Portal:Current events/October 2003

March 8, 2003

March 7, 2003

Two of Osama bin Laden's alleged sons are reported by Pakistani officials to have been arrested in southern Afghanistan. [1]
Iraq disarmament crisis - Hans Blix reports to the UN Security Council
The Nikkei benchmark hit 20-year low record as investers fear potential Iraq war in the near weeks. [2]

March 6, 2003

Britain: Abdullah el-Faisal is jailed for 9 years for urging Islamists to kill non-believers, Americans, Hindus and Jews. [3]
Cuban President Fidel Castro is elected unopposed to a sixth term. He is already the world's longest ruling head of government, in power for 44 years. [4]
New Scientist magazine reports a paper by Robert R. Caldwell, Marc Kamionkowski and Nevin N. Weinberg which puts forward the hypothesis that the end of the Universe may possibly occur as a "Big Rip", which will shred the physical structure of the Universe.[5]
SCO, the current owner of the original Unix software, is suing IBM for $1 billion for "devaluing" Unix by letting IBM employees that signed Non-disclosure agreements with SCO work on Linux operating system.
The European Central Bank has cut its reference rate by 0.25%
Vivendi reported a corporate loss of 23.3 billion euros, the largest loss ever for a French company.

March 5, 2003

AOL says that it blocked a record one billion spam e-mail messages over a 24-hour period on March 3-4.
An appeals court in Norway has ruled that Jon Johansen, the teenager who developed the DeCSS software that allows DVDs to be copied, will have to be retried on charges that he violated copyright and anti-hacking laws.
Makers of the contraceptive Today Sponge announce it will return to the market in Canada and the United States.
Iraq disarmament crisis: The foreign ministers of France, Germany and Russia indicate that they will oppose any UN Security Council proposals that would authorize war with Iraq. [6]
Iraq disarmament crisis: UK newspaper The Times reports that the United Nations has secretly drawn up a plan to establish a post-war government in Iraq. Although no consensus has been reached among UN Security Council members in regards to military action, the document indicates that UN leaders may now consider war all but inevitable.[7]
A bomb explosion at an airport in Davao City, Philippines killed at least 19 people.
Meeting of the Organization of the Islamic Conference in Qatar fails to produce a statement opposing war in Iraq.
Saudi Arabia deploys 3,300 troops to Kuwait in preparation for a potential Iraq conflict.
A man exploded a bomb in a bus in Haifa, Israel, killing at least ten people.
A car bomb exploded in Cucuta, Colombia killing at least seven people.
The chairman of the United States Senate subcommittee on East Asian and Pacific affairs said United Nation Security Council should debate the issue about abduction of Japanese citizens by North Korea as a question of human rights.
Global protests against war on Iraq: Students protest and go on strike in a number of countries around the world.
This year (2003) Ash Wednesday is today.
Crossgates Mall in Guilderland, New York dropped charges of trespassing against a man who had been arrested for refusing to remove his "Give Peace a Chance" t-shirt. The change of heart occured after over 100 anti-war demonstraters marched through the mall and threatened to stay until the mall backed down.
In recognition of World Book Day, voters in England chose the book Notes From a Small Island, by American writer Bill Bryson, as the book that best sums up England's identity and the state of the nation. Welsh voters chose Work, Sex and Rugby by Lewis Davies as most representative of Wales; Scottish voters chose Me and Ma Girl by Des Dillon as most representative of Scotland and Northern Ireland voters chose Desire Lines by Annie McCartney as most representative of Northern Ireland.

March 4, 2003

Reports of a new security vulnerability in sendmail have been circulating, together with proof-of-concept exploit code. This raises fears of an imminent new Internet worm problem, unless existing vulnerable implementations are patched in time.

March 3, 2003

Under intense American pressure, Turkey indicates that its Parliament will consider a second vote on whether to allow U.S. troops to use Turkish bases for a military attack on Iraq.
A man was arrested at a shopping mall in Guilderland, New York for refusing to remove a t-shirt which bore the slogan "Give Peace A Chance." He was charged with "trespassing 'in that he knowingly enter(ed) or remain(ed) unlawfully upon premises.'" He had purchased the shirt at the mall.

March 2, 2003

Armed North Korean fighter aircraft intercept and target a United States reconnaissance aircraft over International Waters in the Sea of Japan. This is the first such interception since April 1969 when a North Korean jet shot down a United States Navy surveillance airplane, killing all 31 crewmen aboard. [8]
Iraq disarmament crisis: Iraq destroys six more Al-Samoud 2 missiles, bringing the total destroyed to 10 out of an estimated 100 missiles ordered eliminated by the U.N. The U.S. continues to dismiss Iraq's actions as "part of its game of deception." Iraq indicates that it may halt destruction of the missiles if the U.S. indicates it will go to war anyway.
UK newspaper The Observer publishes what it claims to be a leaked memo [9] from a high-ranking NSA official dated January 31, 2003. In it are orders to spy on the domestic and official communications of the United Nations Security Council members other than the U.S. and the United Kingdom. The memo names "... members Angola, Cameroon, Chile, Bulgaria and Guinea, ..." as candidates for special attention. [10]
French president Jacques Chirac starts a three-day visit to the former French colony Algeria. It is the first visit of a French president to Algeria at the highest ceremonial level.

March 1, 2003

Iraq disarmament crisis: The Turkish speaker of Parliament voids the vote accepting U.S. troops involved in the planned invasion of Iraq into Turkey on constitutional grounds. 264 votes for and 250 against accepting 62,000 U.S. military personnel do not constitute the necessary majority under the Turkish constitution, due to 19 abstentions. [11]
Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the September 11, 2001 Terrorist Attack and of other al-Qaeda attacks, is reported to have been arrested in Pakistan and turned over to US authorities for questioning.
Under U.N. supervision, Iraq begins destroying four of its Al Samoud missiles.
The United Arab Emirates calls for Iraqi president Saddam Hussein to step down to avoid war. The sentiment is later echoed by Kuwait and Bahrain.

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