October 2003

Portal history | Portal Biographies | Current events | Annual calendar

◄ | 20th century | 21st century    
◄ | 1970s | 1980s | 1990s | 2000s | 2010s      
◄ | 1999 | 2000 | 2001 | 2002 | 2003 | 2004 | 2005 | 2006 | 2007 | ►
◄ | July 2003 | August 2003 | September 2003 | October 2003 | November 2003 | December 2003 | January 2004 | ►

Contents:
Mon Tuesday Wed do Fr. Sat So 1 2 3 4th 5 6th 7th 8th 9 10 11 12 13 14th 15th 16 17th 18th 19th 20th 21st 22nd 23 24 25th 26th 27 28 29 30th 31

This article covers breaking news and events in October 2003.

Daily events

Wednesday October 1, 2003

• Brussels / Belgium : The President of the Commission of the European Union Romano Prodi presents the timetable for the economic development program “European Initiative for Growth”. The main points are the promotion of transport and research and development.
• Paris / France : The Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization of the United Nations takes over the United States after 18-year break again as a member on. The country's last membership ended at the request of the United States because of disagreements about the purpose of the organization's budget.

Thursday October 2, 2003

• Kirkuk / Iraq : Two young suicide bombers blow themselves up in front of a laundromat in the northern Iraqi city . Apart from the two, no one is harmed. The laundromat is popular with United States Army soldiers .
• Nyŏngbyŏn / North Korea : The Nyŏngbyŏn nuclear facility has 8,000 processed fuel rods. This means that the country is in a position, according to state media, to produce atomic bombs . These are supposed to prevent the United States from invading.
• Stockholm / Sweden : The Nobel Prize for Literature this year goes to the South African writer John Maxwell Coetzee . This is announced by the Royal Swedish Academy . One of his best-known works is the novel Shame on Social Conditions in his home country after the end of the preference for the European minority .

Friday 3rd October 2003

• Las Vegas / United States : During a show at the Hotel Mirage, a seven-year-old tiger named Montecore, who is part of the performance for the first time, attacks Roy Horn from the tamer duo Siegfried and Roy , so that the artist has to be admitted to a hospital seriously injured.
• Midsayap / Philippines : A hand grenade was thrown at a mosque in Midsayap in the south of the Philippines . Four people were killed and over 30 injured.
• Pakistan : Pakistan has tested a nuclear weapons capable short - range missile. This can also be used to reach the hostile neighboring country India .

Saturday 4th October 2003

• Haifa / Israel : In the northern Israeli city of Haifa a 27-year-old Palestinian woman blew herself up in a restaurant. In addition to her, 19 other people died and over 50 were injured. The terrorist organization Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for the attack. Israeli leaders announced retaliation .
• Oman : In Oman, general elections are held for the first time, in which women are also entitled to vote.

Sunday 5th October 2003

• China : After heavy rainfall, hundreds of thousands of people in northern China are threatened by a flood disaster. The Yellow River and its tributaries threaten to overflow their banks.
• Syria : In retaliation for the terrorist attack the day before, the Israeli air force attacked an Islamic Jihad training camp in Syria.
• Chechnya / Russia : In the presidential elections in Chechnya, the Moscow-loyal candidate Akhmat Kadyrov received 81% of the vote. The election has been criticized by observers because it did not meet Western standards.

Monday October 6, 2003

• Berlin / Germany : According to Federal Transport Minister Manfred Stolpe ( SPD ), the truck toll will not start until the beginning of 2004, but the start of the trial operation can be expected shortly. It is still unclear whether the operator consortium Toll Collect will have to pay for the resulting outages of around 140 million euros per month.
• New York / United States : A draft resolution on the future of Iraq proposed by the United States and Great Britain, which provides for a UN peacekeeping mission with a troop contingent under US leadership, is rejected by a majority (with the votes of Russia, France and Germany, among others), so that over the text of an Iraq resolution has to be renegotiated.
• Stockholm / Sweden : The American Paul Christian Lauterbur and the British Peter Mansfield will receive this year's Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their work on magnetic resonance imaging .

