17)
2003 Britain established the
Beacon Prize to celebrate philanthropists.
(Econ, 2/25/06, Survey p.7)
2003 Britain introduced its
Teach First program. It was modeled after the Teach for American
program (1990), which invites graduates from top universities to
spend the 1st 2 years of their careers teaching children from
low-income families.
(Econ, 8/1/09, p.49)
2003 The hallucinogen 2C-1
began appearing in English nightclubs and music festivals as a small
white pill selling for £10.
(Econ, 12/13/03, p.55)
2003 Judy Sgro, Canada minister
of immigration, issued permits to some 552 Romanian women to fill a
shortage of labor in the exotic dancing business.
(Econ, 1/22/05, p.37)
2003 Oil insiders began to
consider that some 180 billion barrels of oil, trapped in the tar
sands of Alberta, Canada, were economically viable.
(Econ, 6/28/03, p.75)
2003 Paul Hebert of the Univ.
of Guelph, invented DNA barcoding in Ontario, Canada. His idea was
to generate a unique identification tag for each species. He
proposed using part of a gene called cytochrome c oxidase as a
reliable marker and the idea worked.
(Econ, 9/22/07, p.98)
2003 Jamie King, a robotics
doctoral student at Memorial Univ. in Newfoundland, co-founded
Verafin to sift bank data for patterns that could indicate fraud,
drug trafficking or terrorist financing. By 2011 over 700 banks used
the service.
(SFC, 6/27/11, p.D2)
2003 Chad’s population was
about 8 million.
(WSJ, 1/2/98, p.8)(SFC, 11/23/00, p.D5)
2003 In China journalists Chen
Guidi and Wu Chuntao authored “Will the Boat Sink the Water,” a look
at peasant life in southeast China. It sold some 250,000 copies
before authorities took it off the shelves. Pirated copies continued
to sell. In 2006 it was translated to English.
(WSJ, 7/6/06, p.D8)
2003 In China for the 1st time
in over two decades people in Beijing got their names on ballot
papers without official backing in elections to district people’s
congresses.
(Econ, 11/11/06, p.48)
2003 The Shanghai Tatler
magazine was set up by owners of the Hong Kong Tatler, modeled on
London’s Tatler.
(Econ, 1/3/04, p.27)
2003 China began building wire
fences on major defection North Korean routes along the Tumen River.
Since September 2006, China began building wire fences along the
Yalu River.
(AP, 10/16/06)
2003 The China Banking
Regulatory Commission was carved out of the central bank.
(Econ, 10/29/05, p.72)
2003 Chinese Internet users
protested the beating to death in jail of a man arrested for failing
to carry the right identity documents. This led to the scrapping of
a decades old law giving police sweeping powers to detain anyone
suspected of staying without a permit in a place other than his
registered home town.
(Econ, 4/29/06, p.30)
2003 Coca-Cola test-marketed
its “fruit pulp orange” drink in China and began rolling it out
across the country with great success.
(Econ, 3/3/07, p.68)
2003 William C. Hsiao, senior
professor of economics at Harvard, launched a program in Xinlian,
China, to help residents monitor and publicize the quality of health
care. Village doctors in China made most of their money selling
drugs.
(WSJ, 2/13/07, p.A1)
2003 In China the local
government of Hongwei acknowledged the seriousness of local
pollution and called on Daqing Lianhua, a subsidiary of PetroChina,
to relocate villagers.
(Econ, 9/29/07, p.47)
2003 In 2005 estimates of
Chinese labor unrest for 2003 noted some 60,000 protests with a 17%
annual increase over the past decade.
(WSJ, 4/18/05, p.A16)
2003 In 2006 China said its
first confirmed human death from bird flu was in 2003, two years
earlier than previously reported, showing that the virus was present
on the mainland before the latest outbreak was first disclosed
elsewhere in Asia.
(AFP, 8/8/06)
2003 China's growth rate for
the year was measured at 9.1%.
(WSJ, 1/21/04, p.A1)
2003 China executed 726 people,
nearly two-thirds of the world's known court-ordered executions, and
violated its own law by killing at least one man for a crime
committed at age 16, according to a 2004 report by Amnesty Int'l.
