DAY BY DAY
The Nineties 1990–1999
Smita Avasthi
Day by Day: The Nineties Copyright © 2004 by Facts On File, Inc. Al...
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DAY BY DAY
The Nineties 1990–1999
Smita Avasthi
Day by Day: The Nineties Copyright © 2004 by Facts On File, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher. For information contact: Facts On File, Inc. 132 West 31st Street New York NY 10001 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Avasthi, Smita. Day by day : the nineties / by Smita Avasthi. p. cm. Includes index. eISBN 978-1-4381-2436-0 1. Nineteen-nineties. 2. World politics—1989– 3. Civilization, Modern—1950– I. Title. D856.A93 2003 909.82´9´0202—dc22 2003049296 Facts On File books are available at special discounts when purchased in bulk quantities for businesses, associations, institutions or sales promotions. Please call our Special Sales Department in New York at (212) 967-8800 or (800) 322-8755. You can find Facts On File on the World Wide Web at http://www.factsonfile.com Cover design by Cathy Rincon Printed in the United States of America VB TB 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 This book is printed on acid-free paper.
CONTENTS EDITOR’S PREFACE INTRODUCTION LIST OF ACRONYMS YEARLY SUMMARIES MONTHLY AND DAILY CHRONOLOGY OF EVENTS
iv v xiii 1
1990
4
1991
139
1992
281
1993
415
1994
549
1995
687
1996
819
1997
951
1998
1081
1999
1217
EDITOR’S PREFACE through E list international affairs for any given date, while columns F, G, and H deal mostly with U.S. domestic developments. Column I— Science, Technology, & Nature—covers both U.S. and foreign accidents, weather phenomena, natural disasters, and technological advances. Cultural events and personal items that do not have political implications are found in Column J. Each year is preceded by a monthly summary of events to include developments that cannot be fixed to a single date. Day by Day: The Nineties includes an index designed to facilitate references to specific events. For this reason it is keyed to dates and columns rather than page numbers. A list of acronyms has also been provided.
Day by Day: The Nineties is part of a decade-by-decade chronology of world events that begins with Day by Day: The Forties. The series is designed to provide both a quick reference to specific events and a broad overview of the years during and after World War II. Most of the material in Day by Day is based on the Facts On File News Services’s World News Digest, supplemented by major newspapers and scholarly reference works. The emphasis throughout is on events of public record, reported in the news media. The enormous number of events covered in the volume makes it impossible to treat any single one in great detail. Readers interested in more information are advised to consult one of many reference works on the period. Entries in Day by Day are grouped into 10 categories, designed to facilitate the location and comparison of events. In general, columns A
iv
INTRODUCTION Community (EC), the Arab League, and the Gulf Cooperation Council. In a “notification consistent with” the War Powers Resolution, U.S. president George H. W. Bush officially informed Congress that he sent U.S. forces to the Persian Gulf on August 10, 1990. Bush did not invoke the controversial 1973 law, which would have given Congress a say in the deployment. In addition, reservists were called to augment what is known as “Operation Desert Shield,” the first time since 1968 that reservists have been called to active duty in a foreign crisis. The U.S. forces led an international team of allies, and at least 10 nations sent troops to the region. On January 16, 1991, allied forces launched a full-scale attack against Iraq. More than 15,000 allied air sorties (8,000 of them combat missions) were flown in the first week of the bombing campaign alone. The roundthe-clock bombing of Baghdad continued for several weeks, and the intense military campaign ravaged Iraq, prompting humanitarian crises as epidemics of disease broke out in the country. Massive fires and oil spills led to environmental disasters throughout the Persian Gulf. On February 27, 1991, Iraq agreed to comply with UN resolutions demanding the Iraqi withdrawal from Kuwait. In response, U.S. president Bush stated the allied forces would cease offensive operations at midnight, 100 hours after the ground offensive began and after the allies flew 106,000 air sorties and lost 36 aircraft in combat. During the six weeks of war, an estimated 85,000–100,000 Iraqis were killed or wounded, and the attack devastated Iraq’s infrastructure. On April 6, 1991, the government of Iraq accepted the terms for a permanent cease-fire stipulated in UN Security Council Resolution 687, bringing a formal end to the Persian Gulf War. However, it was not until November 10, 1994 that Iraqi president Saddam Hussein signed a statement declaring that Iraq “recognizes the sovereignty of the State of Kuwait, its territorial integrity and political independence” and that it accepted the border between Iraq and Kuwait. Despite this declaration, the UN Security Council retained its oil and general trade embargoes on Iraq in a November 14, 1994, vote. The tensions between Iraq and the international community, as evidenced by the continuing UN embargo against the country, persisted throughout the decade. While the military campaign was relatively short, disputes over the UN arms inspectors resulted in several diplomatic crises, and the UN maintained its embargo against Iraq, although it launched a foodfor-oil program to aid with the humanitarian crises that beset Iraq after the allied bombing campaign in the Persian Gulf. Another international military campaign was conducted in Yugoslavia as the republic broke down and a bloody civil war erupted. On March 16, 1992, Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic announced his republic no longer recognized the legitimacy of the Yugoslav federal government, and the Serbian National Council, which represented ethnic Serbs in Croatia, declared an independent republic in the southwestern Krajina region of Croatia. Yugoslavia’s defense secretary, Colonel General Veljko Kadijevic, told the federal collective presidency that “Yugoslavia has entered a state of civil war” on May 6, 1991. In the years that follow, violence tore apart the former Yugoslav Republic, and the conflicts
The end of the 20th century was marked by both beginnings and endings as nations throughout the globe underwent political changes. During the 1990s, several countries ended their systems of government and embarked on new phases in their history, reimagining their communities and redrawing their maps. The breakup of the Soviet Union came on the heels of the dissolution of communism in Eastern Europe, and the formal reunification of Germany led to new ideas about communities in the West. At the same time, a crushing civil war in Yugoslavia exposed how atrocities can be committed to exterminate communities in the name of ethnic purity. Ongoing violence related to ethnicity was also evident in African nations, as civil wars in Liberia, Rwanda, and Somalia killed hundreds of thousands of people. Iraq’s attempted takeover of Kuwait prompted an international military action in the Persian Gulf. In Latin America, a violent coup rocked Haiti, while several other nations, such as Brazil and Chile, were returned to democracy for the first time in more than 20 years. Questions of self-determination continued to affect Asia. Indonesia went through radical changes when a referendum bestowed independence in East Timor, and China regained control over Hong Kong from Britain. The issue of what constitutes a community and a nation rose to the forefront of political strife as the countries around the world struggled to reimagine themselves. The United States enjoyed a period of economic prosperity toward the close of the century. While the first few years of the decade were marked in economic lethargy, the country passed several milestones in the stock market, and the federal budget reached a surplus in 1998 for the first time in nearly 30 years. The political climate was shaped by issues of gender equity as questions of sexual harassment affected every branch of the federal government. Allegations of sexual harassment rocked both the navy and the army, disrupted the nomination of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, and compelled the resignation of Senator Bob Packwood (R, Oreg.). One such scandal even prompted the House of Representatives to impeach President Bill Clinton. In the midst of these concerns came instances of both foreign and domestic terrorism against the U.S. government. The World Trade Center in New York City suffered an explosion, and U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania were bombed. A federal building in Oklahoma City was also destroyed in one of the worst cases of domestic terrorism in the nation’s history. In response to escalating terrorism activity and to bloody civil unrest around the world, international organizations intervened in several conflicts by sending peacekeeping missions to nations such as Somalia, Haiti, Indonesia, Bosnia, Liberia, and Rwanda. Global peacekeeping efforts marked the 1990s, as both the United Nations (UN) and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) led campaigns in nations rocked by civil wars while attempting to respect those countries’ domestic policies. In contrast to peacekeeping efforts over internal ethnic strife, the UN took action against Iraq in 1991 after the nation forced the annexation of neighboring Kuwait in August 2, 1990. The invasion of Kuwait prompted international outrage from the UN, NATO, the European v
installed its first democratically elected government, reflecting changes brought by the destruction of the Berlin Wall in 1989. On October 3, 1990, Germany became a unified nation for the first time since the end of the Second World War. In addition, many Eastern bloc countries launched a new phase in their history with multiparty democratic elections during the decade. The formal end of the cold war was marked on November, 19, 1990, at a summit held by the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe. Additionally, NATO was expanded during the 1990s, and the Warsaw Pact, created in 1955, was dissolved on July 1, 1991. U.S. president Bush and Soviet president Gorbachev held the first post–cold war superpower summit on July 30, 1991. As old divisions fell, Europe reached a new stage of unity when, on January 1, 1999, the European Union (EU) launched a common currency unit known as the euro in many nations, including France, Spain, Italy, Austria, Ireland, the Netherlands, and Germany. One significant reason for the breakdown of Eastern and Western divisions in Europe was the dissolution of the Soviet Union. In the 1990s, the Baltic states in the Soviet Union made the first moves toward secession. On March 11, 1990, the parliament of Lithuania declared the republic’s independence from the Soviet Union. This act was quickly followed by Latvia and Estonia, and on May 12, 1990, the three countries signed a pact to revive the Baltic Council, which existed before the Soviets’ annexation of the region in 1940. The Soviet government denounced the declarations of independence as invalid, and a period of negotiation and economic threats reflected the USSR attempt to contain the crisis. However, several Soviet states followed the path of the Baltics, and on July 24, 1991, Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev met with 10 leaders of the 15 Soviet states, who agreed on power-sharing provisions in a treaty. Only a few weeks later, on August 18, 1991, Soviet hard-liners attempted a coup against Gorbachev, prompting massive protests throughout the USSR. Particularly vehement against the coup was Russian Federation president Boris Yeltsin, who addressed 150,000 people at a protest rally held on August 20, 1990, in Moscow. On that same day, over half a million other activists demonstrated against the coup attempt. In the face of internal and international condemnation, the rebellion was quashed by the end of August 21, 1990. But despite the attempted coup, the Soviet Union, formed in 1922, officially disbanded on December 25, 1991, and 11 of the 12 Soviet republics formed the Commonwealth of Independent States, or CIS. While there were some skirmishes regarding the independence movement, including the slaying of 15 pro-independence protestors in Lithuania on January 13, 1991, the dissolution of the Soviet Union was generally smooth and nonviolent. However, internal strife plagued some of the recently formed countries, and one conflict that gained prominence took place in Chechnya. After clashes, Russian forces launched a full-scale offensive on Grozny, capital of Chechnya, on December 31, 1994. By the time of that assault, only about 100,000 people remained in Grozny, down from a prewar population of 400,000. Clashes within Georgia and conflicts between Armenia and Azerbaijan also continued throughout the decade. Other significant events that took place in the 1990s in Europe included the peaceful division of Czechoslovakia into the Czech Republic and Slovakia on January 1, 1993. Turkey launched violent campaigns against Kurdish separatists and debated the place of the Islamic religion in its political sphere. Italy suffered a massive political corruption scandal. Violent riots shook Albania over pyramid investment schemes in January 1997, and political protests in Romania erupted in violence in June 1990. Sectarian violence persisted in Northern Ireland, particularly during traditional parades in the summer months; and on March 20, 1993, a bomb in Warrington, England, killed two boys, ages three and 12. They were the youngest victims of such violence, and their deaths prompted an estimated 15,000 people to attend a protest on March 28, 1993; the demonstration has been called the largest ever protest criticizing the Irish Republican Army (IRA)
resulted in what observers called the worst human rights abuses in Europe since the end of World War II. Over a dozen peace accords were reached and broken, and international efforts to find diplomatic solutions were continually thwarted. On February 29, 1992, Bosnia held a referendum, which eventually prompted the area to declare its independence from Yugoslavia. On April 27, 1992, the Yugoslav republics of Montenegro and Serbia proclaimed a new “Federal Republic of Yugoslavia” with a revised charter that tacitly acknowledged the independence of Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Slovenia, and Macedonia. The fighting in the former republic of Yugoslavia killed hundreds of thousands of civilians, and international organizations attempted to intervene with both sanctions and humanitarian aid. On May 30, 1992, the UN voted to impose sweeping international sanctions on Yugoslavia as a means of ending the bloodshed in Bosnia-Herzegovina. The body also insisted that the Serb policy of expelling non-Serbs halt immediately. However, paramilitary groups continued to massacre people based upon ethnicity in a campaign of forced expulsion and extermination known as “ethnic cleansing.” Amid widespread reports of atrocities in Bosnia, the UN Security Council created a war crimes commission for the region in October 1992. On February 28, 1994, NATO fighter aircraft conducted their first combat action in the organization’s 45-year history when they shot down four planes in violation of the UN’s no-fly zone. The following November, NATO warplanes bombed the Udbina air base in the Serbheld Krajina region of Croatia in the biggest air raid carried out by NATO since it was formed in 1949. In an attempt to protect civilians, the UN designated several “safe zones,” including the city of Srebrenica, in May 1993. However, in July 1995, Bosnian Serb forces captured Srebrenica, and, as mass graves were discovered later, the city eventually represented the inability of peacekeeping forces to protect civilians. The war finally came to an end on November 21, 1995 when the presidents of Serbia, Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina agreed to a pact. A NATO peacekeeping force of 60,000 troops was deployed in Bosnia to sustain the accord. The war claimed an estimated 250,000 lives, and its campaign of ethnic cleansing shocked the Western world. War crimes tribunals continued to operate throughout the decade, and in June 1996, rape was treated as a war crime for the first time. Upon the heels of this bloody conflict came an uprising in Kosovo. Problems in Kosovo emerged at the beginning of the decade when, on July 2, 1990, Albanian members of Kosovo’s parliament declared that Kosovo was independent from Serbia. However, on September 28, 1990, the Serbian parliament completed its effective annexation of the province. The conflict in Kosovo was overshadowed by the civil war, and when peace accords finally took effect, ethnic Albanians launched several attacks for the independence of Kosovo in February 1998. The ensuing Serbian violence against ethnic Albanians outraged Western nations, particularly since it followed a war that called attention to attempted genocide through ethnic cleansing. The attacks prompted NATO to launch its first assault on a sovereign nation in its 50-year history on March 24, 1999. The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia indicted a sitting head of state for the first time on May 14, 1999, when it indicted Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic for “crimes against humanity” stemming from the forced deportation of hundreds of thousands of ethnic Albanians from Kosovo. On June 9, 1999, Yugoslavia signed an agreement with NATO, pledging to withdraw all of its forces from the Serbian province of Kosovo, and NATO formally ended its bombing campaign against Yugoslavia on June 20, 1999. While the war in the former Yugoslavia dominated much of the European theatre during the 1990s, the decade was also marked by the dissolution of the Soviet Union. The breakdown of the Soviet Union and the reunification of Germany, along with the end of communism in several Eastern European countries in the late 1980s, created an entirely different political climate in Europe. Without the Eastern bloc, the very concept of the cold war became obsolete. In April 1990, East Germany vi
