March 5, 2003
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- 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 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. [1]
- Iraq disarmament crisis: UK newspaper The Times reports that the United Nations secretly drawn up a plan to establish a post-war government in Iraq. Although no consensus have reached among UN Security Council members in regard to military action, the document indicates that UN leaders may now consider war all but inevitable.[2]
- 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 Cúcuta, 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.
- Protests against the 2003 Iraq war: 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 occurred 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.
- Belize's People's United Party returned to office, 22-7, in 2003 legislative elections.
