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April 2003

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Events

• April 1, 2003 - Hong Kong movie and Cantopop star Leslie Cheung commits suicide at the age of 46.
• April 1, 2003 - In Japan, The Postal Services Agency becomes Japan Post, a public corporation. [1]
• April 1, 2003 - Air Canada, the main airline company of Canada asks for bankruptcy protection.
• April 1, 2003 - Cubana de Aviacion AN-24 airplane on a flight from the Isle of Youth in Cuba to Havana with 46 passengers on board is hijacked and directed towards the United States. After refueling in Havana the plane flew to Key West, under escort by two US jet fighters. The plane landed safely in Key West. [2]
• April 1, 2003 - Prisoner of war United States Army Pfc. Jessica Lynch is rescued by U.S. forces from Nasiriya, Iraq.
• April 3, 2003 - Jean-Pierre Serre is announced as the winner of the first Abel Prize.
• April 3, 2003 - United States forces capture the Saddam International Airport in Baghdad. [3]
• April 4, 2003 - Video footage of Saddam Hussein is shown on Iraqi TV, and mentions the shooting down of an Apache helicopter, reducing speculation on the possible death of Saddam Hussein.
• April 5, 2003 - The Senate of Belgium approves a change in the nation's war crimes law so that it will no longer apply to citizens of nations with sufficient human rights laws. The House of Representatives had already approved the change.
• April 6, 2003 - British forces step up their presence in the southern city of Basra. According to embedded journalists, the citizens of Basra braved gunfire to dance in the streets and cheer for the British troops. UPI's Chief International Correspondent Martin Walker claimed that he had witnessed at least one Basra citizen kiss a British tank. [4]
• April 6, 2003 - In a friendly fire incident, U.S. warplanes struck a convoy of allied Kurdish fighters and U.S. Special Forces during a battle in northern Afghanistan. At least 18 people are killed and more than 45 wounded, including senior Kurdish commanders.
• April 7, 2003 - As part of a plea bargain, alleged Mafia boss Vincent "Chin" Gigante admits in court that he has been feigning insanity for more than 30 years. [5]
• April 7, 2003 - In Oakland, California, police fired rubber bullets and beanbags at anti-war protesters and dockworkers outside the Port, injuring at least a dozen demonstrators and six longshoremen standing nearby.
• April 7, 2003 - United States troops push into the centre of Baghdad and enter at least one abandoned Presidential Palace. (see Invasion of Baghdad).
• April 7, 2003 - Syracuse University defeats the University of Kansas to win the NCAA's college basketball championship
• April 8, 2003 - Deaths of 3 journalists in Baghdad: Two American air to surface missiles hit the Qatar satellite station Al Jazeera's office in Baghdad and kill a reporter and wound a cameraman.
• April 9, 2003 - Baghdad falls to coalition forces. American infantrymen seize deserted Ba'ath Party ministries and pull down a huge iron statue of Saddam Hussein at the Fardus square in front of the Palestine Hotel, as a symbolic ending his autocratic rule of Iraq.
• April 10, 2003 - United States Green Berets and Kurdish fighters enter the city of Kirkuk in Iraq with little resistance. Turkey and U.S., in separate statements, say they will not allow the Kurds to occupy the city. [6], [7]
• April 10, 2003 - British Airways and Air France simultaneously announce that they will retire the supersonic Concorde aircraft later this year.
• April 10, 2003 - A fire destroys a boarding school for the deaf in Makhachkala, Russia, killing 28 children, aged 8 to 14. About 100 other children suffer burns and smoke inhalation, 39 of which are in serious condition. [8]
• April 11, 2003 - Donald Rumsfeld makes historic speech.
• April 11, 2003 - The northern Iraqi city of Mosul falls to coalition forces as the Iraqi army's 5th Corps offers a letter of surrender. The only remaining major city left to fall is Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit, where some expect the remaining regime loyalists to make their final stand. [9]
• April 11, 2003 - Europe's largest civil engineering project, and the world's largest single metro expansion project, is officially opened in Madrid. MetroSur, a 40-kilometre loop of the Madrid Metro in the southern suburbs of the city, took under 3 years to complete.
• April 11, 2003 - Cuba executes three men charged with terrorism for hijacking a passenger ferry on April 2. Another four men receive life sentences. [10]
• April 12, 2003 - Looting and lawlessness plague Baghdad. Hospitals looted, humanitarian aid hindered by unsafe conditions.