Tuesday October 7, 2003

• Ankara / Turkey : The majority of the Turkish parliament votes in favor of sending Turkish troops to Iraq to be deployed there to maintain peace. Turkey later withdrew its offer in view of the ongoing tense security situation.
• Sacramento / United States : In California a referendum with the result ends that Governor Gray Davis of the Office is dismissed . The California electorate can also vote for a new governor in the event of being voted out. The Republican candidate Arnold Schwarzenegger wins the election before Cruz Bustamente from the Democratic Party . In the German-speaking countries, the success of the native Austrian Schwarzenegger caused a lot of media coverage.
• Stockholm / Sweden : The Nobel Prize for Physics will be awarded this year to the Russians Alexei Abrikossow and Witali Ginsburg as well as the British Anthony J. Leggett for their work in the field of superconductors and superfluids .

Wednesday October 8, 2003

• Stockholm / Sweden : The Nobel Prize Committee announces that the 2003 Nobel Prize in Chemistry will go to the Americans Peter Agre and Roderick MacKinnon . They received it for their research on aquaporins , these proteins ensure the transport of substances in the cell membranes. The American Robert F. Engle and the British Clive WJ Granger will receive the Alfred Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics this year for the creation of new analytical methods .

Thursday October 9, 2003

• Afghanistan : 70 people died in fighting between the troops of the Uzbek general Abdul Raschid Dostum and the Tajik warlord Atta Mohammad Noor . In the meantime, the Afghan Interior Minister Ali Ahmad Jalali and the British Ambassador Ron Nash negotiated a ceasefire between the two warlords.
• Baghdad / Iraq : In the predominantly Shiite district of Sadr City , members of the armed forces of the United States are lured into an ambush. Two of them are killed and four wounded. Ten people died in an attack on a police station in Sadr City. On the same day, a Spanish diplomat was murdered in Baghdad .
• Indonesia : In Indonesia, over 54 schoolgirls were killed in a bus accident.
• Rafah / Palestinian Autonomous Territories : The Israeli army, with the help of helicopters and tanks, has entered the Palestinian refugee camp Rafah in the Gaza Strip . At least 3 people were killed and 24 others injured. The army said it wanted to destroy tunnels for arms smuggling.

Friday October 10, 2003

• Iraq : A bus bombing kills two oil company employees and injures four others.
• Japan : Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi dissolves parliament and calls for new elections for November 9th. He hopes that the new elections will strengthen his party.
• Magdeburg / Germany : A canal bridge over the Elbe is inaugurated near Magdeburg to enable direct shipping between the Mittelland and Elbe-Havel canals. The hydraulic engineering project was already planned in the 1930s, but its implementation was discontinued due to a lack of resources in World War II in 1942.
• Oslo / Norway : The Iranian lawyer Schirin Ebadi will receive the Nobel Peace Prize this year and be the first Muslim woman on the list of award winners. The Norwegian committee recognizes her commitment to democracy and human rights .
• Turkey : The Turkish army is launching an offensive against the Kurdish Workers' Party and its armed fighters . At least four Kurds are killed.

Saturday October 11, 2003

• Hamburg / Germany : According to the magazine Der Spiegel , Israel is ready to carry out military strikes against Iranian nuclear facilities .

Sunday October 12, 2003

Scene from the Women's World Cup final

• Carson / United States : The German women's national soccer team becomes world champion for the first time at the 4th World Cup thanks to a golden goal from Nia Künzer in the final against Sweden .
• Frankfurt am Main / Germany : The American journalist Susan Sontag receives the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade and then highlights the importance of European and German literature in her life, while she lifts the Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann produced. She also reports of childhood nightmares in which National Socialist prisoners of war broke out and tried to murder them.
• Suzuka / Japan : Michael Schumacher wins the Formula 1 World Championship with eighth place. The winner of the race was Rubens Barrichello , who won decisive points for Ferrari in the constructors' championship. During the race, Schumacher was involved in two accidents .