as 800,000 Burundians fled to neighboring African nations, including Rwanda. After the April 1994 death of Burundian president Cyprien Ntaryamira, intense fighting disrupted the nation, and by March 1995, observers reported that the country was practically at a stage of civil war. In July 1996, the main Tutsi party in the coalition government, the Union for National Progress (UPRONA), rejected president Ntibantunganya and the 1994 accord that established the coalition government. Setting off international condemnation, Burundi’s Tutsi-dominated military announced that it seized power in a coup and named Major Pierre Buyoya as president on July 25, 1996. It dissolved the parliament, declared political parties and demonstrations illegal, and closed off the country’s borders. Burundi also repatriated thousands of Rwandans, as it was one of the African nations that had attempted to handle a massive exodus from Rwanda during 1994. For the next several years, the influx of Rwandan refugees led to severe problems in Zaire, Tanzania, and Burundi. International organizations were stunned by the speed of the exodus and the enormous numbers of the refugees in Rwanda. Camps were set up, but violence often plagued those areas, so many refugees were slain after fleeing ethnic cleansing in their country. In addition, poor sanitary conditions caused diseases to flourish, and hundreds of people died each day during the Rwandan refugee crisis. The influx of refugees led to violence in Zaire, and, as it highlighted the nation’s problems, the government of President Mobutu Sese Seko came under attack. In the face of a final rebel assault on the capital, Kinshasa, President Mobutu relinquished power on May 16, 1997, ending nearly 32 years of dictatorial rule. The following day, Laurent Kabila, a veteran guerrilla fighter, declared himself head of state and changed the country’s name to the Democratic Republic of the Congo. However, fighting persisted in the nation as several rebel groups emerged. On August 31, 1999, two rival factions signed a peace agreement aimed at ending the country’s civil war. In addition to these conflicts, intense fighting besieged Somalia, where violence erupted in November 1991 and continued to flare, drawing international attention. In response to the ongoing factional clashes, UN peacekeeping troops arrived in the country in August 1992. However, sporadic fighting kept causing unrest, and, on June 5, 1993, a series of well-orchestrated attacks killed 23 UN peacekeepers. It was the worst single-day death toll for UN soldiers since 1961. The assault was launched after UN troops inspected munitions depots controlled by General Mohammed Farah Aidid, the most powerful warlord in Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia. In August 1996, Aidid died from gunshot wounds sustained in clashes, but his death did not resolve the conflict. One week in December 1996, renewed clashes left more than 300 people dead. One year later, on December 23, 1997, leaders of rival factions in Somalia’s sixyear-old civil war signed a landmark peace plan. The Middle East was also marked by violence during the 1990s. Fighting continued in Lebanon, and prolonged terrorist activity in Israel throughout the decade stressed that nation’s ongoing strife. Two of the most violent outbreaks in Israel took place in 1990 and 1994. On October 8, 1990, Israeli police opened fire on stone-throwing Palestinian protesters on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem’s Old City, killing at least 19 Arabs and wounding more than 100 others. In the second incident, a U.S.-born Israeli settler sprayed Palestinians with automatic rifle fire at a mosque in Hebron, leaving 40 worshipers dead and 150 wounded on February 25, 1994. The massacre was the worst in the West Bank since 1967. This assault was even more significant, for it came in the wake of a landmark peace agreement signed in September 1993; however, it was staged by a lone gunman, Baruch Goldstein, and the peace arrangement stayed in place, despite the violence that the attack sparked. The historic peace accord, signed by Israel’s prime minister, Yitzhak Rabin, and Yasser Arafat, the chair of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), on September 13, 1993, committed Israelis and Palestinians to share a land that they both claimed as their own. It also set up
in Dublin. On April 10, 1998, political leaders tentatively agreed to a groundbreaking settlement aimed at ending the long-running sectarian conflict in Northern Ireland, and voters cast ballots for the country’s local legislature the following June. In September 1997, Scotland and Wales formed new assemblies that gave the regions a degree of political autonomy that had not been seen in hundreds of years. Great Britain suffered an emotional loss when Princess Diana died at the age of 36 in a car-crash accident on August 31, 1997, a death that shocked the world. When we turn to the African part of the world, we can see that violence affected many nations, and the practice of ethnic cleansing was not limited to the European theatre. In Africa, the 1990s were marked by coups and ethnic strife, and many long-standing conflicts in the Middle East continued to rock the region with terrorist activity, despite a landmark Israeli peace accord signed in September 1993. Coups were staged in several African countries, including Sierra Leone, Mali, Qatar, Niger, Cosmoros, Ivory Coast, and Guinea-Bissau. Intense fighting in Liberia, Rwanda, Burundi, Somalia, and Angola sparked international intervention as millions of people died in those wars. At the same time, South Africa gained international praise when it ended the apartheid system of racial separation and enfranchised its black citizens for the first time. In terms of Africa’s more violent conflicts during the 1990s, a bloody war in Liberia degenerated to tribal warfare in June 1990. On September 10, 1990, Liberian president Samuel Doe was killed by rebels led by Prince Yormie Johnson. Doe’s death resulted in more chaos, and, on September 20, 1990, Johnson declared all-out war on the remnants of Doe’s army and the forces of rebel leader Charles Taylor. By October 1992, Taylor’s rebels controlled most of Liberia, along with members of a rival rebel movement, the Independent National Patriotic Front. The UN Security Council approved an arms embargo against Liberia on November 19, 1992. The fighting persisted during the coming years, and by September 1994, approximately 150,000 Liberians had been killed in the civil war, and more than half of the population of 2.3 million people was displaced. In fact, by October 1994, refugee camps in Burkina Faso and Guinea were home to more Liberians than any Liberian city except Monrovia. Despite peace accords, sporadic violence plagued the nation throughout most of the decade. On August 2, 1997, former warlord Charles Taylor was sworn in as president of Liberia; his election marked the nation’s first balloting in seven years of civil war. While the fighting in Liberia was perpetuated by rebel groups, Rwanda was beset by ethnic fighting from the onset of the 1990s. In February 1993, rebels in Rwanda broke a peace accord when they launched an assault in order to stop an ethnic-cleansing campaign staged against the Tutsis by the Hutus. The violence reached astonishing proportions after Burundian president Cyprien Ntaryamira and Rwandan president Juvenal Habyarimana were killed in a plane crash on April 6, 1994. Fighting erupted almost immediately in Kigali, Rwanda’s capital, as groups of Hutus and Tutsis roamed the streets, shooting, knifing, and hacking civilians to death. The violence included massacres of civilians, such as a brutal incident on April 13, 1994, when 1,180 Tutsis, 650 of them children, were killed in a church in Musha, 25 miles (40 km) east of Kigali. Estimates suggested that 10,000 and 20,000 died within the first week of violence in the region. In addition, 2 million people were displaced by fighting within Rwanda, and another 30,000 fled to neighboring countries, including Burundi, which also faced ethnic strife between Hutus and Tutsis. By the time the war ended, over half a million ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus were killed. In January 1997, a Rwandan court handed down its first sentences in its attempt to punish the people responsible for the massacres during the civil war in 1994. The problems in Rwanda were linked to clashes in Burundi, even before the April 1994 death of both the nations’ presidents. A coup attempt in October 1993 led to the death of Burundian president Melchior Ndadaye, the country’s first democratically elected leader. The attempted coup sparked violence between Tutsis and Hutus, and as many vii
in over 150 years of British rule, and prodemocracy parties won a majority of seats. On February 24, 1994, Hong Kong’s legislature approved a series of democratic-reform proposals, and China responded by threatening to disband all elected bodies in 1997. When power over Hong Kong reverted to Chinese authority at midnight on June 30, 1997, the transition was remarkably peaceful. Hong Kong and China struggled over the issue of democratic reforms, but no violent crackdowns marked the reemergence of Chinese sovereignty over the former British colony. At the same time, Cambodia, Sri Lanka, and Afghanistan faced violent upheavals during the 1990s. In March 1992, the leftist Khmer Rouge launched a new offensive, prompting the Cambodian government to strike back. On September 24, 1993, Norodom Sihanouk assumed the title of king, a position he had abdicated in 1955. Although he set up a dual premiership between his son and the incumbent premier, Hun Sen, a bloodless coup in July 1997 ousted Prince Norodom Ranariddh, leaving control of the government to Hun Sen. On August 5, 1998, Hun Sen was declared the winner in Cambodia’s national elections, but rumors of election fraud sparked protests throughout the country. In Sri Lanka, the Tamil rebels continued to launch offensives throughout the decade. In August 1990, the estimated death toll from the conflict stood at 3,350, and the ongoing violence left even more people dead. On May 1, 1993, President Ranasinghe Premadasa was assassinated in Colombo, the capital. After several major offensives in 1995, Sri Lankan troops captured Jaffna, the center of the Tamil movement, in December 1995 in what some observers called the most significant victory in 12 years of war. Afghanistan also suffered from rebel uprisings and a coup. On April 28, 1992, Afghanistan’s collapsed communist government relinquished power to a commission of mujaheddin rebels headed by moderate Islamic leader Sibghatullah Mojadidi, formally ending 14 years of rule by Sovietbacked regimes in Afghanistan. However, in January 1994, General Abdul Rashid Doestam and Premier Gulbuddin Hekmatyar staged an offensive against the government in the capital, Kabul. Within six months, the fighting left an estimated 2,500 people dead. In February 1995, the Taliban, a band of militant Muslim students, emerged as a major force in the nation, and in September 1996, the group seized control of Afghanistan, executed President Najibullah Mohammed Rabbini, and imposed strict Islamic law throughout the nation. The Taliban’s restrictions on personal power and its systematic oppression of women drew international condemnation. Only three countries recognized the Taliban as the government of Afghanistan until September 1998. At that point, the Taliban continued to shelter accused terrorist Osama bin Laden, who was thought to have planned twin bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania on August 7, 1998. In response, Saudi Arabia cut its contact with the Taliban, leaving Pakistan and the United Arab Emirates as the only two nations in the world that recognized the group as the official government in Afghanistan. Militant Muslim groups also wreaked havoc in Egypt and Algeria, while ongoing conflicts between India and Pakistan continued to foster animosity between the two nations. Violent skirmishes in Kashmir occurred throughout the decade. Both nations conducted underground nuclear tests in May 1998, prompting fears over the countries’ access to nuclear weapons. Violence between those nations over the disputed region of Kashmir broke out again in May 1999, and after less than one week of fighting, about 300 people died. On May 26, 1999, India launched a series of air strikes on a band of Islamic militants. On July 11, 1999, military commanders endorsed a plan for ending the recent conflict, which represented the heaviest fighting in the region for almost 30 years. India and Pakistan went through several separate crises during the decade as well. On May 21, 1991, former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated in Sriperumbudur, sparking violence across the nation. Another incident of bloodshed came from sectarian violence in the country on December 6, 1992. The Ayodhya mosque, a longtime area of