Publicly admitted executions in China soared to over 7,000 this year
due to a “strike hard” crackdown on crime.
(AP, 4/7/04)(Econ, 4/28/07, p.69)
2003 In Congo-Brazzaville
Frederic Ntoumi, head of an estimated 5,000 Ninja fighters agreed to
make peace with the government. Plans to disarm his men were
repeatedly delayed.
(Econ, 5/7/05, p.42)
2003 The civil war in Congo
(DRC), which had claimed at least 4 million people, stood in its
final throes. This was the largest death toll since WW II.
(Econ, 6/14/08, p.63)
2003 In eastern Congo Germain
Katanga and Mathieu Ngudjolo led militias including child soldiers
who attacked the village of Bogoro, killing over 200 people
including women and children. Many of the victims were hacked to
death with machetes. In 2008 Katanga and Ngudjolo stood for trial at
the Int’l. Criminal Court at The Hague, Netherlands.
(SFC, 9/27/08, p.A3)
2003 Costa Rica changed its
constitution to allow former presidents to stand again.
(Econ, 2/4/06, p.34)
2003 The population of Croatia
was about 4.5 million.
(AP, 6/23/03)
2003 Denmark became the first
country in the world to introduce restrictions on the use of
industrially produced trans fatty acids. Oils and fats were
forbidden on the Danish market if they contain trans fatty acids
exceeding 2%.
(www.bakeryandsnacks.com/news/ng.asp?id=58838-adm-ramps-up)
2003 Denmark, population 5.4
million, stood as the world's biggest exporter of pork as some
13,000 farmers raised 24 million pigs.
(Econ, 8/9/03, p.44)
2003 About 20% of Dominican
Republic’s GDP went into a questionable bailout of the country’s 3rd
largest bank. The bailout under Pres. Mejia triggered economic
chaos.
(Econ, 8/21/04, p.31)(Econ, 5/20/06, p.42)
2003 The Dominican Republic
population was about 8.5 million.
(Hem., Dec. '95, p.106)
2003 El Salvador Pres.
Francisco Flores led 4 other Central American countries to form a
Central American Free-Trade Agreement (CAFTA).
(Econ, 3/27/04, p.38)
2003 The population of Eritrea
was about 4.4 million at this time.
(Econ, 11/8/03, p.46)
2003 Finland commissioned a new
nuclear reactor. It was the 1st order in Western Europe in 13 years.
(WSJ, 9/22/05, p.B6)
2003 The German film “Goodbye
Lenin,” directed by Wolfgang Becker, became a big hit grossing $80
million.
(Econ, 2/3/07, p.83)
2003 Xing, a professional
social network website, was founded by Lars Hinrichs of Hamburg,
Germany. It went public in 2006.
(Econ, 9/27/08, p.76)
2003 In Greece the domestic
Revolutionary Struggle terror group first appeared. The group later
claimed numerous bomb attacks in Athens, including against the
Athens Stock Exchange and planting a massive bomb that failed to
explode outside Citibank offices. The group also fired a
rocket-propelled grenade at the US embassy in 2007.
(AP, 9/30/11)
2003 Guinea-Bissau’s population
was about 1 million. Its average annual per capita gross domestic
product was about $180.
(AP, 9/16/03)
2003 Hong Kong made insider
trading illegal.
(Econ, 9/19/09, p.85)
2003 Tung Chee-hwa, head of
Hong Kong, asked Allan Zeman, a Canadian entrepreneur, to take over
the operation of Ocean Park, a failing amusement park. Zeman had
already transformed warehouses into a popular drinking district
called Lan Kwai Fong. By 2007 Zeman managed to revive Ocean Park as
the local Disney theme park declined.
(Econ, 10/20/07, p.88)
2003 Iceland privatized 2 of
its largest banks.
(Econ, 10/11/08, p.96)
2003 Arun Shourie, India’s
minister of disinvestment, was also appointed as minister for
communications.
(WSJ, 1/9/04, p.A1)
2003 India changed its verbiage
on Tibet to say that the Tibet Autonomous Region is part of China as
opposed to the previous description of Tibet as an autonomous region
of China.