Monday October 13, 2003

• Frankfurt am Main / Germany : The Frankfurt Book Fair with 6,600 exhibitors from more than 100 countries ends with a new record with 280,000 visitors in six days and thus 8.7% more visitors than last year.

Tuesday October 14, 2003

• Monrovia / Liberia : Gyude Bryant is sworn in as Liberia's interim president. This is linked to hopes that the conflict in the country will end after the former ruler Charles Taylor resigned in August , whereupon his deputy Moses Blah took over the presidency.
• Tehran / Iran : Schirin Ebadi , this year's winner of the Nobel Peace Prize , arrives in Tehran from Paris and is enthusiastically welcomed by several thousand Iranians at the airport.
• Washington, DC / United States : Germany and the United States sign mutual legal assistance agreement in Washington . Both sides can in future seize evidence , interrogate witnesses , exchange documents and search for wanted persons , but evidence from the Federal Republic of Germany may not be used in the USA to impose the death penalty .

Wednesday October 15, 2003

• Azerbaijan : According to the first election results, İlham liyev, the son of the previous president, wins in Azerbaijan . The opposition speaks of electoral fraud and international election observers reported irregularities.
• China : The People's Republic is the third nation to successfully launch a manned rocket into space. Around 9:00 am local time, the rocket takes off with the spacecraft Shenzhou - and the first astronauts Yang Liwei it - from its launch site in the desert Gobi from. Since the beginning of manned space travel in 1961, only the Soviet Union and subsequently Russia and the United States carried out manned missions.
• Gaza / Palestinian Territories : Three people die in a rocket attack on a convoy of US diplomatic vehicles. US Secretary of State Colin Powell calls on the Palestinian Prime Minister Qurai to take action against terrorism.

Thursday October 16, 2003

Emblem of the mission of the first Taikonaut

• Berlin / Germany : A commission is to work out proposals for a reform of the federal system in the Federal Republic of Germany by the end of 2004 .
• China : Yang Liwei , the first Taikonaut , ends up in the morning safely on the ground of the earth .
• New York / United States : The UN Security Council unanimously passes resolution 1511, in which it is stated that sovereignty in Iraq should be transferred "as soon as possible" to a separate Iraqi government. The states of the world are called upon to help rebuild Iraq, with security first being guaranteed by the US-led coalition forces. Surprisingly, Syria also approved the decision.
• New York / United States : The ferry from Manhattan to Staten Island hits a quay wall. Ten people are killed.
• Oberursel / Germany : The airline Aero Lloyd had to file for bankruptcy and ceased operations, thousands of passengers were stuck at the airports .
• Vatican City : Pope John Paul II celebrates his "silver pontificate anniversary" at the age of 83 together with more than one hundred thousand believers with a mass on St. Peter's Square . He calls for the fight against poverty, injustice and war.

Friday October 17, 2003

• Bangkok / Thailand : At a dinner before the meeting of leaders of the Asia-Pacific Economic Community and discuss. a. China's President Hu Jintao , Japanese Prime Minister Jun'ichirō Koizumi and US President George Bush take action to counter global terrorism .
• Belgium / Brussels : At the two-day EU summit , Chancellor Gerhard Schröder is represented by French President Jacques Chirac in order to be able to take part in a debate in the German Bundestag .