principles for interim Palestinian self-rule. On July 5, 1994, Arafat took the oath as head of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA), the temporary Palestinian governing body. The formation of the PNA and the enactment of the September 1993 peace accords was one of the most impressive events that took place in the Middle East during the 1990s, and it represented a new era in Israeli and Palestinian relations. While violence continued to pepper the region, the steps toward sharing the land were unprecedented and garnered much hope and attention. In 1994, Arafat and Rabin were presented with the Nobel Peace Prize, as the world recognized their diplomatic achievement. The September accords survived the assassination of Israeli prime minister Rabin on November 4, 1995. His funeral was attended by 5,000 mourners, many of whom had been at odds with each other or Israel for years, such as representatives from the PNA, Egypt, Oman, and Qatar. While Rabin’s assassination stunned Israel and the world, his commitment to peace endured, despite continued incidents of terrorism. Another significant moment in the 1990s that offered hope to many nations was the dramatic changes that occurred in South Africa. On February 11, 1990, South African black nationalist leader Nelson Mandela was freed after more than 27 years in prison, and in September 1991, South African president F. W. de Klerk outlined his government’s proposals for a new constitution that would provide suffrage to the country’s black majority for the first time in modern history. The changes brought about a good deal of violence in the townships, but de Klerk and Mandela continued to work together toward ending the apartheid system of racial separation and black disenfranchisement in the nation. In December 1993, de Klerk and Mandela accepted their joint Nobel Peace Prize award to recognize the progress made in South Africa. On May 2, 1994, Mandela claimed a landslide victory for the African National Congress (ANC) in South Africa’s first all-race elections, declaring that black South Africans are “free at last.” A week later and on the eve of Mandela’s inauguration, de Klerk declared, “We have opened up a new era of hope, security and bright future beyond words.” For the remainder of the decade, violence in South Africa was accompanied by this sense that the nation had opened a new chapter in history, as the country reimagined itself without the apartheid system of racial separation that hindered the progress of South Africa for decades. The explosive changes that rocked Africa and the Middle East were some of the most prominent events in the world in the 1990s. During this same period, countries in Asia also went through series of transformations, particularly when it came to questions of self-rule and autonomy. In July 1990, Mongolia held its first free parliamentary elections since 1921. In South Korea, Kim Young Sam took the oath of office on February 25, 1993, and he thus became the nation’s first civilian president since 1961. President Lee Teng-hui retained power in Taiwan’s first democratic presidential election, held in March 1996. Myanmar also held its first elections in May 1990; however, the ruling junta refused to turn power over to the winning opposition party and kept one of its founders, the Nobel Prize–winning Aung San Suu Kyi, under house arrest from 1989 until at least the end of the decade. On February 23, 1991, the government of Thai premier Chatichai Choonhavan was ousted by the military in a bloodless coup led by General Sunthorn Kongsompong, abolishing the 1978 constitution and imposing martial law. These changes in the Asian countries show that the region was struggling in response to calls for democratic reform. In China, prodemocracy activists received much attention, in the wake of the violent crackdown on protesting students in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square in 1989. Many prodemocracy dissidents faced arrest, and 66 of them were released in January 1991 after their cases were completed. However, by the end of October 1996, all key members of the prodemocracy movement in China were either imprisoned or exiled. China’s stance against democracy was underscored by its response to the status of Hong Kong. In September 1991, Hong Kong held its first direct elections viii
elections in December 1990, and Reverend Jean-Bertrande Aristide was overwhelmingly chosen to lead the nation. However, his tenure was abruptly ended when Brigadier General Raoul Cédras staged a coup on September 29, 1991. The military takeover sparked protests in Portau-Prince, the capital, and elsewhere in the nation. As stories of humanrights abuses emerged, the coup in Haiti brought also international condemnation, and, on July 31, 1994, the UN Security Council cited the need for “an exceptional response” to the crisis and authorized a U.S.-led multinational invasion to restore Aristide to power. The following September, Haiti’s military government narrowly avoided the planned invasion by relinquishing power to Aristide. As we turn from the Americas to the United States, we find that the 1990s was marked by partisan politics as the Republicans won control of both seats of Congress in November 1994. It was the first time in 40 years that the GOP dominated both the House and Senate. However, William Jefferson Clinton (D, Ark.) beat out incumbent President George Bush in 1992 and Congressman Robert Dole (R, Kans.) in 1996. With Democrats in charge of the executive branch of government and Republicans in control of Congress, the 1990s were beset by partisan squabbles. The divisiveness was also evident on many social issues, such as abortion rights. For example, on January 25, 1991, Utah governor Norman Bangerter (R) signed one of the most repressive abortion laws in the U.S. The bill prohibited abortion in nearly all cases. Less than one month later, on February 18, 1991, Maryland governor William D. Schaefer (D) signed into law a measure designed to protect a woman’s ability to obtain a legal abortion, even if the Supreme Court is to overturn its 1973 Roe v. Wade decision. The contrast between the two bills shows the range of opinions on that controversial issue. Likewise, race relationships, sexual harassment, discrimination, and gay rights were publicly debated during the decade, and people reflected on social and political differences. At the same time, the 1990s made some breakthroughs in the United States’s diversity. For instance, in January 1990, L. Douglas Wilder (D, Va.) became the first black governor to take office in the nation. Dr. Antonia Coello Novello became the first female and the first Hispanic surgeon general in February 1990. Other women who pioneered in the political arena included Janet Reno, who became the nation’s first female attorney general in March 1993, and Madeleine Albright, whose December 1996 appointment as secretary of state made her the highest-ranking woman ever in the federal government. While women made strides in terms of political representation, questions of sexual harassment dominated the public sphere in unprecedented ways. During the 1990s, every major branch of the government faced a crisis regarding sexual harassment allegations and litigation, and these issues were among the most debated questions of the time. In the legislative branch, Senator Bob Packwood (R, Oreg.) faced allegations of sexual harassment immediately after his reelection in November 1992. By February 1993, no fewer than 23 women had come forward to accuse Packwood of unwanted and persistent sexual advances, and a lengthy investigation ensued. On September 6, 1995, the Senate Select Committee on Ethics voted 6-0 to recommend the expulsion, the most severe punishment that the panel could recommend, of Packwood. As no senators have been expelled since the Civil War, Packwood announced his resignation the following day. In addition to this scandal in the federal legislature, allegations of sexual harassment rocked the judicial branch as well during the confirmation hearings of Supreme Court nominee Judge Clarence Thomas in October 1991. On October 6, 1991, Anita Hill, a tenured law professor at the University of Oklahoma, publicly accused Thomas of sexual harassment. The charge sparked an emotional and contentious national debate, and Thomas “totally and unequivocally” denied Hill’s charges. On October 11, 1991, Hill calmly testified under oath that Thomas had made sexually harassing statements and acted inappropriately from 1981 to 1983, and Thomas offered his repudiation of what he called “lies,” “sleaze,” “dirt,” and “gossip” the following day. After one of
dispute, was the site of clashes that left more than 700 people dead. That fighting represented the worst violence in the country since it gained independence in 1947. Pakistan was also beset by internal strife as political scandals rocked the nation. In April 1997, the Pakistani parliament repealed legislation that gave the president unilateral power to dismiss the prime minister. This action came in an attempt to stabilize the fluctuations in the country’s government. On October 12, 1999, Pakistan’s armed forces staged a bloodless coup, toppling the democratically elected government of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. The military takeover was the fourth coup in Pakistan’s 52-year history. Governmental upheavals also affected Indonesia, which underwent radical changes. In June 1996, the government’s efforts to undermine an opposition party led to street riots, and dissatisfaction with President Suharto continued to prompt sporadic protests until 1998, when the demonstrations escalated. In May 1998, weeks of massive protests and riots in Jakarta led to the May 21, 1998, resignation of President Suharto, who had ruled the country for 32 years. On June 7, 1999, Indonesia held its first fully democratic election in 44 years. While Indonesia was transferring its power, the question of independence in East Timor further rocked the nation. In January 1999, the Indonesian government gave its first indication that it would consider independence for the area, and the following September, a referendum was held on East Timor’s status. As the citizens voted overwhelmingly for independence, the opposition launched a campaign of violence. The fierce attacks in East Timor prompted the UN to send in troops. The changes that occurred in Indonesia during 1998 and 1999 forced the nation to reimagine itself at the close of the twentieth century. When we turn to the Americas, we see that many nations suffered from internal strife and political changes, yet few of them attracted a great deal of international attention. In North America, Canada redrew its map for the first time since 1949 when it designated the area of Nunavut from the Northwest Territories in April 1999. Latin America faced numerous domestic crises and triumphs, and several nations, including Chile, Brazil, Paraguay, and São Tomé and Príncipe, all moved toward democracy with free elections during the 1990s. However, Venezuela and Peru gave considerable power to those nations’ presidents during the decade. Several countries were affected by drug-related violence, particularly Colombia, whose president, Ernesto Samper Pizano, faced allegations that he accepted money from drug cartels. Cuba made significant moves toward recognizing Catholicism, and Fidel Castro met with Pope John Paul II on November 19, 1996. For the first time since 1969, Christmas was celebrated in Cuba in 1997. The following January, Pope John Paul II made his first official tour of the nation. In Panama, the country gained control of the Panama Canal in December 1999. Latin America also faced ongoing guerrilla warfare in several nations, including Colombia, Mexico, Nicaragua, and Peru. Mexico began a period of unrest when the Zapatistas attacked four towns in Chiapas, assaults that the insurgents characterized as a “declaration of war” against the federal government on January 1, 1994. This war continued for the remainder of the decade. In Nicaragua, Violeta Barrios de Chamorro beat President Daniel Ortega Saavedra in national elections held in February 1990. This surprising victory ended Sandinista rule in the country for the first time in 10 years. The change in government caused the Sandinistas to take up arms, but the violence in the country soon dwindled as Nicaragua began a new phase in its history. Guatemala reached a breakthrough peace accord in its 35-year civil war in September 1996. El Salvador officially ended its civil war on December 15, 1992. The 12-year war in El Salvador had an estimated death toll of 75,000 by the time the fighting ceased. In addition to these significant events throughout Latin America during the 1990s, Haiti was the source of much debate during the decade. On March 10, 1990, General Prosper Avril resigned in the midst of massive demonstrations launched by Haitians. Haiti held its first democratic ix
and Maryland. During the 1990s, antiabortionists launched a campaign of violence, during which they murdered people who worked in clinics. In addition to these pressing questions, a flurry of school shootings, particularly the deadly incident on April 20, 1999, at Columbine High School in Colorado, brought the issue of gun control to the political debate. While these debates continued, the 1990s was also known for incidents of race-related violence. One of the most notable events that called attention to race relations in the United States was the riots in Los Angeles after the verdict in the case of Rodney King. On March 3, 1991, black motorist Rodney King was stopped by Los Angeles police officers after a highspeed chase. He was severely beaten by those officers, and the incident was recorded on videotape, which exposed the public to the assault. On April 29, 1992, a jury acquitted the four officers of charges filed as a result of King’s beating. The acquittal sparked riots in Los Angeles that were the worst since the 1965 Watts riots in L.A. The violence died down by May 3, 1992, but the riots brought the issue of race relations to the forefront of U.S. discourse. Riots due to race also erupted in Washington, D.C., and New York City during the decade. Another case that brought the issue of race to the public’s attention was the trial of former football player O. J. Simpson. After a prolonged, televised chase in California, police arrested Simpson in June 1994 for the death of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend, Ronald Goldman. The ensuing trial riveted the nation, and the October 3, 1995, acquittal prompted even more debate, as the case highlighted issues of race, class, and gender. The O. J. Simpson trial was known as the trial of the century for its sensational hold on the public imagination. While those cases prompted debate, they did not shock the American people as much as a single incident in Oklahoma City. On April 19, 1995, a massive car bomb exploded outside the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, killing 169 people and wounding more than 400 others. It was the deadliest terrorist attack ever in the United States. The crime was considered even more tragic because several children were in the building at a day-care center at the time of the assault. The bombing was called the deadliest act of terrorism ever committed on U.S. soil, and it stunned the nation. What was particularly unnerving about the bombing in Oklahoma City was that it was perpetuated by a decorated veteran of the 1991 Persian Gulf War, Timothy McVeigh. On June 2, 1997, McVeigh was convicted on 11 charges related to the bombing in Oklahoma City. Other acts of terrorism plagued the United States during the 1990s, both domestically and abroad. Unlike the attack on Oklahoma City, though, these assaults were generally not committed by U.S. citizens. A bomb exploded in the parking garage of the World Trade Center in New York City on February 26, 1993, killing five people and injuring 1,000 others. On October 1, 1995, a federal jury in New York City ended the biggest terrorism trial in U.S. history when it convicted 10 militant Muslims on 48 of 50 conspiracy charges stemming from a failed plot to bomb the UN headquarters building and other city targets and to assassinate political leaders. The militants included Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, a blind cleric from Egypt, accused of leading his fellow defendants in plotting a “war of urban terrorism” in response to the U.S. government’s support of Israel and of Egypt’s current secular regime. Anti-American sentiment in other nations was also evidenced by a bomb attack on a military complex in Saudi Arabia that killed 19 U.S. servicemen and wounded several hundred others on June 25, 1996. It was called the most deadly guerrilla attack on Americans in the Middle East since 1983. The U.S. embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, were bombed on August 7, 1998. The Nairobi blast killed at least 247 people, including 12 U.S. citizens. In Dar es Salaam, 10 people were killed. More than 5,000 people were wounded in the attacks. U.S., Kenyan, and Tanzanian officials asserted that the bombings were aimed at the United States, and the investigation linked a wealthy Saudi businessman, Osama
