News for this day in 2003 you may not have heard if you weren’t interested what the rest of the world was doing.
But if you were, this was a busy day for you. Beginning with South Korea asking China to intervene on their behalf over the issue of North Korea and its nuclear program. Concerns in Seoul were over an increased development of a possible nuclear weapon and possible threats over South Korea. China was hesitant at first and the U.S. flat-out refused to interfere. In the end, China agreed to talk Pyongyang down from the hawkish ledge.
The issue of Cyprus was a topic of much debate around the EU. The island nation was divided in two; with half controlled by Greece and the other half controlled by Turkey. Pressure was on to come to some sort of agreement where Cyprus would be reunited since both Cyprus and Turkey were up for EU membership. But in recent talks, Turkish Cypriot leader Rauf Denktash was dead-against any offer towards a settlement and reunification. However, incoming Turkish Prime Minister Recep Erdogun openly criticized Denktash and called for new thinking on Cyprus and Turkey.
And fighting between rebel groups and troops of the Cote d’Ivoire government of Laurent Gbagbo intensified with fears the fighting would send the price of chocolate (a major export for the country) skyrocketing since Cote d’Ivoire was a major international supplier of Cocoa and the main port of San Pedro was coming under fire from the rebels.
And that’s only a small fraction of what else was going on in the world, this January 2nd 2003 – you can hear the rest by hitting the Play button and listening to The BBC World Service give news and reports on the scene.
Can’t believe it’s 2024 already. Here it is, a new year and Past Daily is still trudging along, looking for your support. We don’t run ads so we need contributors to keep us up and running. Costs even more now than it did this time last year. But we’re still offering you the best of what’s in the archive – yes, this is all from our Collection (except the sessions and concerts – gotta give credit where credit is due – BBC 6 Music and Radio X in London and RNE In Madrid are essential sources of finding new music) but everything is the result of yours truly digging into boxes, climbing over shelves, falling into dumpsters. It’s history, it’s important and it’s yours if you want it. All you have to do, if you’re up for it, is please subscribe via Patreon (that little box at the bottom of this post) – click on it and you’ll be taken to their site where you can subscribe to Past Daily, let them know how much you want to donate – or check us out for free, test drive our site, as it were, and decide to become part of the Past Daily experience. Simple, painless and we’ll love you for it. Do it if you can and you’ll be able to download your own copy of all our posts and new ones as they appear. Kind of cool, don’t you think? But you have to become a Patron in order to do it. Think about it – no pressure – honest – really . . no pressure. But there’s this landlord . . . .