(Econ, 11/18/06, p.16)
2003 In India’s northeast Assam
state the Bodoland Territorial Autonomous District was declared.
(Econ, 1/14/06, p.48)
2003 India concluded a $1
billion purchase of Israel's Phalcon airborne radar system. Over the
last 18 months the US facilitated the sale of $200 million in
defense equipment to India.
(WSJ, 10/22/03, p.A16)
2003 Captain G.R. Gopinath
launched Air Deccan, India’s 1st low-cost airline.
(Econ, 3/10/07, p.59)
2003 Shopping malls in India
increased from 3 to over 400 over the last 8 years.
(WSJ, 12/16/03, p.A15)
2003 In India over 17,000
farmers committed suicide this year. Their deaths were most often
ascribed to debt, drought and ready availability of pesticides to
serve as poison. The National Crime Records Bureau later showed that
at least 87,567 farmers committed suicide between 2002 and 2007.
(Econ, 6/23/07, p.66)(SFC, 3/22/08, p.A5)
2003-2007 In New Delhi, India, over 300 people
were killed in accidents involving independently operated Blueline
buses.
(SFC, 12/7/07, p.A25)
2003 Indonesia’s President
Megawati Sukarnoputri declared that the Chinese new year would be a
national holiday.
(Econ, 2/4/06, p.40)
2003 Iraqna, a unit of
Egypt-based Orascom Telecom Holding SAE, launched cell phone service
in Iraq.
(WSJ, 7/19/05, p.B1)
2003 The US Navy sent several
dolphins to Iraq to clear the Umm Qasr harbor of mines.
(SFC, 5/18/10, p.C2)
2003 PM Berlusconi’s government
passed a law granting him and 4 associates immunity from criminal
prosecution while serving as PM of Italy. The law was later struck
down by Italy’s constitutional court.
(WSJ, 11/15/04, p.A1)(Econ, 11/26/05, Survey
p.11)
2003 In Italy regional
legislation recognized the prosecco district, a region just north of
Venice, for sparkling wine produced with prosecco grapes.
(Econ, 12/22/07, p.108)
2003 The African Development
(AfDB) fled its home in the Ivory Coast and set up operations in
Tunisia.
(Econ, 5/19/07, p.50)
2003 The new Mori Art Museum
opened in Tokyo atop the 53-story Mori Tower. It was named its
founder and builder, real estate developer Minoru Mori. It was part
of the new 29-acre, $4 billion Roppongi Hills complex.
(SFC, 10/29/03, p.D1)(SFC, 11/17/05, p.E8)
2003 Japan’s government
privatized J-Power, the state-owned electric wholesaler.
(Econ, 4/12/08, p.74)
2003 Toshihiko Fukui was
appointed governor of the Bank of Japan.
(Econ, 2/14/04, p.68)
2003 US sales of Japanese manga
comics reached $100 million.
(SSFC, 4/4/04, p.F5)
2003 Japan’s fertility rate
fell below 1.3, down from 3.65 in 1950.
(Econ, 11/13/04, p.45)
2003 In Japan the number of
suicides rose about 50% since 1990 to 34,500.
(Econ, 10/8/05, Survey p.6)
2003 Kazakhstan decided to
create a full-fledged navy to help protect its oil interests on the
Caspian Sea.
(Econ, 10/11/03, p.46)
2003 Kenya launched a free
primary school education program. It soon earned praise across the
world as more than 1 million children who had never been to school
enrolled.
(AP, 1/26/10)
2003 The Laotian government
promised the United Nations Drug Control Program (UNDCP) to
eliminate opium poppy cultivation by 2006.
(SFC, 6/27/00, p.A12)(Econ, 5/1/04, p.44)
2003 The Lao government signed
a 30-year agreement with a Hong Kong-registered company to set up a
1,640-hectare special economic zone built with expertise from China.
The population of the Golden City in Boten peaked at 10,000, but
dwindled to 2,000 in 2011 after China’s foreign ministry warned
citizens not to gamble there.
(Econ, 5/28/11, p.46)
2003 The UN imposed a ban in
Liberia on trade in logs due to uncontrolled and environmentally
devastating logging.