the most bitter and divisive confirmation battles in the 202-year history of the Supreme Court, the Senate confirmed Thomas as the court’s 106th associate justice on October 12, 1991. It was the closest vote for a Supreme Court justice in the 20th century. In terms of sexual harassment scandals in the 1990s, the one that attracted the most attention involved President Clinton. On May 6, 1994, Paula Corbin Jones filed a federal civil lawsuit accusing Clinton of making “persistent and continuous” unwanted sexual advances toward her in May 1991. The accusations sparked controversy, and questions of whether Clinton would face the charges while in office continued until May 27, 1997, when the Supreme Court unanimously rejected Clinton’s request to delay proceedings in a sexual harassment suit until he left office. The ruling in Clinton v. Jones was the first time that the high court ruled that sitting presidents may be sued for actions outside the realm of their official duties. However, accusations made by Jones were overshadowed by allegations that Clinton engaged in a sexual relationship with a 21-year-old intern at the White House, Monica Lewinsky. The scandal involving Clinton and Lewinsky reached news offices late on January 20, 1998, and by January 21, the story had ballooned into what was called the greatest crisis the Clinton White House ever faced. On January 26, 1998, Clinton stated, “I want you to listen to me. I’m going to say this again: I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky. I never told anybody to lie, not a single time—never. These allegations are false. And I need to go back to work for the American people.” This oft-quoted denial of his relationship with Lewinsky became significant as the investigation continued. In September 1998, independent prosecutor Kenneth Starr, who was appointed to investigate the financial scandal known as Whitewater, delivered his official report to Congress. On December 19, 1998, the House voted to impeach President Clinton for his conduct in the Monica Lewinsky scandal. In near party-line votes, the House’s Republican majority won passage of two articles of impeachment accusing Clinton of committing perjury and obstruction of justice. However, on February 12, 1999, the Senate voted to acquit Clinton of impeachment charges in the Lewinsky scandal, ending the second presidential impeachment in U.S. history. The 45-55 tally for Article I, the perjury charge, was 22 votes short of the 67 needed for conviction; Article II, the obstruction charge, failed in a 50-50 vote, 17 short of the two-thirds majority. The fact that neither charge gained even a simple majority was seen as a humiliating defeat for the 13 House Republicans who presented the case to the Senate. The Lewinsky scandal received a good deal of media coverage and public interest, particularly since Lewinsky did not file charges against the president. Tellingly, then, sexual misdeeds that received the most attention in the 1990s did not allege sexual harassment itself, as Lewinsky never suggested that Clinton forced unwanted sexual advances on her. While issues of sexual harassment dominated much of the social discourse during the 1990s, the decade was also a time of landmark legislation and judicial decisions. Major initiatives that were passed in the 1990s include the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, the Civil Rights Act of 1991, the Freedom to Access of Clinic Entrances Act of 1994, and gun control legislation codified in the Brady Bill of 1993. The Telecommunications Act of 1996 prompted debate over free-speech rights and what “standards of decency” may include. In October 1997, the Supreme Court refused to consider an appeal of a lower court ruling, and by doing so, Oregon became the first state to implement a statute allowing physicians to prescribe lethal prescriptions to terminally ill patients. In April 1996, Clinton signed the Line-Item Veto Act, which gave him unprecedented power over appropriations bills; however, on June 25, 1998, the Supreme Court ruled, 6-3, that the Line-Item Veto was unconstitutional. Other issues that affected the political discourse during the 1990s included a Colorado amendment regarding gay rights, California’s propositions over immigration and affirmative action, and abortion-rights bills throughout many states such as Utah, Pennsylvania, x
reached an agreement to balance the federal budget by 2002 on May 2, 1997. The historic deal included tax cuts and reductions in discretionary spending favored by Republicans and funding increases for education, welfare, and health insurance for children backed by President Clinton and the Democrats. On September 30, 1998, Clinton announced that the 1998 fiscal year had ended in the first federal budget surplus since 1969. The surplus totaled about $70 billion. The changes in the federal budget were mirrored by fluctuations in the stock market, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average went through one of its most profitable periods in U.S. history. In January 1990, the Dow reached a record high of 2,810.15. On March 29, 1999, the Dow closed at 10,006.78, finishing the day above the 10,000 level for the first time ever. It was the seventh time in just over four years that the benchmark stock average broke through a socalled millennium level, and it represented one of dozens of records set during the decade. The enormous, unprecedented growth in the stock market boosted consumer confidence, inspired new investors to enter the world of mutual funds, and reflected the economic turnaround that occurred between 1990 and 1999. In terms of economic legislation, the 1990s were marked by partisan conflicts regarding appropriations bills, and the government shut down during the presidencies of both George Bush and Bill Clinton. The 1996 budget needed no fewer than 12 continuing resolutions or “stopgap bills” to keep the government afloat while Congress and the White House struggled to agree on spending levels. The sense that the federal government was beset by partisanship seemed increasingly evident during one of the investigations of the Whitewater real estate venture that involved President Clinton and First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton. The economic scandal involved a tangle of records of the Clintons’ personal finances before 1992, when Clinton assumed the presidency. In January 1994, Attorney General Janet Reno appointed Robert Fiske to investigate the now-defunct land deal; however, Kenneth Starr, a former top government lawyer during the administration of President George Bush, took over the position on August 5, 1994. Starr’s investigation led to the convictions of James McDougal, Susan McDougal, and Governor Jim Guy Tucker (D, Ark.) on fraud and conspiracy charges on May 28, 1996. However, Whitewater’s web of economic misdeeds failed to capture vast amounts of public attention until Starr’s investigation turned from its analysis of finances to Clinton’s relationship with Monica Lewinsky. That Starr’s report on Whitewater ended up as an investigation of sexual liaisons and perjury caused debate during the 1990s. The animosity between the Republicans and the Democrats was notable during these investigations, and Americans throughout the country held widely divergent positions on the scandals that affected the Clinton administration. Part of the reason for the economic boom of the 1990s stemmed from increased use of technology. Computers became household items in the 1990s, and the popularization of the Internet prompted some people to dub the era as the “information age.” At the same time, the United States continued to explore space and develop new satellite technologies. On April 25, 1990, the space shuttle Discovery successfully deployed the Hubble Space Telescope in an orbit 381 miles above Earth. In December 1993, astronauts aboard the Endeavour repaired and released the Hubble telescope, prompting President Clinton and Vice President Al Gore to telephone and congratulate the Endeavour crew on fulfilling “one of the most spectacular space missions in all of our history.” Other achievements in space over the course of the decade included the launch of the Mars Observer in 1992 and the successful completion in 1994 of Magellan’s project to map 98% of Venus’s surface. On July 4, 1997, the Mars Pathfinder landed on Mars, and Sojourner, a roving robotic explorer vehicle, explored the geology of the planet. Pathfinder was the first spacecraft to reach Mars since two NASA Viking missions landed there in 1976. Additionally, space exploration during the 1990s pointed to the end of the cold war, as U.S. and Soviet scientists worked together in unprecedented ways. On June 29, 1995, the U.S. space shuttle Atlantis docked
bin Laden, to the terrorist acts. On November 4, 1998, a grand jury issued an indictment against bin Laden, charging him and five members of his alleged terrorist group, Al-Qaeda. The State Departments offered rewards of $5 million—the largest ever offered by the United States for the capture of a terrorist—for information leading to the conviction or arrest of bin Laden and Muhammed Atef, described as bin Laden’s top military commander. In addition, Clinton imposed economic sanctions on the Taliban militia in Afghanistan for allegedly harboring bin Laden in July 1998, and by that September, Saudi Arabia had suspended diplomatic ties to protest the Taliban’s support of bin Laden, leaving Pakistan and the United Arab Emirates as the only countries that recognized Taliban rule in Afghanistan. In terms of U.S. military intervention during the 1990s, America was primarily committed to peacekeeping missions rather than forcible invasions. With the notable exception of the Gulf War in 1991, U.S. military action consisted primarily of sending troops to areas beset by civil conflict, such as Serbia, Liberia, Somalia, and Haiti. Debate over these missions affected the nation, but the question of who had the right to serve the United States as a soldier was a bigger issue in the public consciousness during the decade. Gays in the military became a topic of heated conversation, and the Clinton administration came under fire when it announced a policy known as “Don’t ask, don’t tell” in January 1993. The following September, the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy toward the sexual orientation of members in the military was codified by an appropriations measure. For the next few years, the constitutionality of the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy was tested in court cases, and on February 14, 1997, the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, California, upheld the policy on homosexuals in a 2-1 decision. In addition, the military faced challenges to its exclusivity when female cadets petitioned for the right to be admitted to the Citadel and the Virginia Military Institute (VMI). On January 30, 1994, Shannon Faulkner attended her first classes at the all-male military academy, the Citadel, in South Carolina. The following July, a court ruled that the Citadel had to accept women to its corps of cadets. In September 1996, VMI decided to accept women in its program, an act that ended the last state-funded, allmale academic institution in the United States. On August 18, 1997, female students enrolled at VMI, ending 158 years of male-only education at that college. As always, U.S. foreign policy included economic components, and, throughout the decade, people debated the trading status of nations thought to perpetuate human rights abuses, particularly China. The United States generated great international controversy on March 12, 1996, when President Clinton signed into law a bill that penalized foreigners who invest in Cuba. The Helms-Burton Act continued to cause debate for the rest of the decade. U.S. trade entered a new era when Clinton signed the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) into law on December 8, 1993. The pact, which went into effect on January 1, 1994, lowered or eliminated tariffs and removed other restrictions on trade and investment between the United States, Mexico, and Canada. These foreign economic decisions came during a period of great prosperity in the United States. The 1990s started out in an economic recession, with high unemployment rates and low consumer confidence. President Bush caused controversy on June 26, 1990, when he admitted that the budget deficit required “tax revenue increases,” sparking an uproar because the vow “Read my lips: No new taxes” had been an oft-quoted promise during Bush’s 1988 campaign. On August 15, 1991, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimated that the fiscal 1992 federal budget deficit would reach a record $362 billion. During the next three years, the economy turned around, and the United States entered a period of growth. By October 1994, the federal budget deficit stood at $203.4 billion for fiscal 1994. That was the smallest deficit reported since 1989. The economic recovery continued, particularly after Congress and the White House xi
Trust of Washington State, and three Seattle artists to reject possible grants and Murry DePillars, dean of the School of the Arts at Virginia Commonwealth University, to resign as an NEA review panelist. On November 5, 1996, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in San Francisco, California, ruled, 2-1, that the federal government cannot force the NEA to use standards of decency when giving grants to artists, arguing that such stipulations represent an unconstitutional curb on freedom of speech. However, on June 25, 1999, in National Endowment for the Arts v. Finley, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled, 8-1, that the federal government was allowed to consider standards of decency when awarding federal arts grants. As the conflicting court decisions suggest, the issue was not nearly resolved by the end of the decade. In September 1999, controversy over an exhibit of contemporary British art at the Brooklyn Museum of Art led New York City mayor Rudolph Giuliani to threaten to end city subsidies to the gallery. Giuliani’s opinions were reinforced by a non-binding resolution passed in the U.S. Senate on the issue. However, the Brooklyn Museum of Art filed a lawsuit and opened the show as scheduled on October 2, 1999. In addition to debates over censorship, popular culture in the United States was marked by violence and scandals in the world of sports. On April 30, 1993, Monica Seles, the world’s top-ranked female tennis player at the time, was stabbed in the back by a fan of rival Steffi Graf, the world’s second-ranked woman. In a similar incident, figure skater Nancy Kerrigan was assaulted on January 6, 1994. The attack launched a flood of media attention, particularly when it was linked to Kerrigan’s skating rival, Tonya Harding. On January 27, 1994, Harding admitted that “some persons that were close to me may have been involved in the assault.” In the wake of that statement, Harding was banned from the sport. In other sports scandals, the International Olympic Committee faced the biggest crisis in its history in December 1998, amid allegations that committee members had accepted bribes in return for naming Salt Lake City, Utah, as host for the 2000 winter games. However, this scandal was not as alarming as an attack staged during the 1996 summer Olympics in Atlanta, Georgia. On July 27, 1996, a homemade pipe bomb exploded at an Olympic Games site, killing one person and injuring 111 others. The park bombing was the first terrorist attack at the Olympics since the 1972 games in Munich, Germany. While this overview of U.S. politics and social concerns provides only the smallest glimpse into the major events that shaped the 1990s, it shows that the United States was trying to find a way to balance personal freedoms and civil liberties with social and cultural traditions. The politics of sexuality were underscored in the country during the 1990s, as the nation faced the impeachment hearings of Bill Clinton, debate over what constitutes “obscenity” in art, arguments over whether gays could serve their country as part of the armed forces, and sexual harassment lawsuits. At the same time, economic booms and technological advances resulted in high standards of living while terrorist threats and anti-American sentiment found their way to U.S. soil. The end of the millennium represented a period of anticipation and change throughout the globe. During this period of change, however, the notion that all nations exist on a single planet was stressed throughout the decade, primarily due to environmental concerns and growing communications technologies. Toward the end of the 20th century, countries from around the globe expressed an awareness of the environmental problems caused by industrialism. The debate over how to best handle problems such as global warming and the hole in the ozone layer was not resolved by the end of the 1990s, but the attention paid to the planet’s resources on an international level was considered unprecedented. The millennium ended, then, with a sense of unity, despite differences, as global awareness shaped the way that we imagined the future.