Saturday October 18, 2003

• Kailua-Kona / United States : Ironman Hawaii ends with victories for Canadians Lori Bowden in the women and Peter Reid in the men.
• La Paz / Bolivia : The Bolivian parliament elected the 50-year-old historian and media entrepreneur Carlos Mesa as its new president. His predecessor, Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada , had previously offered to resign over weeks of protests against his economic policy. Carlos Mesa announced a referendum on the planned export of natural gas and new elections before the regular 2007 date .
• Madrid / Spain : The Spanish writer Manuel Vázquez Montalbán died at the age of 64 at an airport in Bangkok . Montalban was one of the opponents of the Franco dictatorship and became internationally known for his crime novels about the private detective Pepe Carvalho .

Sunday October 19, 2003

• Bern / Switzerland : 4.7 million Swiss are called to elect a new National Council . The right-wing conservative Swiss People's Party with its top candidate Christoph Blocher has increased by eleven seats and will have 55 of the 200 members in the future. The Social Democratic Party of Switzerland and the Greens are also gaining seats. In the Senate solves CVP , the FDP from the largest membership group.
• Vatican City : Pope John Paul II beatifies the nun Mother Teresa of Calcutta .

Monday October 20, 2003

• Washington, DC / United States : The US budget deficit has reached a record high of 374 billion dollars this year, which equates to a new federal debt of 1,345 dollars per capita . In addition to the weak economic situation, the main reasons for this increase are expenses for the Iraq war and tax cuts.

Tuesday October 21, 2003

APEC Summit 2003

• Bangkok / Thailand : At the 15th summit of Pacific Asia Economic Community APEC is the infectious disease SARS in the center. The participants assure each other better cooperation on health issues.
• Berlin / Germany : The six leading German economic research institutes present their autumn report . They expect moderate economic growth of 1.7% for 2004 , after stagnating in 2003 . In the coming year there will be another failure of the new indebtedness limit according to Maastricht criteria , instead of the permitted 3% of gross domestic product, the experts reckon with 3.5%. The number of unemployed will rise from 4.4 million to 4.45 million.
• Austria : Infrastructure Minister Hubert Gorbach is sworn in as the new Vice Chancellor. He replaces Minister of Social Affairs Herbert Haupt in this role.
• Sahel : From Mauritania , Niger and Sudan are swarms of locusts reported; an expansion to large parts of North Africa is feared.

Wednesday October 22, 2003

• Germany : The toll collection company Toll Collect has approved the publication of the contract with the Ministry of Transport.
• Israel , Palestinian Autonomous Territories : Despite the vote of the UN General Assembly , which condemned the construction of the Israeli barriers with 144 votes against 4, Israel wants to further expand the controversial border fence, which runs largely across the Green Line on the territory of the West Bank.
• United States : The pricing policy of the US group Halliburton comes under criticism of the US Congress. Halliburton sells gasoline in Iraq more expensive than in the US, at $ 1.59 a gallon. An Iraqi company wants to be able to offer gasoline for 98 cents a gallon. Research revealed that some of the money for gasoline comes from the UN “Oil for Food” fund.
• Vienna / Austria : The National Council rejects the request for a committee of inquiry into the shareholdings of Finance Minister Karl-Heinz Grasser . The Treasury Secretary has been criticized for failing to properly report his shareholding to the Incompatibility Committee.
• According to a study by the Sunshine Project , ethnic weapons are possible. These would be biological weapons that only hit certain peoples due to their genetic disposition.

Thursday October 23, 2003

• Germany : According to a report by the television program Panorama , the treasurers of the Bavarian FDP and CSU have accepted illegal donation offers from journalists disguised as building contractors . They approached the parties with a request to place donations over € 30,000 anonymously. The treasurers recommended that the donation be given in denominations and distributed among women and children as donors. The Greens and the SPD rejected the same offers as illegal.
• Russia : An accident occurred in a coal mine in southern Russia. After a water ingress and a subsequent power failure, 46 miners from the Shakhty mine in the Rostov-on-Don region were trapped at a depth of 800 m.
• Vienna / Austria : Parliament passes a new asylum law with the majority of the governing coalition . Opposition and human rights activists criticize the law, which significantly restricts the rights of asylum seekers.

