October 7, 2003

• California recall: The state of California held a special election to decide whether to recall Governor Gray Davis, and, if so, who to replace him with. Also on the ballot: Proposition 53, the "California Twenty-First Century Infrastructure Investment Fund," and Proposition 54, the "Racial Privacy Initiative."
• Nobel Prize: The Nobel Prize in Physics is awarded jointly to Alexei Abrikosov, Vitaly Ginzburg and Anthony Leggett for their work on the theory of superconductors and superfluids.
• Middle East: United Nations envoy and Special Coordinator for the Middle East peace process, Terje Roed-Larsen, condemns attack from Lebanese territory that killed an Israeli soldier across the southern withdrawal line and urges Beirut to control the use of force everywhere in its jurisdiction. Roed-Larsen, states the attack "constitutes a clear violation of the Blue Line and Security Council resolutions and could escalate tension between Israel and its northern neighbours" and he calls on all sides to use diplomacy and take no action that "could increase the already high level of tension in the region".
• Congo: UN spokesman states that a United Nations peacekeeping operation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has discovered 65 bodies, mostly children, apparently massacred.
• Occupation of Iraq: The Turkish Parliament votes (358-to-183) to approve the dispatch of peacekeepers to Iraq, in a major victory for United States efforts to broaden foreign involvement in Iraq. In Baghdad, Iraqi Governing Council officials state that they would oppose any new foreign troop deployment to Iraq. No formal decision had been made by the Council and leaders of the council have stated they would support this if the United States requested this.
• Capital punishment: Some legal and medical professionals are stating warnings about the apparent tranquillity of a lethal injection, declaring this may be deceptive. According to these professional the standard chemical combination used to execute people may lead to paralysis that masks intense distress, leaving a wide-awake inmate unable to speak or cry out as he slowly suffocates.
• Genetic engineering: Small group of protesters brave chilly winds and strip off outside New Zealand Parliament to lobby against lifting the Genetically modified food moratorium.
• Africa: The South African government announce they would not prosecute the five policemen accused of killing Steve Biko in 1977, citing insufficient evidence to support a murder charge.
• Asia: The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) announces its intention to form a single-market "Asian Community" by 2020.