with the Russian space station Mir as the first of seven dockings scheduled to occur prior to the beginning of construction on the planned international space station. The following day, the U.S. astronauts gave their Russian colleagues chocolates and flowers and, in return, received a traditional Russian greeting of bread and salt. Both crews were congratulated by U.S. vice president Al Gore and Russian premier Viktor Chernomyrdin. In March 1996, U.S. biochemist Shannon Lucid joined the Mir crew, thus becoming the second U.S. astronaut and the first U.S. woman to live on Mir. With the planned space station in mind, Mir was abandoned after being in space for 13 years when the final crew departed the station in a Soyuz capsule on August 27, 1999. Other major achievements in science during the 1990s included groundbreaking research on the treatment of AIDS, the mapping of genomes, and stem cell research. Much of this research caused controversy, and debate over fetal tissue research and medical uses for embryonic stem cells continued throughout the decade. Genetic engineering also came to the forefront of public debate when, on February 23, 1997, researchers in Scotland reported that they had created the first genetic clone of an adult animal, a Finn Dorset lamb named Dolly. The lamb had a genetic makeup identical to that of her mother, and the breakthrough prompted worldwide speculation worldwide about the dangers of human cloning. Additionally, evidence of the big bang theory of creation was presented in April 1992, and the top quark was discovered in March 1995. In the midst of all of these scientific advances, many Americans became more involved in personal technology. In July 1999, a study found that more than 40 percent of U.S. homes had a computer, 25 percent were connected to the Internet, and 94.1 percent had phones by the end of 1998. The report also noted a growing “digital divide” in information access drawn along financial and racial lines. The disparity between who had in-home technology was one of the many questions raised by the sudden popularization of computers. Another prominent issue was that of free speech and censorship. The Telecommunications Act of 1996, which included clauses about “decency” and specified concerns over the Internet, prompted a good deal of debate. In response to fears of governmental censorship of these new forms of communication, on August 17, 1996, computer hackers illegally entered the Department of Justice’s site on the World Wide Web and posted obscenities, sexually explicit pictures and harsh criticisms of the Communications Decency Act. The concern over free speech also dominated the arts during the 1990s. The issue began to cause controversy when Congress adopted decency standards for the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) in 1990. Throughout the decade, questions of obscenity led to indictments and lawsuits. In April 1990, Cincinnati’s Contemporary Arts Center was indicted by a grand jury on obscenity charges for displaying an exhibit of photographs by the late Robert Mapplethorpe; however, local lawenforcement officials were barred from shutting down the exhibit. The focus on censorship was underscored on June 29, 1990, when the NEA rejected grant applications from four artists who were approved by the review panel. The artists—Karen Finley, Holly Hughes, John Fleck, and Tim Miller—all incorporated issues of sexuality into their work, and the idea that the government was withholding funds based upon the explicit nature of their art sparked controversy that continued throughout the decade. For instance, on November 1, 1990, New York Shakespeare Festival producer Joseph Papp refused to accept two NEA grants totaling $323,000 in protest of the NEA’s consideration of “general standards of decency” when making awards. On May 12, 1992, Anne-Imelda Radice, the acting head of the NEA, went against the recommendation of review panels and its advisory council when she rejected two applications for grants to support exhibits that involve sexual material. The decision set off another firestorm of controversy, prompting Beacon Press, the Artist
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LIST OF ACRONYMS AARP ABA ABC ABL ABM ACDA ACLU ACS ACT ACTU ACTWU AD ADA ADFL AFC AFDC AFL-CIO AFT AFTA AID AIDS AIPAC AIS ALP ALPA ALS AMC AMD AMEX AMR ANC AOC AOL AP APA APEC APFA APWU ARENA ASARCO ASE ASEAN ASX
AT&T ATF ATP AWACS AWB
American Association of Retired Persons American Bar Association American Broadcasting Corporation American Basketball League Antiballistic Missile Treaty Arms Control and Disarmament Agency American Civil Liberties Union Association of Caribbean States American College Testing Australia Council of Trade Unions Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers Union Democratic Action (Venezuela) American Dental Association; Americans with Disabilities Act Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Congo-Zaire American Football Conference Aid to Families with Dependent Children American Federation of Labor–Congress of Industrial Organizations American Federation of Teachers ASEAN Free-Trade Area Agency for International Development acquired immunodeficiency syndrome American Israel Public Affairs Committee Islamic Salvation Army (Algeria) Antigua Labour Party Air Line Pilots Association amyotrophic lateral sclerosis American Motors Corporation Advanced Micro Devices American Stock Exchange advanced meat recovery African National Congress Australian Olympic Committee America Online Associated Press Allied Pilots Association Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Association of Professional Flight Attendants American Postal Workers Union Nationalist Republican Alliance (El Salvador) American Smelting and Refining Company American Stock Exchange Association of Southeast Asian Nations Australia Stock Exchange
AWS AZT BBC BCCI BCOA BDP BEC BIS BJP BLDP BLP BNDES BNL BNP BOC BP BPF BRA BSE BSP bST CARE CARICOM CART CAW CBO CBOT CBS CCAR CCC CCM CCP CD CDC CDR CEA CEQ CERN CERT xiii
American Telephone and Telegraph Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms Association of Tennis Professionals Airborne Warning and Control System Afrikaner Resistance Movement (South Africa) Solidarity Electoral Action (Poland) azidothymidine (zidovudine) British Broadcasting Corporation Bank of Commerce and Credit International Bituminous Coal Operating Association Botswana Democratic Party Bose-Einstein condensate Bank for International Settlements Bharatiya Janata Party (India) Buddhist Liberal Democratic Party (Cambodia) Barbados Labour Party National Development Bank (Brazil) Banca Nazionale del Lavoro (Italy) Bangladesh National Party British Oxygen Company British Petroleum Belarussian Popular Front Bougainville Revolutionary Army (Papua New Guinea) bovine spongiform encephalopathy (mad cow disease) Bulgarian Socialist Party bovine somatotropin Cooperative for American Relief Everywhere Caribbean Community Championship Auto Racing Teams Canadian Auto Workers Congressional Budget Office Chicago Board of Trade Columbia Broadcasting System Central Conference of American Rabbis Commodity Credit Corp. Chama Cha Mapinduzi (Zanzibar) Cambodian Communist Party (Cambodia) Democratic Convergence (El Salvador) Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Democratic Convention of Romania Council of Economic Affairs Council on Environmental Quality European Laboratory for Particle Physics Computer Emergency Response Team
CFC CFE CGG CGT CGTP CHA CHP CIA CIBC CIS CITES CJD CNN CNPC Cocom Codesa Comecon Comex CONCACAF COO COPS CP CPD CPI CPP CPR CPSC CRS CSCE CSIS CSSD CSU CTBT CUF CUNY CUPUW CWA CWC D D.A. DAX D.C. DDC DDI DEA DFLP DFP DHT DIA DIH DINA DKB DLP DMK DMZ DNA
DNC DPP DPS DYP EBRD
chlorofluorocarbon Conventional Forces in Europe Compañía General Geofíscica (Peru) Confederación General del Trabajo; Confédération Général du Travail Peruvian General Workers’ Federation Chicago Housing Authority California Highway Patrol Central Intelligence Agency Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce Commonwealth of Independent States National Council for the Defense of Democracy (Burundi) Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease Cable News Network China National Petroleum Corp. Coordinating Committee for Multilateral Export Controls Convention for a Democratic South Africa Council for Mutual Economic Assistance Commodity Echange Confederation of North, Central American and Carribbean Association Football chief operating officer Community Oriented Policing Services Communist Party Coalition of Parties for Democracy consumer price index Cambodian People’s Party cardiopulmonary resuscitation Consumer Product Safety Commission Socialist Renewal Movement (Colombia) Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe Center for Strategic and International Studies Czech Social Democratic Party Christian Social Union (Germany) Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Civic United Front (Zanzibar) City University of New York Canadian Union of Postal Workers Communications Workers of America Chemical Weapons Convention Democrat (United States) district attorney German Stock Exchange District of Columbia zakitabine didanosine Drug Enforcement Agency Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine Dominica Freedom Party dihydrotestosterone Defense Intelligence Agency Defense Intelligence Headquarters (Japan) Direeción National de Inteligencia (Chile) Dai-Ichi Kangyo Bank (Japan) Democratic Labour Party (Barbados) Dravida Munnetra Kazagham (India) demilitarized zone deoxyribonucleic acid
EC ECB ECE ECM ECOMOG ECOWAS ECU EEA EEOC EFTA EIB ELN EMS EMU EOE EOHR EPA EPL EPLF EPR EPRDF ER ERA ERISA ERM ERP ESA ETA EU EURECA EZLN FAA FALN Fannie Mae FARC FBI FCC FDA FDIC FEC Fed FEMA FERC FIFA FINA FIS FLEC FLNC xiv
Democratic National Committee Democratic Progressive Party (Taiwan) Democratic Socialist Party (Montenegro) True Path Party (Turkey) European Bank for Reconstruction and Development European Community European Central Bank Economic Commission for Europe Emerging Company Marketplace Economic Community Monitoring Group Economic Community of West African States European Currency Unit European Economic Area Equal Employment Opportunity Commission European Free Trade Assoication European Investment Bank National Liberation Army (Colombia) European Monetary System economic and monetary union equal opportunity employer Egyptian Organization for Human Rights Environmental Protection Agency Popular Liberation Army (Colombia) Eritrean People’s Liberation Front Popular Revolutionary Army (Mexico) Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front emergency room Energy Resources of Australia Employee Retirement Income Security Act exchange rate mechanism People’s Revolutionary Army (Argentina) European Space Agency Euskadi Ta Askatasuna European Union European Retrievable Carrier Zapatista National Liberation Army (Mexico) Armed Forces of Angola; Federal Aviation Administration Armed Froces of National Liberation (Puerto Rico) Federal National Mortgage Association Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia Federal Bureau of Investigation Federal Communications Commission Food and Drug Administration Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation Federal Exchange Commission; Federal Election Commission Federal Reserve Board Federal Emergency Management Agency Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Federation Internationale de Football Association Federation Internationale de Natation Islamic Salvation Front (Algeria) Cabinda Enclave Liberation Front (Angola) Corsican National Liberation Front
FLP FMC FmHA FMLN FNM FORD FRAPH FRC Freddie Mac Fretilin FRG FSB FSLN FTAA FTC Funcinpec
FWS FZLN G-7 G-8 GAO GATT GBL GCC GDP GE GIA GM GMHC GNP GOP GOPAC GPC GPS GRO GST GTE Hamas HCFA HDTV HDZ HHS HIV HMO HUD HVO HZDS IAAF IAEA IAHRC IAM IBF IBM
ICC ICJ ICM ICRC IDA IDCP IDE IFOR IGC ILGA ILGWU
Fiji Labour Party Federal Maritime Commission Farmers Home Administration Farabundo Martí National Liberation (El Salvador) Free National Movement (Bahamas) Forum for the Restoration of Democracy (Kenya) Front for the Advancement and Progress of Haiti Fatah Revolutionary Council Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp. Revolutionary Front for the Independence of East Timor Guatemala Republican Front Federal Security Service (Russia) Sandinista National Liberation Front (Nicaragua) Free Trade Area of the Americas Federal Trade Commission United National Front for an Independent, Neutral, Peaceful and Cooperative Cambodia Fishing and Wildlife Service Zapatista National Liberation Front (Mexico) Group of Seven Group of Eight General Accounting Office General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade gamma butyrolactone Gulf Cooperation Council gross domestic product General Electric Armed Islamic Group (Algeria) General Motors Gay Men’s Health Crisis gross national product Grand Old Party (Republican Party) Grand Old Party Political Action Committee General People’s Congress (Yemen) Global Positioning System Gamma Ray Observatory goods-and-services tax General Telephone and Electronics Islamic Resistance Movement Health Care Financing Administration high-definition television Croatian Democratic Union Department of Health and Human Services human immunodeficiency virus health maintenance organization Department of Housing and Urban Development Croatian Defense Council Movement for a Democratic Slovakia International Amateur Athletic Foundation International Atomic Energy Agency Inter-American Human Rights Court International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers International Boxing Federation International Business Machines
ILO IMF INC INF INLA INMIK INS INTERFET IOC IPO IRA IRL IRS ITS KANU KCTU KDP KFOR KGB KIO KKK KLA KTCU L.A. LAFD LAPD LCD LDP LEAP LegCo LF LHC LIUNA LPGA LRA LSD LSO LSU LVF MDA MDN MDP MDS MENA Mercosur MFDC
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Interstate Commerce Commission International Court of Jurists International Creative Management International Committee of the Red Cross Islamic Democratic Alliance International Drug Control Program intact dilation and extraction Implementation Force (NATO) intergovernmental conference International Lesbian and Gay Association International Ladies Garment Workers Union International Labor Organization International Monetary Fund Iraqi National Congress Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Irish National Liberation Army UN Mission in Kosovo Immigration and Naturalization Services International Force for East Timor International Olympic Committee initial public offering Irish Republican Army Indy Racing League Internal Revenue Service Intermarket Trading System Kenya African National Union Korean Confederation of Trade Unions Kurdistan Democratic Party Kosovo Force (NATO) Soviet State Security Committee Kachin Independence Organization Ku Klux Klan Kosovo Liberation Army Korea Confederation of Trade Unions Los Angeles Los Angeles Fire Department Los Angeles Police Department Lesotho Congress for Democracy Liberal Democratic Party Light Exoatmospheric Projectile Legislative Council (Hong Kong) Lebanese Forces Large Hadron Collider Laborers International Union of North America Ladies Professional Golfers’ Association Lord’s Resistance Army (Uganda) lysergic acid diethylamide Legislative Service Organization Louisiana State University Loyalist Volunteer Force Muscular Dystrophy Association Mobilization for National Development (Haiti) Mongolian Democratic Party Movement of Democratic Socialists (Tunisia) Middle East–North Africa Economic Conference Southern Common Market (South America) Movement of Democratic Forces of Casamance (Senegal)
MFN MGM MIA MiG MIT MLB MLC MLS MNR MOMA MOSOP MP MPA MPLA MPRP MRTA MSNBC MST MTCR MVP NAACP NAFTA Nammco NAP NAR NARAL NAS NASA NASCAR NASD NASDAQ NATO NBA NBC NBK NCAA NCSL NCUA NDP NEA NEAR NEC NEH NFC NFL NFP NGA NHL NHLPA
NHTSA