Friday October 24, 2003

• London / United Kingdom : The airline British Airways completed the last scheduled flight of Concorde , the era thus goes after three decades to an end. The trigger for the decommissioning was a crash in July 2000 not far from Paris.
• Washington, DC / United States : A US Senate committee has made serious allegations against the CIA , which did inadequate educational work in the run-up to the Iraq invasion.

Saturday October 25, 2003

• Afghanistan : Two CIA agents are killed in a raid in eastern Afghanistan .
• Darmstadt / Germany : The German Alexander Kluge receives the Georg Büchner Prize from the German Academy for Language and Poetry . The laudation will be given by the literary historian and patron Jan Philipp Reemtsma .
• Iraq : A US helicopter was shot at near Tikrit . This had to make an emergency landing and then went up in flames. An attack was carried out on a bus with 50 Kurdish Taekwondoka in the Kirkuk region . 11 of the athletes were injured, 3 of them seriously. You were going to a tournament in Baghdad . The US Army said guerrilla fighters reportedly injured 3 civilians and 2 others near Fallujah . A survivor blames the US Army for this attack. 5 US soldiers were wounded in Chaldija in western Baghdad, and 2 others in Baakuba . A British soldier was slightly injured in an attack in Basra , southern Iraq .
• Moscow / Russia : Mikhail Khodorkovsky , one of the Russian oligarchs, is arrested on charges of tax evasion.
• Middle East : The Israeli army has blown up 3 empty skyscrapers and a police station in El Sahara in the Gaza Strip , which are said to have served as an observation post or hiding place for an attack in the Jewish settlement of Nezarim . A Palestinian carrying an assault rifle was shot dead near the Jewish settlement of Gush Katif in the Gaza Strip . In the meantime, 2,000 Israelis demonstrated for peace and against Ariel Sharon in Jerusalem , Israel . Syria also threatened Israel with an attack on settlements in the Golan Heights if another attack on Syrian territory were to occur.
• North Korea : A spokesman for the North Korean State Department has indicated that a written US security guarantee in the nuclear dispute could be accepted. So far, North Korea has called for a non-aggression pact, which the US rejects.
• Russia : 33 of the 46 miners trapped in a mine on Thursday were rescued. The other 13 missing appear to be alive as well.
• Washington, DC / United States : About 20,000 people demonstrated in Washington against President George W. Bush's Iraq policy .

Sunday October 26, 2003

• Baghdad / Iraq : The El-Rashid Hotel in Baghdad was hit by several rockets. Mostly American soldiers live there, currently also US Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz . One American was killed and 15 people injured.
• Brandenburg / Germany : The SPD suffers heavy losses in the local elections in Brandenburg . At the same time as the elections, the nationwide municipal reform will come into force. The number of municipalities will decrease from 1,479 to 422.
• China : 8 people were killed in two earthquakes in the north-west of the People's Republic . Thousands were left homeless in the frost.
• California / United States : According to the authorities, 13 people fell victim to the widespread forest fires in California.

Monday October 27, 2003

• Baghdad / Iraq : A series of attacks rocked the Iraqi capital Baghdad. 2 car bombs hit the building of the International Committee of the Red Cross . The Iraqi Ministry of Industry and a police station were other targets. 43 people were killed and over 200 injured in the attacks.
• Nigeria : Spiritual leaders have stopped polio vaccinations in Nigeria. They want to investigate rumors of vaccine contamination. The World Health Organization has made Nigeria the center of its polio campaign as it threatens to spread there.

Tuesday October 28, 2003

• Germany : Employer President Hundt has warned the Union of a blockade of tax reform in the Federal Council . The heads of several large German business enterprises have also asked the CDU for approval.
• Germany : The federal government gives the 1995 to stated purpose, the CO ₂ to reduce emissions by 2005 by 25% compared to 1990 levels. Instead, the internationally agreed target of a 21% reduction by 2012 applies.
• Fallujah / Iraq : 6 people, including students from a neighboring school, were killed in an attack on a police station.