(Econ, 3/8/08, p.92)
2003 Libya planned a covert
operation to assassinate Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia
according to 2004 testimony by 2 jailed participants.
(SFC, 6/10/04, A10)
2003 Ricardo Salinas Pliego
beat administrative insider-trading charges in Mexico on procedural
grounds. Later he and a partner set up a shell company to buy Unefon
debt for pennies and then resold the debt to Unefon, which they
controlled, for the full price. The move netted them $109 million
each at Unefon’s expense.
(WSJ, 12/8/05, p.A11)
2003 In Morocco Swiss investor
Jean Victor Lovat filed a complaint against Abdelaziz Laafoura and
Abdelmoughit Slimani. Slimani, a former mayor of Casablanca, was
sentenced on appeal to 16 years in prison. In 2008 Laafoura, a
former Casablanca governor, was acquitted by the Supreme Court of
corruption. The court released assets it had frozen.
(AFP, 3/16/08)
2003 Myanmar reported 42% of
the world’s official malaria deaths. WHO statistics were not very
accurate as half of Africa’s countries did not submit any data.
(Econ, 12/9/06, p.86)
2003 New Zealand swept away
laws under which prostitution was a criminal offence.
(Econ, 12/23/06, p.86)
2003 Niger made slavery a crime
with a penalty of up to 30 years in jail, but continued to turn a
blind eye to the practice.
(Econ, 11/1/08, p.57)
2003 Nigeria banned trafficking
in humans and set up an agency to curb it.
(Econ, 4/24/04, p.45)
2003 Nigeria’s Pres. Obasanjo
created a financial-crimes investigation unit. Nuhu Ribadu was
appointed as the antifraud czar.
(WSJ, 4/13/05, p.A1)
2003 David Hawk of the US
Committee for Human Rights authored his report “The Hidden Gulag:
Exposing North Korea’s Prison Camps.”
(Econ, 4/21/12,
p.55)(http://www.davidrhawk.com/HiddenGulag.pdf)
2003 Russia arrested Alexander
Zaporozhsky, a former colonel in the Russian Foreign Intelligence
Service. He was sentenced to 18 years in prison for espionage on
behalf of the United States. Zaporozhsky quit the service in 1997
and settled in the United States; Russia enticed him back and
arrested him in 2001. He was convicted on charges of passing secret
information about Russian agents working under cover in the US and
about American sources working for Russian intelligence. In 2010 he
was released as part of a spy swap with the US.
(AP, 7/9/10)
2003 Greg Wyler (33), a
American tech entrepreneur, started his own Rwandan Internet service
provider and named it Terracom.
(WSJ, 8/17/06, p.A7)
2003 The Saudi-owned news
channel al-Arabiya was launched from Dubai.
(Econ, 2/26/05, p.25)
2003 The Slovak parliament
voted to cut taxes on personal incomes and for a single flat rate of
19% on corporate profits effective in 2004. The statutory retirement
age was raised and a new pay-as-go pension scheme was created to be
supplemented by privatization revenues.
(Econ, 11/8/03, p.48)
2003 PSA Peugeot Citroen,
Europe’s 2nd biggest carmaker, decided to make the successor of its
206 model in Trnava, Slovakia. The car had been manufactured in the
Ryton factory near Coventry, England.
(Econ, 4/22/06, p.55)
2003 In South Africa Ben
Sassman launched Internet dating service for people with HIV/AIDS.
(Econ, 10/14/06,
p.54)(www.thepositiveconnection.co.za)
2003 The South Korean economy
went into recession.
(WSJ, 5/31/05, p.A14)
2003 Lone Star Funds, a private
equity firm based in Dallas, Texas, purchased the Korea Exchange
Bank of South Korea. In 2006 Lone Star engaged in a deal to sell the
bank for a $4.5 billion profit. Under public outrage Lone Star
offered to donate some $104 million to the government of South
Korea.
(WSJ, 4/18/06, p.A1)
2003 Oh Yeon Ho turned his
South Korean Ohmy News website into a for profit firm. In 2006 his
website averaged 700,000 visitors and 2 million page view per day.
