Portal:Current events/October 2003
Every day, news articles appear that mention new, unfamiliar, but (now) important people, places, things, and concepts. Wikipedia can and should become a resource for background information on the topics behind these current events. For more information on contributing to this page, see current events article development.
Ongoing events and developing stories
- Israeli-Palestinian conflict - War on Terrorism - U.S. invasion of Iraq
- stock market downturn of 2002 - accounting scandals - South American economic crisis of 2002
- Earth Summit 2002 - more . . .
These are entries which cover current events, that is, events that are ongoing and have (likely) historical significance. These entries should be edited with an eye to historicity, while including timely information in a way not possible with paper encyclopedias.
Current events
Recent celebrity deaths: Al Ayyam reports that international terrorist Abu Nidal was found dead of apparent suicide.
- Thousands of fans gather at Graceland in commemoration of the 25th anniversary of the death of Elvis.
- Vladimir Putin announces that Belarus will be fully integrated into Russia, with each of Belarus's six provinces to become a separate republic within the Russian Federation.
- Recent celebrity deaths: Larry Rivers, American painter, dies at 78.
- Israeli-Palestinian conflict: Marwan Barghouti, captured April 15, is indicted in a civilian Israeli court.
- The United States Food and Drug Administration orders a recall of all soft tissues processed since October 3 by CryoLife, the largest supplier of implant tissue in the United States, after 27 cases of serious infection, including one death in November.
- Extreme weather: The peak of a 100-year flood of the Vltava River surges through the Czech Republic into the Elbe in Germany. In Plzen the city center is flooded, and breweries shut down. In Ceske Budejovice, most of the old town is under more than a foot of water, and the Czech Budweiser breweries are shut down. More than 200,000 Czechs are forced to leave their homes. Damages are estimated at over $600 million. In Dresden, the Zwinger Palace courtyard and basement are flooded, damaging paintings. The Semper Opera basement is flooded, closing it for weeks. More than 3,000 hospital patients are evacuated. Europe-wide death toll is now 99.
- Extreme weather: On the seventh day of heavy rains, the peak of 100-year flood of the Vltava River reaches Prague, and the Kampa district is submerged under several yards of water, as well as the Prague Zoo, killing an elephant, five rhinoceros, a lion, a gorilla and 80 birds, and allowing five seals to escape. The Kampa Museum is flooded. 15,000 people were evacuated from Melnik, and 1,600 people were evacuated from Decin. The death toll in Europe is at 88, 9 in the Czech Republic.
- Recent celebrity deaths: Enos Slaughter, Baseball Hall of Famer, dies at 86 from the disease non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.
- Extreme weather: The death toll in Europe caused by flooding has risen to at least 74, with 58 deaths in Russia, 3 in Germany, 3 in Austria, and one in the Czech Republic. Prime Minister Vladimir Spidla declared a state of emergency in Prague, Bohemia, Plzen and Karlovy Vary. All shipping on the Danube has been halted. Premier Silvio Berlusconi approved $50 million in emergency aid in response to the $300 million in damage of northern Italy's crops.
- US Airways declares bankruptcy, caused by the air travel slowdown following the September 11, 2001 Terrorist Attack.
- Colombian president Alvaro Uribe declares state of emergency.
- UNEP (UN Environment Programme) reports on the Asian Brown Cloud.
- Charlton Heston, movie actor and president of the National Rifle Association, announces that he has Alzheimer's disease
- Extreme weather: Dozens are killed by floods caused by torrential rains in Europe, including the Malse and Blanice rivers of the Czech Republic, the Black Sea resort village of Shirokaya Balka near Novorossiisk in Russia, and Romania. The downpours have also caused extensive damage in Austria, Bulgaria, Croatia, Italy, and Spain.
- A massive explosion in Jalalabad at the maintenance facility of the Afghan Construction and Logistics Unit, a private construction company, kills at least 10 and injures 25, damaging 50 homes and a hydroelectric dam.
- Accountancy scandals: WorldCom announced it had discovered $3.3 billion in false accounting in addition to the $3.8 billion discovered earlier.
- The F.C.C. votes to require television manufacturers to include digital tuners in nearly all televisions by 2007.
- Israeli-Palestinian conflict: Israeli forces kill 6 Palestinians: Israeli undercover soldiers kill four Palestinian militants wound three in a gun-fight in Tulkarm. An Israeli sniper kills Hussam Hamdan, a member of Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Israeli troops and 30 tanks push into northern Gaza, killing a Palestinian policeman. These come in response to the attacks of August 4 listed below.
- Three members of Manchester rock band Oasis have been injured in a head-on car crash in Indianapolis while on tour in the U.S.A. None were seriously injured.
- Mathematics: A group at the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur have presented an algorithm that they claim determines whether a number is prime in polynomial time relative to the length of the input number in bits. This is an important result in computational complexity theory.
- Stock market downturn of 2002: The stock market remains volatile.
- Explosions went off near the parliament building as Colombia's President Alvaro Uribe was being sworn in, killing at least 10 people.
- Recent celebrity deaths: Edsger Dijkstra, one of the giants of the field of computer science, has died.
- Recent celebrity deaths: Chick Hearn, pro-basketball announcer dies at the age of 85.
- Stock market downturn of 2002: U.S. indices continue heavy losses from the previous week and fall by over three percent on the day, NASDAQ falling below its July 23 low.
- British cases of Legionnaires' disease continue to rise, to a total of 56 diagnosed cases so far, in that country's largest outbreak for many years.
- Microsoft has announced that it is to make some concessions towards the proposed final settlement of its antitrust case ahead of the judge's verdict.
- The gun turret of the USS Monitor was raised from the sea bottom off the coast of North Carolina, where it had lain since sinking in 1862.
- Israeli-Palestinian conflict: A Palestinian suicide bombing claims 9 lives, near Safed; there is a shooting attack in Jerusalem, claiming 2; there is an attack upon a settler family, killing the parents. Not all of the victims of these attacks were Israeli Jews; some were Israeli Arabs and Druze.
- Current events/July 2002
- Current events/June 2002
- Current events/May 2002
- Topics removed from current events
- Background articles for ongoing events
News pages
External links to news pages that can be used to gather new topics for the above list:
- News Search Engines: http://www.HavenWorks.com/news/search
- Google News
- http://dailynews.yahoo.com/headlines/ts/
- http://www.bbc.co.uk/news - Coverage split in to science/health etc... for UK and world news
- http://www.cnn.com.
- News Sources
- Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC)
- The Globe and Mail