• April 12, 2003 - Prince Laurent of Belgium marries British-born 'commoner' Claire Coombs at the St. Michael and Gudula Cathedral in Brussels.
• April 12, 2003 - Canadian scientists announce that they have sequenced the genome of the virus which is thought to cause Severe acute respiratory syndrome. The sequence is published on their website: http://www.bcgsc.ca/bioinfo/SARS/ . (News item: [11])
• April 12, 2003 - 14th annual Thunder Over Louisville held in Louisville, Kentucky.
• April 13, 2003 - Seven U.S. Prisoners of War are released to Coalition troops approaching Tikrit in Northern Iraq.
• April 14, 2003 - In Quebec, Canada, the governing sovereigntist Parti Québécois is defeated in the 2003 general election. The Liberals are returned to power after nine years, and Jean Charest becomes the new premier.
• April 15, 2003 - Abu Abbas captured by United States forces in Iraq. [12]
• Parliament of Finland elects Anneli Jäätteenmäki as the nation's first woman Prime Minister. [13]
• April 16, 2003 - The Helsingin Sanomat reports that in late March, a RITEG-beacon was disassembled by thieves in Kurgolovo, Russia who dumped the highly radioactive nuclear material into the Gulf of Finland, 100 km south of Finland. [14]
• April 17, 2003 - Sir John Stevens releases the Stevens Report, which states that the police and other security services in Northern Ireland colluded in the murders of many innocent people, including Pat Finucane and Francisco Notarantonio, in the 1970s and 1980s.
• April 19, 2003 - Nigeria holds a presidential election.
• April 22, 2003 - Viacom Buys the Time Warner half of Comedy Central.
• April 24, 2003 - 2003 Iraq war: Iraqi former Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz surrenders himself to U.S. forces [15]
• April 25, 2003 - United States Army secretary Thomas E. White resigns amidst tensions with Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld over the direction future Army weapons development programs should take, and controversy surrounding White's previous employer, Enron. The Pentagon declines to provide specifics on the circumstances of his resignation. [16]
• April 26, 2003 - Unknown assailants fire incendiary devices on an ammunition dump in suburban Baghdad, triggering hours of explosions. American sources put the casualties at six dead and four wounded; Iraqi sources state 25 wounded. [17]
• April 26, 2003 - Winnie Mandela is sentenced to four years in prison (five years, less one year suspended) for theft and fraud. [18]
• April 26, 2003 - Tennis player Andre Agassi, at age 33, becomes the oldest man ever to be ranked number one in the world in the World Tennis Association rankings
• April 27, 2003 - Argentinians go to the polls to elect a president for the first time since the December 2001 economic collapse provoked street riots that unseated four presidents in two weeks. Carlos Menem beats fellow Peronist Néstor Kirchner in the first round of voting, but the closeness of the vote necessitates a runoff vote scheduled for May 18.
• April 27, 2003 - A Soyuz spacecraft blasts off from Baikonur Cosmodrome towards the International Space Station, the first launch since the Columbia disaster.
• April 28, 2003 - Monday April 28, 22:30, Falluja, 50km from Baghdad, American soldiers opened fire against a group of protesters, resulting in a number of casualties.
• April 28, 2003 - Apple Computer revealed a new online music store, entitled the iTunes Music Store, for its iTunes and iPod products. Each song can be downloaded for 99 cents and there is no subscription fee.
• April 29, 2003 - The World Health Organization lifts the SARS travel warning for Toronto.
• April 29, 2003 - Israeli forces assassinate three Palestinian militants in Gaza, including Nidal Salamah, a leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. The action prompts accusations that Israel is trying to sabotage the Palestinian government's attempts to transform itself.
• April 29, 2003 - Mahmoud Abbas is confirmed as the first Palestinian Authority prime minister after winning a vote of confidence from the Palestinian legislature.
• The United States announces that it will be reducing its military presence in Saudi Arabia to a handful of advisors.
• April 30, 2003 - The World Health Organization holds a meeting in Toronto regarding SARS.
• April 30, 2003 - A suicide bomber kills 3 in Tel Aviv.
• April 30, 2003 - A road map for peace sponsored by the US, UN, EU, and Russia is delivered to the Israeli government and the Palestinian Authority.