most favored nation Metro Goldwyn Mayer missing in action Mikoyan-Gurevich fighter jet Massachusetts Institute of Technology Major League Baseball Movement for the Liberation of Congo Major League Soccer Nationalist Revolutionary Movement (Bolivia) Museum of Modern Art Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni Peoples (Nigeria) member of Parliament marine protection area Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola Mongolian People’s Revolutionary Party Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement (Peru) Microsoft National Broadcasting Corporation Landless Movement (Brazil) Missile Technology Control Regime most valuable player National Association for the Advancement of Colored People North American Free Trade Agreement North Atlantic Marine Mammal Commission New Aspiration Party (Thailand) National Alliance for Reconstruction (Trinidad and Tobago) National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League National Academy of Sciences National Aeronautics and Space Administration National Association for Stock Car Racing National Association of Securities Dealers National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotation North Atlantic Treaty Organization National Basketball Association National Broadcasting Company National Bank of Kenya National Collegiate Athletic Association National Conference of State Legislature National Credit Union Administration National Democratic Party (Egypt); National Democratic Party (Suriname) National Education Association; National Endowment for the Arts Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous National Economic Council National Endowment for the Humanities National Football Conference National Football League New Frontier Party (Japan) National Governor’s Association National Hockey League National Hockey League Players Association
NIE NIF NIH NKP NLA NLD NLRB NOAA NOW NP NPF NPR NPT NRA NRC NRO NSA NSC NSF NTSB NTT NYC NYSE NZF OAS OAU OCSS ODS ODS OECD OIC OMB OPEC OPIC OPON OPSEU ORA ORI ORT OSCE OSHA OTS PAC PacTel PAGAD PAIGC PAL
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National Highway Traffic Safety Administration National Intelligence Estimate National Ignition Facility National Institutes of Health New Korea Party National Liberation Army (Northern Ireland) National League for Democracy (Myanmar) National Labor Relations Board National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association National Organization for Women National Party (South Africa) New Frontier Party (Japan); National Patriotic Front (Liberia) National Public Radio Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty National Rifle Association Nuclear Regulatory Commission National Reconnaissance Office National Security Agency National Security Council National Salvation Front (Romania) National Transportation Safety Board Nippon Telegraph and Telephone New York City New York Stock Exchange New Zealand First Organization of American States Organization of African Unity Southern Sierra Peasant Organization (Mexico) Civic Democratic Party (Czechoslovakia) United Democratic Forces (Bulgaria) Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development Organization of the Islamic Conference Office of Management and Budget Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries Overseas Private Investment Corp. Special Purpose Police Detachment (Azerbaijan) Ontario Public Service Employees’ Union Organization of Armed Resistance (Niger) Office of Research Integrity Obshchestvyennoye Rossiskoye Televidyeniye (Russia) Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe Occupational Safety and Health Administartion Office of Thrift Supervision political action committee; Pan-Africanist Congress (South Africa) Pacific Telesis Group People Against Gangsterism and Drugs (South Africa) African Party for the Independence of Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde Philippine Airlines
PAN PAP PASOK PBB PBS PC PCB PDC PDI PDM PDP PDS PECDAR PEN
PETN PELP PELP-GC PGA PKK PLA PLC PLF PLN PLO P.M. PMDB PNA PNC
PNP PNP POW PP PPP PRD
PRDS Pres. PRI Procup-PDLP PSA PSAC PSC
PSD PSL PUK PUP PUSH PVV
R RAF RCD RCMP RFE RICO
National Action Party (Mexico); National Advancement Party (Guatemala) People’s Action Party (Singapore) Panhellenic Socialist Movement Partido Progressista Brasileiro Public Broadcasting Service personal computer polychlorinated biphenyl Christian Democratic Party (Panama) Indonesian Democratic Party People’s Democratic Movement (Papua New Guinea) People’s Democratic Party (Nigeria) Democratic Party of the Left (Italy) Palestinian Economic Council for Development and Reconstruction International Association of Poets, Playwrights, Editors, Essayists and Novelists penetaerythritol tetra nitrate Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine Popular Front for Liberation of Palestine–General Command Professional Golfers’ Association Kurdish Workers Party People’s Liberation Army (China) Palestinian Legislative Council; public limited company Palestine Liberation Front National Liberation Party (Costa Rica) Palestine Liberation Organization prime minister Brazilian Democratic Movement Palestine National Authority Pacific Nuclear Council (Japan); Palestine National Council; People’s National Congress (Australia) People’s National Party (Jamaica) Philippine National Police prisoner of war Popular Party (Spain) Pakistan People’s Party; United Development Party (Indonesia) Democratic Revolutionary Party (Mexico); Dominican Revolutionary Party (Dominican Republic) Republican Democratic and Social Party president Institutional Revolutionary Party (Mexico) Clandestine Workers’ Revolutionary Party Union of the People–Party of the Poor prostate-specific antigen Public Service Alliance of Canada Parti Social Chrétien (Belgium); Partido Social Cristiano (Ecuador); Partido Social Cristão (Brazil) Social Democratic Party (Portugal) Polish Peasant Party Patriotic Union of Kurdistan People’s United Party (Belize) People United to Serve Humanity Flemish Liberal Party
RMT RNC RPF RPR RSI RTC RUC RUF S&L S&P SADD SAM SAMPEX SAR SAT SBA SDA SDI SDJP SDP SDS SDS SDSM SEC SEIU SESC SFOR SIDS SIV SLA SLD SLORC SLP SOHO SPD SPDC SPLA SPP SPS SS SSA SSI START SUV SWAPO SWAT TB THAAD TIMSS
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Republican (United States) Red Army Faction (Germany) Congolese Rally for Democracy Royal Canadian Mounted Police Radio Free Europe Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers Republican National Committee Rwandan Patriotic Front Rally for the Republic (France) repetitive stress injury Resolution Trust Corporation Royal Ulster Constabulary Revolutionary United Front (Sierra Leone) savings and loan Standard and Poor’s South African Development Community surface-to-air missile Solar, Anomalous and Magnetospheric Particle Explorer Special Administrative Region (Hong Kong) Scholastic Aptitude Test; Scholastic Assessment Test Small Business Administration Party for Democratic Action (Bosnia) Strategic Defense Initiative Social Democratic Party of Japan Social Democratic Party (Sweden) Union of Democratic Forces (Bulgaria) Serb Democratic Party (Bosnia-Herzegovina) Social-Democratic Union of Macedonia Securities and Exchange Commission Service Employees International Union Securities and Exchange Surveillance Commission Stabilization Force sudden infant death syndrome simian immunodeficiency virus South Lebanon Army Democratic Left Alliance (Poland) State Law and Order Restoration Council (Myanmar) St. Lucia Labor Party Solar and Heliospheric Observatory Social Democratic Party (Germany) State Peace and Development Council (Myanmar) Sudan People’s Liberation Army Socialist People’s Party (Montenegro) Socialist Party of Serbia Schutzstaffel (Nazi secret police) Social Security Administration Supplemental Security Income Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty sport-utility vehicle South West Africa People’s Organization Special Weapons and Tactics tuberculosis Theatre High-Altitude Area Defense Third International Mathematics and Science Study
TNSM TPLF TVA TWA UAE UAR UARS UAW UBP UC UCK UCLA UCR UCSF UDA UDF UDM UDN UDP UDP UDR UL ULFA UML UMW UN UNAM UNAMET UNC UNDP UNESCO UNFPA UNHCR UNICEF UNIFIL UNIRD UNITA UNITE UNMIH UNMOVIC UNO UNOS
UNOSOM II UNP UNPROFOR UNSCOM UNTAC UNTAET
Tehriq Nifaz Shariat-I-Mohammadi (Pakistan/Afghanistan) Tigray People’s Liberation Front (Ethiopia) Tennessee Valley Authority Trans World Airlines United Arab Emirates United Arab Republic Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite United Auto Workers United Bermuda Party University of California Kosovo Liberation Army University of California, Los Angeles Radical Civic Union (Argentina) University of California, San Francisco Ulster Defence Association United Democratic Forces (Bulgaria) United Democratic Movement (South Africa) National Democratic Union (Brazil) Union for Democracy and Progress (Niger) United Democratic Party (Belize) Ulster Defense Regiment (Northern Ireland) Liberal Union (Andorra) United Liberation Front of Assam Communist Party of Nepal United Mine Workers United Nations National Autonomous University of Mexico UN Assistance Mission in East Timor United National Congress (Trinidad and Tobago) UN Development Program United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization UN Population Fund United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees United Nations Children’s Fund United Nations Forces in Lebanese National Union of Independents for Democratic Renewal (Niger) Union for the Total Independence of Angola Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees UN Mission in Haiti UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission National Opposition Union (Nicaragua) United Network for Organ Sharing
UPI UPN UPRONA UPS URNG URW USAID USC USDA USFSA USIA USSR USW UTA UTO UV UWP VA VAD VAT VDT VIP VMI VSNL WB WBA WBC WBO WCRP WEF WEU WHO WIC WIPP WIRE WJC WNBA WTO XTE YPFB ZANUPF ZCTU
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United Nations Operation in Somalia United National Party (Sri Lanka) UN Protection Force UN Special Commission Un Transitional Authority in Cambodia UN Transitional Administration for East Timor United Press International United Paramount Network Union for National Progress (Burundi) United Parcel Service Guatemala National Revolutionary Unity United Rubber Workers U.S. Agency for International Development University of Southern California U.S. Department of Agriculture U.S. Figure Skating Association United States Information Agency Union of Soviet Socialist Republics United Steelworkers of America Union de Transports Aeriens United Tajik Opposition ultraviolet United Workers Party (Dominica/St. Lucia) Veterans Administration ventricular assist device value-added tax video display terminal Virgin Islands Party Virginia Military Institute Videsh Sanchar Nigam Limited (India) Warner Brothers World Boxing Assoication World Boxing Council World Boxing Organization World Climate Research Program World Economic Forum Western European Union World Health Organization Women, Infants and Children Waste Isolation Pilot Plant Wide-Field Infrared Explorer World Jewish Congress Women’s National Basketball Association World Trade Organization X-ray Timing Explorer Yacimientos Petrolíferos Fiscales Bolivianos Zimbabwe African National Patriotic Front Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions
Y E A R LY S U M M A R I E S
2—1990–1999
Asia & the Pacific
Iraqi troops and tanks storm into Kuwait and seize control of the oilrich desert sheikdom, prompting condemnations by the UN Security Council, NATO, and the EC.
In a startling political upset, Violeta Barrios de Chamorro defeats incumbent pres. Daniel Ortega Saavedra in national elections, ending the 10year rule of the Sandinista National Liberation Front in Nicaragua.
Amid violent protests, Bangladeshi president Hossein Mohammed Ershad announces his resignation from office.
Yugoslavia enters a state of civil war as fighting in Croatia escalates and the federal collective presidency breaks down.
Violence breaks out in Somalia’s already devastated capital between fighters loyal to interim president Mahdi and to Gen. Mohammed Farah Haideed.
Jean-Bertrand Aristide, Haiti’s first freely elected president, is overthrown in a coup d’etat led by Brigadier General Raoul Cédras.
Indian Congress (I) Party leader and former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi is assassinated in Sriperumbudur. Violence erupts throughout India as the news about Gandhi’s assassination spreads.
Talks at the Earth Summit are attended by 117 heads of state and government, reportedly the most ever assembled at an international conference.
Czech premier Vaclav Klaus and Slovak premier Vladimir Meciar agree on a plan for a peaceful division of Czechoslovakia into two independent states.
Pres. Joaquim Chissano of the Mozambique government and Afonso Dhlakama, the leader of the rebel Mozambique National Resistance, Renamo, sign a peace accord to end Mozambique’s 16year-old civil war.
The 12-year Salvadoran civil war, which took 75,000 lives, officially ends.
The death toll in India related to the Ayodhya mosque exceeds 700, the worst bloodshed since 1947. . . . Officials of Afghanistan’s collapsed communist government relinquish power, ending 14 years of rule by Soviet-backed regimes in Afghanistan.
Israel’s prime minister Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat, the chair of the Palestine Liberation Organization, reach a breakthrough accord for interim Palestinian selfrule.
Yugoslav president Dobrica Cosic is ejected from office.
In Burundi, paratroopers storm the national palace capture and kill Melchior Ndadaye, elected president in the nation’s first democratic poll. An estimated 30,000 Hutu civilians flee to neighboring Rwanda.
For the first time, two high-ranking military officers receive prison sentences for rights abuses perpetrated during the reign of Chilean general Augusto Pinochet.
President Ranasinghe Premadasa of Sri Lanka is assassinated in Colombo, the capital.
The European Economic Area Agreement and the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) go into effect.
The Channel Tunnel, hailed as one of the foremost engineering achievements of the 20th century, is inaugurated.
Nelson Mandela is inaugurated as South Africa’s first black president. . . . Rwandan pres. Juvenal Habyarimana and Burundian pres. Cyprien Ntaryamira are killed in a plane crash, sparking a massive wave of violence.
Haiti’s military-led de facto government relinquishes power and restores the democratically elected government of Jean-Bertrand Aristide, averting an invasion by the U.S.
An alliance of forces loyal to General Abdul Rashid Doestam and Premier Gulbuddin Hekmatyar launch an assault to oust Afghanistan’s president Burhanuddin Rabbani.
The presidents of Serbia, Croatia, and Bosnia-Herzegovina agree to a pact to end a nearly four-year-old war that has claimed 250,000 lives. NATO deploys peacekeeping forces to sustain the accord.
Chechen resistance fighters clash with Russian forces.
Yitzhak Rabin, 73, Israel’s prime minister, is assassinated in Tel Aviv. The shooting stuns the nation and the world.
Peru and Ecuador agree to demilitarize more than 200 square miles (518 sq km) in the Cordillera del Condor mountains.
The Taliban, a faction comprised of religious students who took up arms in 1994, emerges as the most powerful military force in Afghanistan.
The United Nations AIDS program estimates that at least 1.3 million people died from AIDS or AIDSrelated illnesses in 1995 and that HIV is expected to cause more than 3.1 million new infections in 1996.
Turkish soldiers renew an army offensive against the separatist Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).
A truck bomb explodes by a military complex near the Saudi Arabian city of Dhahran, killing 19 U.S. service personnel. It is the most deadly guerrilla attack on Americans in the Middle East since 1983.
The government and the leftist Guatemalan National Revolutionary Union (UNRG) sign an accord hailed by both sides as a major breakthrough in efforts to end Guatemala’s 35-year-long civil war.
A court in South Korea convicts and sentences to death former South Korean president Chun Doo Hwan for his role in the 1979 coup that brought him to power, for the subsequent massacre of prodemocracy demonstrators and for accepting bribes.
1997
The territory of Hong Kong reverts to Chinese sovereignty, ending 156 years of British colonial rule.
Diana, Princess of Wales, 36, dies after suffering grave injuries in a car accident in Paris.
Zairian president Mobutu Sese Seko relinquishes power, ending nearly 32 years of dictatorial rule over Africa’s third-largest country.
Colombia becomes the first and only country in the world to legalize euthanasia.
Fighting breaks out in Cambodia, and First Premier Prince Norodom Ranariddh, is ousted by Hun Sen in a bloody coup.
1998
UN member states vote in favor of a treaty authorizing the creation of a permanent international court for the adjudication of war crimes.
Political leaders agree to a groundbreaking settlement aimed at ending the long-running sectarian conflict in Northern Ireland.
