Portal:Current events/2003 August 29

August 29, 2003 (2003-08-29) (Friday)

• Najaf, Iraq: A car bomb explodes during prayers outside the holiest shrine for Shiites, Imam Ali Mosque (Tomb of Ali), just as main weekly prayers are ending. More than 125 people are killed, including the influential cleric Ayatollah Sayed Mohammed Baqir al-Hakim, the Shiite leader of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI). Dozens are injured.
• Israel is alleged to have contingency plans to bomb an Iranian nuclear power plant if it begins producing weapons grade material.
• Tensions flare again over the main religious site in Jerusalem, the location of both the Temple Mount and the Noble Sanctuary. The holy site had been closed to non-Muslims since September 2000. Israeli officials say they are maintaining calm over a site sacred to three religions. But Muslim authorities say the Israeli government is risking a backlash here and throughout the Muslim world.
• Occupation of Iraq: General in Iraq says more soldiers are not needed. The American Coalition commander encouraged Muslim allies like Turkey and Pakistan to send peacekeepers and said accelerating the training of a new Iraqi army should be considered.
• Tony Blair's communications director, Alastair Campbell, resigns, leaving Blair with none of the three key players he has relied on for the last decade left.
• The Inuit of Labrador sign an agreement with the Canadian federal government, giving them self-government in a 72,500 km² region of northern Labrador called Nunatsiavut.
• Surgeons in Baltimore, Maryland, remove a woman's heart, rebuild its upper chambers from bovine and human tissue, and reinstall it in her body.
• Congressman William J. Janklow, the only Representative from the state of South Dakota, is charged with vehicular manslaughter for an accident on August 16 in which Janklow's speeding car ran a stop sign and hit and killed a motorcyclist.

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