Wednesday October 29, 2003

• London / United Kingdom : Iain Duncan Smith , leader of the Conservative Party , loses his party's support after a vote of no confidence and resigns. The most likely successor candidate is Michael Howard .
• Russia : After six days, another eleven buried miners were rescued alive from the mine near Rostov . A miner could only be recovered dead. Another person was initially missing.

Thursday October 30, 2003

• Kuala Lumpur / Malaysia : After 22 years of government, the Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir bin Mohamad declares his resignation.
• Russia : The Russian Constitutional Court has stopped a law according to which journalists should have refrained from criticizing candidates in the election campaign.
• Washington, DC / United States : The US Senate has rejected a bill that would have forced companies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 2000 levels by 2010 .

Friday October 31, 2003

• Iraq : A powerful bomb explosion occurs in Fallujah . One US soldier is killed and four others injured in an attack in Chaldija . Two explosions are recorded near the US headquarters in Baghdad .

See also

• Nekrolog October 2003 for deaths that month
• List of annually recurring commemorative and action days in October
• Category for commemorative days, holidays or action days in October

Web links

Canton of Jura in October 2003

Commons : October 2003  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

1. ^ Commission outlines road map for European Initiative for Growth. In: europa.eu . October 1, 2003, accessed December 5, 2018 . 
2. ↑ More information - United States of America. In: unesco.org . Retrieved November 12, 2019 . 
3. ↑ qucosa.de : Relations between UNESCO and the United States of America with special attention to multilateral education funding ( Memento of November 12, 2019 in the Internet Archive )
4. ^ The 2003 Nobel Prize for Literature. In: nobelprize.org . October 2, 2003, accessed December 19, 2016 . 
5. ^ The 2003 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. In: nobelprize.org . October 6, 2003, accessed August 24, 2019 . 
6. ^ The Nobel Prize in Physics 2003. In: nobelprize.org . October 7, 2003, accessed August 24, 2019 . 
7. ^ The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2003. In: nobelprize.org . October 8, 2003, accessed August 24, 2019 . 
8. ^ The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2003. In: nobelprize.org . October 8, 2003, accessed December 11, 2016 . 
9. ↑ Series of attacks shakes the country. In: rundschau-online.de . March 2, 2004, accessed June 3, 2020 . 
10. ^ The Nobel Peace Prize for 2003. In: nobelprize.org . October 10, 2003, accessed August 24, 2019 . 
11. ↑ The steep rise of European women. In: fifa.com . Retrieved July 12, 2017 . 
12. ↑ fifa.com : FIFA Women's World Cup USA 2003 ( Memento from July 31, 2017 in the Internet Archive )
13. ↑ Börsenverein des Deutschen Buchhandels (Ed.): 2003. Susan Sontag . Frankfurt am Main 2003 ( friedenspreis-des-deutschen-buchhandels.de [PDF] certificate).
14. ^ Terror joins trade on the APEC agenda. In: theage.com.au . October 18, 2003, accessed August 7, 2019 . 
15. ↑ trinews.at, Stefan Leitner: Women ( Memento from March 1, 2020 in the Internet Archive )
16. ↑ trinews.at, Stefan Leitner: Gentlemen ( Memento from March 1, 2020 in the Internet Archive )
17. ^ Switzerland, elections held in 2003. In: ipu.org . Accessed September 4, 2018 . 
18. ^ The 2003 APEC Bangkok meetings and President Bush's East Asia visit. In: aph.gov.au . Retrieved March 9, 2020 . 
19. ↑ Alexander Kluge. In: deutscheakademie.de . October 25, 2003, accessed August 18, 2019 . 
20. ↑ Tory leader ousted. In: bbc.co.uk . October 29, 2003, accessed September 16, 2016 .