Nigerian-led peacekeeping troops under the ECOMOG banner oust Sierra Leone’s military government from power.
Pope John Paul II makes an unprecedented tour of Cuba.
Amid widespread protests and rioting, Indonesian pres. Suharto resigns, ending his 32 years of nearly autocratic rule over Indonesia.
1999
According to UN experts, the global population reaches 6 billion, doubling since 1960.
Britain’s Parliament officially devolves political power over the province of Northern Ireland to a new provincial government, granting Northern Ireland home rule for the first time in decades.
Niger president Ibrahim Mainassara Bare, 49, is assassinated, apparently by members of his presidential guard.
Panama assumes control of the Panama Canal and the surrounding canal zone from the U.S. . . . Canada officially redraws its map to include the new territory of Nunavut.
Indonesia undergoes the first democratic transfer of power in the nation’s 49-year history. In a separate referendum, residents of East Timor overwhelmingly vote for independence from Indonesia, prompting a wave of violence in the country.
1991
1992
1993
1994
1995
1996
Europe
The leaders of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe hold a summit in Paris that formally marks an end to the cold war.
Germany becomes a united nation for the first time since the end of World War II.
An international force led by the U.S. launches air and missile attacks on Iraq and Iraqi-occupied Kuwait. . . . The Soviet Union officially disbands and is replaced by a Commonwealth of Independent States made up of 11 of the 12 former Soviet republics.
Africa & the Middle East
The Americas
1990
World Affairs
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Includes developments that affect more than one world region, international organizations, and important meetings of major world leaders.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.
1990 The Hubble Space Telescope was put into orbit in April 1990. It is seen here anchored to the payload bay of the space shuttle Endeavour.
6—January–September 1990
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April
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July
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Africa & the Middle East
The Americas
Asia & the Pacific
To quell an ethnic war between Azerbaijanis and Armenians, Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev sends in troops.
Dissidents launch another attempt to overthrow the regime of Liberian president Samuel K. Doe.
The U.S. administration of the Panama Canal Commission is handed over to Panamanian control.
At least 210 people are killed and more than 700 injured when a crowded passenger train collides with a freight train near the city of Sukkur in the worst rail disaster in Pakistan’s history.
Cuba’s representative to the UN, Ricardo Alarcon de Quesada, takes over as president of the UN Security Council. It is the first time since 1957 that a Cuban has held the post.
Tens of thousands of people participate in a massive prodemocracy rally in Moscow, the largest unofficial demonstration in the Soviet capital since 1917.
South African black nationalist leader Nelson Mandela is freed after more than 27 years in prison.
In a startling political upset, Violeta Barrios de Chamorro defeats incumbent president Daniel Ortega Saavedra in national elections, ending the 10-year rule of the Sandinista National Liberation Front in Nicarargua.
About 600 people establish the Mongolian Democratic Party, the first opposition party in modern Mongolian history.
Namibia, formerly known as SouthWest Africa, becomes the world’s newest independent nation, ending 75 years of South African control.
The Supreme Soviet of Lithuania declares the republic’s independence from the Soviet Union. Although the declaration is called invalid by the Soviets, it is the first Soviet republic to attempt to secede.
Lesotho’s military ruler, Maj. Gen. Justin Lekhanya, sends King Moshoeshoe II into temporary exile in Britain after a bitter power struggle.
Chile and Brazil return to democracy when Patricio Aylwin and Fernando Collor de Mello are sworn in as those nations’ respective presidents. Ertha Pascal-Trouillot is chosen by opposition leaders to lead the government following the resignation of Haitian president Prosper Avril. It is first time since Duvalier’s overthrow that Haitian civilians have chosen their leader.
Taiwan’s National Assembly reelects Pres. Lee Teng-hui to a six-year term.
According to organizers, 200 million people in 140 nations celebrate Earth Day 1990, making it the largest grass-roots demonstration in history.
East Germany installs its first democratically elected government, and Lothar de Maiziere becomes the nation’s premier.
Lebanese kidnappers free U.S. hostage Robert Polhill after more than three years in captivity.
The largest native land-claim accord in Canadian history gives the Inuit more than 135,000 square miles of land and a total of C$612 million in compensation over the next 14 years.
Amid demonstrations in Nepal, King Birendra legalizes political parties.
In Paris, officials from 40 nations sign an accord to create the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.
The presidents of Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia agree to coordinate political and economic strategies and sign a treaty reviving the Baltic Council, a group that existed until the 1940 Soviet annexation of the Baltic region.
After years of conflict, the Yemen Arab Republic and the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen merge into a single nation, the Republic of Yemen.
In Colombia, security forces seize 18 tons of cocaine powder and semirefined cocaine in the largest drug raid in the nation’s history.
The worst cyclone in India since 1977 batters the states of Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu for two days, killing 450 people and destroying thousands of homes.
The Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe adopts a declaration on human rights and commits its 35 member nations to multiparty free elections; the separation of political parties from the state; independent judiciaries; respect for minority rights; and the freedoms of expression, organization, and assembly. It is believed to be the first time that the Soviet Union signs a document pledging a multiparty system.
In Romania, thousands of students riot in Bucharest, and 10,000 armed miners from the Jiu Valley beat students, ransack the headquarters of opposition parties and newspapers, and rough up the foreign press.
In Liberia, fighting between rebel factions and governmental troops degenerates into tribal warfare.
Forensic experts in Chile excavate an unmarked grave containing the bodies of opponents of Augusto Pinochet who were apparently executed by army troops after Pinochet took over in 1973.
Chinese students mark the first anniversary of the crackdown on the prodemocracy movement with the largest display of open defiance against the government since that time. Demonstrations for Chinese democracy are held in Hong Kong, Japan, and other Asian countries.
Leaders of the NATO nations agree to a dramatic series of changes in military strategy and state they will seek a joint declaration of nonaggression with the Warsaw Pact nations.
Albanian members of Kosovo’s parliament declare that Kosovo is independent from Serbia. The move is denounced as unconstitutional by the Serbian government.
The government of Kenyan president Daniel arap Moi cracks down on opponents advocating a multiparty political system, and violent street demonstrations and riots erupt.
A group of 100 black Muslims in the Caribbean island nation of Trinidad and Tobago stage a coup attempt against P.M. Arthur N. R. Robinson.
The ruling Mongolian People’s Revolutionary Party retains control of both houses of parliament in the first free elections in Mongolia since the communist takeover in 1921.
Iraqi troops and tanks storm into Kuwait and seize control of the oilrich desert sheikdom. The UN Security Council, NATO, and the EC condemn Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait. The UN Security Council votes to impose a sweeping trade embargo against Iraq and occupied Kuwait.
The Estonian parliament passes a resolution stating that the republic is no longer part of the Soviet Union, and Karelia, an autonomous region of Russia, declares sovereignty. The parliament of Armenia votes to declare independence, and Tadzhikistan declares its sovereignty.
Saddam Hussein issues presidential decrees declaring that Kuwait is Iraq’s 19th province, renaming Kuwait city with the name it had before World War I, Kadhima, and shaving territory off the “province” of Kuwait to be called “Saddamiyat al-Mitlaa” in his honor.
In addition to an ongoing dispute over a blockade formed by the Mohawk nation, other blockades are erected at Seton Portage and Longlac to draw attention to demands for native rights in Canada.
In Sri Lanka, the death toll from the latest outbreak of civil war and related ethnic violence reaches 3,350. At least 2,000 of the dead were civilians.
Representatives of East Germany, West Germany, and the four victorious Allied World War II powers sign a treaty that ends the powers’ responsibilities over Germany and paves the way for a fully sovereign Germany to be reunited.
The Serbian parliament strips the Kosovo region of its status as an autonomous province of Serbia, in effect completing its annexation of Kosovo.
Liberian president Samuel K. Doe is killed by rebels led by Prince Yormie Johnson. The remnants of Doe’s army loot and burn the capital city, Monrovia.
Brazilian investigators discover a mass grave that may hold as many as 1,700 bodies.
Despite the opposition’s victory in May elections, the ruling military government of Myanmar continues to delay surrendering power and jails six opposition leaders on charges of spying and fomenting unrest.
World Affairs
Europe
In Vienna, an unprecedented seminar is attended by top military officials from 35 European and North American nations, including representatives of NATO and the Warsaw Pact as well as nonaligned countries.
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Includes developments that affect more than one world region, international organizations, and important meetings of major world leaders.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.
January–September 1990—7
U.S. Politics & Social Issues
U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense
U.S. Economy & Environment
Science, Technology, & Nature
Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle
L. Douglas Wilder (D, Va.) becomes the first elected black governor to take office in the United States.
Ousted Panamanian dictator General Manuel Antonio Noriega surrenders to U.S. officials after he takes refuge in the Vatican’s diplomatic mission in Panama City.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average reaches a record high of 2,810.15.
The space shuttle Columbia conducts the longest flight of a U.S. space shuttle.
Cartoonist Charles Schulz of the “Peanuts” comic strip is named a Commander of Arts and Letters by the French Culture Minister in Paris.
Dr. Antonia Coello Novello is confirmed as surgeon general. She is the first woman and the first Hispanic to hold the position.
Former president Ronald Reagan gives videotaped testimony that he did not order any illegal acts in the Iran-contra affair.
Federal regulators seize Florida’s largest thrift as well as two of California’s largest savings-and-loan institutions.
Voyager 1 cameras take pictures of the solar system while 3.7 billion miles from Earth.
The continuing failure of long-term negotiations between Major League Baseball team owners and the players’ union postpones the formal opening of spring training.
Eighty-seven people are killed in a fire at an illegal social club in the Bronx . It is the deadliest fire in the continental U.S. since 1977.
Veterans Affairs Secretary Edward J. Derwinski authorizes compensation to Vietnam veterans suffering from non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.
The Amalgamated Transit Union begins nationwide strike against Greyhound Lines Inc.
An air force SR-71 Blackbird supersonic spy plane sets a transcontinental speed record.
Two thieves steal 13 artworks from Boston’s Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. As the paintings are estimated to be worth $100 million, it is considered the largest art theft in the world.
Ryan White, 18, a hemophiliac teenager who became a national symbol of the difficulties faced by children with AIDS, dies of complications from AIDS in Indianapolis.
A federal jury convicts former national security adviser John Poindexter on all five felony charges facing him. He is the highest-ranking official convicted of criminal charges in connection with the Iran-contra arms scandal.
Buffalo’s subway and bus system temporarily shuts down from lack of funds. It is the first such closure involving a federally subsidized mass-transit operation in the U.S.
The U.S. space shuttle Discovery successfully deploys the Hubble Space Telescope in an orbit 381 miles above Earth.
Cincinnati’s Contemporary Arts Center and its director, Dennis Barrie, are indicted by a grand jury on obscenity charges for displaying an exhibit of photographs by the late Robert Mapplethorpe. Judge Carl B. Rubin bars local law-enforcement officials from shutting down the exhibit.
Dalton Prejean becomes the first person executed under a 1989 ruling that permits states to impose the death penalty for crimes committed by 16- and 17-year-olds.
A report by the bipartisan Arms Control and Foreign Policy Caucus shows that 11 of El Salvador’s 15 highest-ranking officers, who received U.S. training, commanded troops that are responsible for killing civilians, torturing prisoners, causing disappearances, denying medical attention to victims, and falsifying information to conceal abuses.
Commerce Department data shows that sales of new houses declined 1.6% in April, to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 546,000, the lowest number of new houses sold since Dec. 1982.
More than 200 noted scientists from around the world, including three Nobel laureates, announce a boycott of Chinese scientific meetings until dissident physicist Fang Lizhi is allowed to leave China.
Portrait of Dr. Gachet by Vincent van Gogh becomes the most expensive painting sold at auction when it goes for $82.5 million.
Federal agents arrest 174 suspected members of the Los Angeles-based Crips and Bloods street gangs on drug and weapons offenses. Suspects are seized in California, Arizona, Louisiana, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Oregon, and Washington.
Nelson Mandela meets Pres. Bush at the White House in an unprecedented visit between an African National Congress leader and a U.S. president. Mandela also addresses a joint session of Congress.
Pres. Bush announces a moratorium on offshore oil exploration for large areas of the coastal U.S. but leaves some key areas—off of Alaska, North Carolina, the midAtlantic states, and the Gulf Coast—open to lease sales for drilling.
According to data from the National Severe Storms Forecast Center, the first half of 1990 saw the most violent weather in the U.S. in 40 years with a total of 726 tornadoes in the first six months of the year.
The National Endowment for the Arts rejects grant applications from Karen Finley, Holly Hughes, John Fleck, and Tim Miller. Each of the artists were approved by the review panel and deal with issues of sexuality.
Pres. Bush signs into law a landmark civil rights bill that prohibits discrimination against people with disabilities.
Five former officials of the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI) and a Colombian businessman are convicted in Tampa, Florida, for laundering $32 million for Colombia’s Medellín drug cartel.
Two barges carry partly refined oil collide with a Greek tanker in Galveston Bay on Texas’s gulf coast, spilling 500,000 gallons of heavy crude oil into the bay.
The White House directs NASA to appoint an outside task force to examine the space program’s longterm direction.
The Evangelical Lutheran Church of America suspends two congregations for five years for ordaining a gay man and two lesbians in defiance of church policy.
Washington, D.C., mayor Marion Barry (D) is convicted in federal court on one misdemeanor drug possession count and is acquitted on a second. A mistrial is declared on the 12 other misdemeanor and felony drug charges.
Pres. Bush officially informs Congress that he sent U.S. forces to the Persian gulf in a “notification consistent with” the War Powers Resolution. Bush orders the mobilization of a limited number of U.S. military reserves to augment Operation Desert Shield. It is the first time U.S. reservists have been called to active duty in a foreign crisis since 1968.
