August 2002

Recent celebrity deaths: Lionel Hampton, jazz vibraphone master, dies.
Israeli-Palestinian conflict: A think tank affiliated with the Arab League ended its meeting in Cairo by calling Jews "enemies of all nations", by claiming that Arabs, as Semites, cannot be anti-Semitic, and by claiming that the events of September 11, 2001 were concocted by the United States government. See http://www.zccf.org.ae/LECTURES/E2_lectures/e255.htm (http://www.zccf.org.ae/LECTURES/E2_lectures/e255.htm)

Extreme weather: In China, the Dongting Lake[?] floods Yueyang[?], forcing the evacuation of 600,000 people; the crest of the flooding from the Yangtze River is expected Sunday. Floods and landslides have killed nearly 1000 people in China, 200 in the Hunan province. There have been 376 deaths in India, 494 in Nepal, and 158 deaths in Bangladesh this monsoon season[?].
Government of Canada[?]: Jean Chrétien, the Prime Minister of Canada, announces he will step down in February 2004.

Extreme weather: In India, a 125-year-old dam bursts under torrential rains, killing 10.

Martin Strel is approaching Memphis, Tennessee in his effort for peace to swim the length of the Mississippi River.
Recent celebrity deaths: Al Ayyam[?] reports that international terrorist Abu Nidal was found dead of apparent suicide.
Extreme weather: The flooding death toll in Europe reaches 109. The Danube peaks at Budapest at a record 28.3 feet, mostly contained by the walls along the river. Dessau is flooded. Overall damage in the Czech Republic is expected to cost $2.8 billion.

Extreme weather: One of the sea lions who escaped from the Prague Zoo[?] on the 13th is safely recaptured near Wittenburg.

Extreme weather: The Elbe crests at Dresden at the record height of 30.84 feet. 30,000 Germans are evacuated along the river's path.

Thousands of fans gather at Graceland in commemoration of the 25th anniversary of the death of Elvis.

Vladimir Putin announces that Belarus will be fully integrated into Russia, with each of Belarus's six provinces to become a separate republic within the Russian Federation.
Recent celebrity deaths: Larry Rivers[?], American painter, dies at 78.
Israeli-Palestinian conflict: Marwan Barghouti, captured April 15, is indicted in a civilian Israeli court.
The United States Food and Drug Administration orders a recall of all soft tissues processed since October 3 by CryoLife[?], the largest supplier of implant tissue[?] in the United States, after 27 cases of serious infection, including one death in November.
Extreme weather: The peak of a 100-year flood of the Vltava River surges through the Czech Republic into the Elbe in Germany. In Plzen the city center is flooded, and breweries shut down. In Ceske Budejovice, most of the old town is under more than a foot of water, and the Czech Budweiser breweries are shut down. More than 200,000 Czechs are forced to leave their homes. Damages are estimated at over $600 million. In Dresden, the Zwinger Palace[?] courtyard and basement are flooded, damaging paintings. The Semper Opera[?] basement is flooded, closing it for weeks. More than 3,000 hospital patients are evacuated. Europe-wide death toll is now 99.

Extreme weather: On the seventh day of heavy rains, the peak of 100-year flood of the Vltava River reaches Prague, and the Kampa[?] district is submerged under several yards of water, as well as the Prague Zoo[?], killing an elephant, five rhinoceros, a lion, a gorilla and 80 birds, and allowing five seals to escape. The Kampa Museum[?] is flooded. 15,000 people were evacuated from Melnik[?], and 1,600 people were evacuated from Decin[?]. The death toll in Europe is at 88, 9 in the Czech Republic.

Recent celebrity deaths: Enos Slaughter, Baseball Hall of Famer, dies at 86 from the disease non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.
Extreme weather: The death toll in Europe caused by flooding has risen to at least 74, with 58 deaths in Russia, 3 in Germany, 3 in Austria, and one in the Czech Republic. Prime Minister Vladimir Spidla[?] declared a state of emergency in Prague, Bohemia, Plzen and Karlovy Vary[?]. All shipping on the Danube has been halted. Premier Silvio Berlusconi approved $50 million in emergency aid in response to the $300 million in damage of northern Italy's crops.
US Airways[?] declares bankruptcy, caused by the air travel slowdown following the September 11, 2001 Terrorist Attack.
Colombian president Alvaro Uribe declares state of emergency.

Extreme weather: Dozens are killed by floods caused by torrential rains in Europe, including the Malse[?] and Blanice[?] rivers of the Czech Republic, the Black Sea resort village of Shirokaya Balka[?] near Novorossiisk[?] in Russia, and Romania. The downpours have also caused extensive damage in Austria, Bulgaria, Croatia, Italy, and Spain.
A massive explosion in Jalalabad at the maintenance facility of the Afghan Construction and Logistics Unit, a private construction company, kills at least 10 and injures 25, damaging 50 homes and a hydroelectric dam.

Accountancy scandals: WorldCom announced it had discovered $3.3 billion in false accounting in addition to the $3.8 billion discovered earlier.
The F.C.C. votes to require television manufacturers to include digital tuners in nearly all televisions by 2007.

Israeli-Palestinian conflict: Israeli forces kill 6 Palestinians: Israeli undercover soldiers kill four Palestinian militants wound three in a gun-fight in Tulkarm[?]. An Israeli sniper kills Hussam Hamdan[?], a member of Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Israeli troops and 30 tanks push into northern Gaza, killing a Palestinian policeman. These come in response to the attacks of August 4 listed below.

Three members of Manchester rock band Oasis have been injured in a head-on car crash[?] in Indianapolis while on tour in the U.S.A. None were seriously injured.
Mathematics: A group at the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur have presented an algorithm that they claim determines whether a number is prime in polynomial time relative to the length of the input number in bits. This is an important result in computational complexity theory.
Stock market downturn of 2002: The stock market remains volatile.

Explosions went off near the parliament building as Colombia's President Alvaro Uribe was being sworn in, killing at least 10 people.
Recent celebrity deaths: Edsger Dijkstra, one of the giants of the field of computer science, has died.

Recent celebrity deaths: Chick Hearn, pro-basketball announcer dies at the age of 85.
Stock market downturn of 2002: U.S. indices continue heavy losses from the previous week and fall by over three percent on the day, NASDAQ falling below its July 23 low.
British cases of Legionnaires' disease continue to rise, to a total of 56 diagnosed cases so far, in that country's largest outbreak for many years.
Microsoft has announced that it is to make some concessions towards the proposed final settlement of its antitrust case ahead of the judge's verdict.
The gun turret of the USS Monitor was raised from the sea bottom off the coast of North Carolina, where it had lain since sinking in 1862.

Israeli-Palestinian conflict: A Palestinian suicide bombing claims 9 lives, near Safed[?]; there is a shooting attack in Jerusalem, claiming 2; there is an attack upon a settler family, killing the parents. Not all of the victims of these attacks were Israeli Jews; some were Israeli Arabs and Druze.