2003 : January - February - March - April - May - June - July - August - September - October - November - December

A timeline of events in the news for March, 2003.

See also:

March 31, 2003

March 30, 2003

March 29, 2003

March 28, 2003

March 27, 2003

March 25, 2003

March 24, 2003

March 23, 2003

March 22, 2003

March 21, 2003

March 20, 2003

March 19, 2003

  • Jørn Siljeholm, a weapons inspector recently in Iraq, accused the U.S of lying about evidence for weapons of mass destruction. English, Norwegian
  • Telephone tapping of EU headquarters uncovered. According to EU officials the taps targeted six EU states including Austria, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, and Spain. The taps appear to have been installed when the building was constructed in 1994.[1]
  • A group of doctors in Hong Kong claims to have identified the agent causing severe acute respiratory syndrome as belonging to the paramyxoviridae family of viruses. [1]
  • European Union Health and Consumer Protection Commissioner, David Byrne, said "cases like SARS demonstrate only too clearly that contagious diseases require a high level of preparedness across borders. Imagine if it had been an influenza pandemic which, in the past, had a devastating impact on humans. In order to meet the contemporary public health threat of communicable diseases, we must strengthen coordination and surveillance at Community level. The most effective way to do so is by setting up a European Union Centre for Disease Control."
  • Paul Twomey is chosen for being the next president of ICANN. [1]
  • Dwight Watson, who had driven a tractor into a reflecting pool on the National Mall in Washington, D.C, surrendered to federal authorities. The 48 hour standoff severely disrupted the business and traffic of downtown D.C., as a large section of streets were blocked due to Watson's claim that he had explosives. [1]

March 18, 2003

March 17, 2003

March 16, 2003

March 15, 2003

March 14, 2003

March 13, 2003

March 12, 2003

March 11, 2003

March 10, 2003

  • Iraq disarmament crisis: The White House press secretary, paraphrasing the President, stated "If the United Nations fails to act, that means the United Nations will not be the international body that disarms Saddam Hussein. Another international body will disarm Saddam Hussein." [1]
  • Iraq disarmament crisis: *Kofi Annan, Secretary General of the United Nations, stated "If the US and others were to go outside the [Security] Council and take military action it would not be in conformity with the [UN] Charter".
  • French president Jacques Chirac declares that France will veto a UN resolution sponsored by Spain, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The resolution would authorise use of force against Iraq unless that country proves it disarmament by March 17. [1]
  • North Korea test-fires a short-range missile into the Sea of Japan. This is North Korea's second recent such launch. [1]
  • Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov announced that Russia would veto a UN resolution by the US and Great Britain authorising the use of force against Iraq. [1]
  • Recep Tayyip Erdogan is elected to the Turkish parliament and is expected to become prime minister shortly. Erdogan supports deployment of US troops in Turkey and is expected to call for a new vote on the issue as one of his first official acts. [1]
  • Deutsche Telekom discloses an annual loss of 24.6 billion euros.
  • U.S diplomat John Brown, who joined the State Department in 1981, resigned. He said that the Bush administration's Iraq policy was fomenting a massive rise in anti-US sentiment around the world and he could not support it.

March 9, 2003

March 8, 2003

March 7, 2003

March 6, 2003

  • Britain: Abdullah el-Faisal is jailed for 9 years for urging Islamists to kill non-believers, Americans, Hindus and Jews. [1]
  • Cuban President Fidel Castro is elected unopposed to a sixth term. He has served as the head of Cuba's government for 44 years -- longer than any other living head of government.
  • 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. [1]
  • The SCO Group, formerly Caldera, the current owner of the rights to the Unix operating system, sues IBM for $1 billion for "devaluing" Unix, claiming that IBM employees who signed Non-disclosure agreements worked on the Linux operating system.
  • The European Central Bank 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

March 4, 2003

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.
  • In protest of American aggression in the Iraq disarmament crisis, an international protest effort occurred called The Lysistrata Project in which public readings of the ancient Greek play, Lysistrata, were performed.

March 2, 2003

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. [1]
  • 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.