(Econ, 4/22/06, Survey p.9)
2003 In Spain Jesus Gil y Gil
(1933-2004), developer and football club owner, was sentenced to
3½ years plus a fine of some $16m for siphoning off Atletico
funds and fraud. Gil was mayor of Marbella on the Costa del Sol.
Extensive corruption in the town was unveiled in 2006.
(Econ, 8/23/03, p.40)(Econ, 4/8/06, p.52)
2003 Sri Lanka’s population was
about 19 million.
(WSJ, 7/13/99, p.B1)(SSFC, 11/9/03, p.A12)
2003 In Sudan a study indicated
that AIDS had infected about 1.6% of the population. By 2009 the
number was estimated to be approaching 3%.
(Econ, 7/4/09, p.42)
2003 Sweden passed legislation
requiring women to hold 30% of the seats in parliament.
(Econ, 9/20/08, p.76)
2003 The average wage in
Tajikistan was $10 a month for those able to find work.
(Econ, 12/13/03, p.40)
2003 Trinidad closed its
state-owned sugar company.
(Econ, 9/24/05, p.45)
2003 PM Thaksin Shinawatra set
a 2005 growth target for Thailand of 10%. The rate for 2003 was
projected to be 6.4% and 7.5% for 2004. The economic boom raised
some concerns.
(WSJ, 11/28/03, p.A6)
2003 In Thailand Chuvit
Kamolvisit was accused of the unauthorized, overnight demolition of
scores of unlicensed bars and shops from a downtown Bangkok block he
owned. The move erupted into a major public scandal. When the police
failed to protect him, Chuvit fought back by exposing the behemoth
bribes he had to pay to keep his mighty empire of flesh running.
(AP, 6/28/11)
2003 Thailand produced some
470,000 pick-up trucks and ranked behind the US as the world’s 2nd
largest producer. Production in 2004 was expected to approach
600,000.
(Econ, 9/11/04, p.60)
2003 The population of Tuvalu
was about 11,000.
(SFC, 8/12/98, p.A11)(SSFC, 11/9/03, p.C6)
2003 Ukraine’s President Leonid
Kuchma authored a book called “Ukraine Is Not Russia.”
(Econ, 2/26/11, p.58)
2003 In the UAR Saqr bin
Mohammed Al Qasimi dumped his eldest son, Sheik Khalid bin Saqr Al
Qasimi, as the crown prince in favor of Sheik Saud to succeed him as
leader of Ras al Khaimah. The emirate's name means "top of the tent"
in Arabic in reference to the shape of the peninsula shared by the
UAE and Oman.
(AP, 10/27/10)
2003 The European Bank for
Reconstruction and Development held its annual meeting in Tashkent,
Uzbekistan.
(Econ, 5/21/05, p.14)
2003 Pres. Hugo Chavez, under
advice from Cuba, began creating emergency health, education and
welfare programs called “missions” to provide public services and
subsidies to the poor. They were paid for by a budget controlled by
the president without going through social ministries.
(Econ, 2/18/06, p.36)
2003 Venezuela's tax collection
was reported up 28% under a "Zero Evasion" campaign.
(WSJ, 1/23/04, p.A10)
2003 In Yemen guards
apprehended Hezam Ali Hassan (17) and Khaled Saleh (18) after they
followed the car of Ambassador Edmund Hull through the Sabeen area
of San'a before they were able to throw hand grenades at Hull as he
stepped into a store. Both men were released in 2008 after serving
over 3 years in jail.
(AP, 1/14/08)
2003-2006 The Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) appeared
in the Darfur region. It consisted largely of members of the Zaghawa
tribe. Soon after the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) sprang up.
In response the government unleashed the janjaweed, an Arab militia
with ranks swollen by ex-criminals. By 2006 as many as 300,000
civilians were killed in the Darfur region.
(Econ, 5/15/04, p.22)(Econ, 8/28/04, p.40)(Econ,
5/13/06, p.14)
2003-2007 Physician Orlando Smith governed the
British Virgin Islands.
(AP, 11/8/11)
2003-2009 The gross domestic product of the Turks
and Caicos Islands, a U.K. territory of 22,000 people, more than
doubled during this period to $750 million, largely through a
resort-building boom under Premier Michael Misick.
(AP, 2/23/10)
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2004
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