Pres. Bush signs the federal Oil Pollution Act.
The unmanned U.S. spacecraft Magellan attains orbit around Venus and begins a mapping mission projected to cover as much as 90% of the planet’s surface.
The Screen Actors Guild women’s committee finds that actresses in films, television and commercials get fewer roles and are paid less than actors.
Three youths—Antron McCray, Yusef Salaam, and Raymond Santana— are sentenced to maximum possible sentence of five to 10 years in prison for the near-fatal rape and beating of a female jogger in NYC’s Central Park.
Former CIA agent Thomas Clines is convicted on charges stemming from his participation in the illegal shipment of weapons to the Nicaraguan contras.
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) files a $200 million civil suit against Neil Bush, Pres. Bush’s son, and the other directors of Silverado Banking, Savings and Loan Association.
At the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, a four-year-old girl with a rare immune deficiency becomes the first person to undergo experimental treatment using a genetically engineered human gene.
The Motion Picture Association of America states it will replace its “X” rating with a rating called “NC-17,” meaning that no one under age 17 will be admitted.
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Includes elections, federal-state relations, civil rights and liberties, crime, the judiciary, education, health care, poverty, urban affairs, and population.
Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)
Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.
Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.
Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.
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May
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July
Aug.
Sept.
8—October–December 1990
Oct.
Nov.
Dec.
World Affairs
Europe
The Council of Europe unanimously approves a membership application by Hungary so it becomes the first Warsaw Pact nation to join a Western political organization.
Germany becomes a united nation for the first time since the end of World War II.
The leaders of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe hold a summit in Paris that formally marks an end to the cold war.
The UN Security Council votes to dissolve the U.S.-administered UN trusteeship over a string of Pacific islands captured from the Japanese during World War II. The vote formally ends the U.S.’s 43-year trustee relationship.
Africa & the Middle East
The Americas
Asia & the Pacific
Israeli police open fire on stonethrowing Palestinian protesters on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem’s Old City, killing at least 19 Arabs and wounding more than 100 others.
In Nicaragua, 200 rebels seize the northern town of Waslala following weeks of unrest.
Thousands of Hindus storm and occupy a Muslim mosque in the Indian holy city of Ayodhya before they are driven out by police.
Mary Robinson becomes the first woman elected president of Ireland and the first president since 1945 who is not supported by the Fianna Fail political group.
The Mozambique legislature adopts a new constitution designed to establish a Western-style democracy.
The presidents of Brazil and Argentina sign an agreement renouncing both the use and development of nuclear weapons.
Emperor Akihito is formally enthroned. According to Japanese historians, he is the 125th monarch to sit on the Chrysanthemum Throne of Japan. His wife, Empress Michiko, is enthroned in the same ceremony.
The Bulgarian Grand National Assembly confirms the country’s first multiparty government in 40 years.
Pres. Kenneth Kaunda signs a constitutional amendment permitting the formation of opposition parties in Zambia for the first time since 1972.
Reverend Jean-Bertrand Aristide, a leftist Roman Catholic priest, is elected president by a landslide in Haiti’s first democratic elections.
Amid violent protests, Bangladeshi president Hossein Mohammed Ershad announces his resignation from office. In response, about 100,000 marchers celebrate wildly, and Chief Justice Shahabuddin Ahmed is named the new president of Bangladesh.
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Includes developments that affect more than one world region, international organizations, and important meetings of major world leaders.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.
October–December 1990—9
U.S. Politics & Social Issues
U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense
U.S. Economy & Environment
Science, Technology, & Nature
Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle
The Senate confirms, 90-9, Pres. Bush’s appointment of David H. Souter to the Supreme Court, and he is sworn in as the nation’s 105th Supreme Court Justice.
In the first organized nationwide protest against the U.S. intervention in the Persian Gulf, thousands of Americans stage antiwar marches in as many as 20 cities, including New York; Seattle; San Francisco; Washington, D.C.; Atlanta; Boston; Dallas; and Cleveland.
The government temporarily shuts down when Pres. Bush vetoes the stopgap measure because “it disciplines the United States Congress,” which, he claims, repeatedly evade budget decisions by passing interim spending authority.
The space shuttle Discovery deploys the Ulysses spacecraft for a surveying project to the Sun’s polar regions.
Three members of the black rap music group 2 Live Crew are acquitted of obscenity charges by a jury in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.
Pres. Bush signs legislation to protect Native American grave sites and to return remains and cultural artifacts to the tribes.
Pres. Bush signs a bill on comprehensive immigration legislation.
The Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia rejects a proposed “one-step” licensing procedure for future atomic power plants, a measure initiated by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
The Mount St. Helens volcano in Washington State erupts in its largest blast since the U.S. Forest Service reopened the crater to the public in 1987, after the 1980 explosion.
New York Shakespeare Festival producer Joseph Papp informs the NEA that he refuses to accept two grants totaling $323,000 in protest of the NEA’s consideration of “general standards of decency” when awarding grants.
A state district judge in Clarkston, Mich., dismisses murder charges against Dr. Jack Kevorkian, an Oregon physician who created a device to assist individuals in committing suicide.
The U.S. suspends its $2.8 million military aid program to Guatemala, citing Guatemala’s failure to curb human rights abuses.
Data suggests that federal government funding provided only 17% of state and local budgets compared with 25% during the 1970s.
Four of the astronauts aboard the Columbia space shuttle beam the first-ever classroom lesson from space to 41 middle-school students assembled at two NASA centers in Huntsville, Ala., and Greenbelt, Md.
Pope John Paul II endorses a statement against anti-Semitism drawn up by Jewish and Roman Catholic representatives.
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Includes elections, federal-state relations, civil rights and liberties, crime, the judiciary, education, health care, poverty, urban affairs, and population.
Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)
Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.
Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.
Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.
Oct.
Nov.
Dec.
1990–1999—3
U.S. Politics & Social Issues
U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense
U.S. Economy & Environment
Science, Technology, & Nature
Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle
Pres. Bush signs into law a landmark civil rights bill that prohibits discrimination against people with disabilities.
Ousted Panamanian dictator Gen. Manuel Antonio Noriega surrenders to U.S. officials. . . . Pres. Bush officially informs Congress that he sent U.S. forces to the Persian gulf in a “notification consistent with” the War Powers Resolution.
Pres. Bush announces a moratorium on offshore oil exploration for large areas of the coastal U.S. but leaves some key areas—off of Alaska, North Carolina, the midAtlantic states and the Gulf Coast— open to lease sales for drilling.
The U.S. space shuttle Discovery successfully deploys the Hubble Space Telescope in an orbit 381 miles above Earth.
The National Endowment for the Arts rejects grant applications from Karen Finley, Holly Hughes, John Fleck, and Tim Miller, prompting debate over notions of “obscenity.”
Law professor Anita Hill publicly accuses Supreme Court nominee Judge Clarence Thomas of sexual harassment, sparking one of the most bitter and divisive confirmation battles in the 202-year history of the Supreme Court.
Terry A. Anderson, the longest-held Western hostage in Lebanon, is freed after 2,454 days in captivity. He is the last of 17 Americans held captive in Lebanon between Mar. 1984 and Dec. 1991 to be freed.
The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the fiscal 1992 federal budget deficit will reach a record $362 billion.
California scientists isolate “stem cells” whose divisions give rise to all the red and white blood cells in the body.
The Biblical Archeology Society of New York announces that it will publish a “facsimile edition” of the previously unpublished sections of the Dead Sea scrolls.
A jury acquits four white LAPD officers on all but one charge stemming from the beating of black motorist Rodney King. The verdict prompts the worst riots in L.A. since 1965.
Reports show 14 female naval officers and 12 female civilians were sexually abused at the September 1991 Tailhook Association aviators’ convention in Las Vegas.
The Census Bureau reports that in inflation-adjusted terms, median household income fell to $30,126 in 1991 from $31,203 in 1990. The number of Americans living below the poverty level in 1991 reached its highest level since 1964.
In a major finding, astronomer George Smoot announces the discovery of faint temperature variations in the most distant matter yet detected. These irregularities offer long-sought evidence to support the Big Bang theory.
Mona Van Duyn is named the U.S.’s first female poet laureate.
William Jefferson Clinton is formally inaugurated as president of the United States.
A bomb explodes in a garage below the World Trade Center in New York City, killing five people. It is the deadliest bombing in the U.S. since 1975.
Pres. Clinton signs the Family and Medical Leave Act, the first legislation to pass under the Clinton administration.
U.S. vice president Gore and Russian premier Victor Chernomyrdin sign an agreement that calls for the two countries to jointly design and build an international space station, closing decades of cold war competition in space.
Monica Seles, 19, the world’s topranked female tennis player, is stabbed in the back by an attacker who claims to be a fan of Steffi Graf, the world’s second-ranked woman.
In a case that captivates the nation, O. J. Simpson is charged in the slayings of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman after leading police on a televised 60-mile (95-km) chase.
The state-financed Citadel military college in Charleston, South Carolina, is ordered to admit a female student, Shannon Faulkner, to its all-male cadet corps.
Exxon Corp. agrees to pay $20 million in damages to Alaskan natives whose hunting and fishing grounds were polluted when the Exxon Valdez tanker spilled 11 million gallons of crude oil into Alaska’s Prince William Sound in 1989.
A powerful earthquake strikes Los Angeles, leveling buildings and collapsing freeway overpasses.
Nancy Kerrigan, the favorite to win the women’s U.S. Figure Skating Championship, is assaulted by associates of rival skater Tonya Harding.
A massive bomb explodes outside a federal office building in Oklahoma City, killing more than 100 people. It is the deadliest terrorist attack ever in the U.S.
The Clinton administration ends a 30-year immigration policy when it announces that Cuban boat people seeking asylum in the U.S. will henceforth be summarily repatriated to Cuba.
Chemical Banking and Chase Manhattan announce the largest bank merger in U.S. history, involving a stock swap worth about $10 billion. The deal will create the largest bank in the U.S., to be known as Chase Manhattan.
The U.S. space shuttle Atlantis docks with the Russian space station Mir.
Members of the Southern Baptist Convention vote overwhelmingly to formally repent for their church’s past support of slavery and to ask forgiveness from all African Americans.
Pres. Clinton chooses Madeleine K. Albright as secretary of state, making her the first woman to fill that post and the highest-ranking woman ever in the federal government.
The army investigates allegations of sexual assault and harassment at the Aberdeen training center in Maryland.
A federal jury convicts James McDougal, Susan McDougal, and Gov. Jim Guy Tucker (D, Ark.) on fraud and conspiracy charges brought during an investigation of the Whitewater venture.
A team of physicists announce that, for the first time ever, they created atoms of antimatter, which has the same mass as regular matter but an opposite electric charge.
A pipe bomb goes off at an Olympic Games site in Atlanta, Georgia, killing one person and injuring 111 others. It is the first terrorist attack at the Olympics since 1972.
In Clinton v. Jones, the Supreme Court unanimously rejects Pres. Clinton’s request to delay proceedings in a sexual-harassment suit until he leaves office.
Pres. Clinton issues new, classified nuclear-strike guidelines to top military officials in the first adjustment in U.S. nuclear-defense strategy since 1981.
The White House and Republican congressional leaders reach an historic agreement to balance the federal budget by 2002.
Mars Pathfinder, an unmanned spacecraft launched by the NASA, lands on Mars. . . . Researchers create the first genetic clone of an adult animal, a Finn Dorset lamb named Dolly.
Jane Alexander states she will resign as head of the NEA, citing the hostility by conservative members of Congress as one of her reasons .
The House votes to impeach Pres. Clinton after an investigation into allegations that Clinton had a sexual relationship with Monica Lewinsky, a 21-year-old White House intern.
A grand jury issues an indictment against Saudi millionaire Osama bin Laden, charging him in the bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.
Pres. Clinton announces that the 1998 fiscal year resulted in the first federal budget surplus since 1969.
Two teams of scientists report that they completed a map of the entire genome of a microscopic worm. It is the first time that scientists have deciphered the entire genetic map of a multicellular animal.
The International Olympic Committee faces a bribery scandal related to how cities are chosen to host the Olympic Games.
The Senate votes to acquit Pres. Clinton of impeachment charges in the Monica Lewinsky scandal, ending the second presidential impeachment in U.S. history.
A six-year-old Cuban refugee, Elián González, is found off the coast of Florida; his case sparks extended controversy.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average closes above the 10,000 level for the first time ever.
In a landmark observation, two teams of astronomers announce the first discovery of a system of multiple planets orbiting a star other than the sun.
The Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame opens in Knoxville, Tennessee. It is the first hall of fame dedicated to any women’s sports.
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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)
Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.
Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.
Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.
1990
1991
1992
1993
1994
1995
1996
1997
1998
1999
10—January 1–6, 1990
Jan. 1
World Affairs
Europe
Africa & the Middle East
U.S. president Bush and Soviet president Gorbachev exchange videotaped New Year’s greetings, and portions air in the two countries. . . . Fifteen nations establish a $1 billion fund to help stabilize the zloty, the currency of Poland.
In Czechoslovakia, Pres. Vaclav Havel announces amnesty for 20,000 prison inmates. . . . Romania’s provisional government disbands the Securitate, and the National Peasants Party is formally revived. . . . Corneliu Bogdan, 68, Romanian ambassador to the U.S., 1967–78, dies from a stroke in Bucharest. . . . A giant video screen collapses during New Year’s celebrations at the Berlin Wall. . . . Poland implements a radical economic-reform program. . . . Reports confirm that 7,000 died in Romania’s Dec. 1989 revolution. Vaclav Havel, Czechoslovakia’s noncommunist president, pays official visits to both East Germany and West Germany. . . . A National Salvation Front official claims that more than 30 members of the Political Executive Committee, the Romanian Communist Party’s outer politburo, are under arrest. . . . Evangelos Averoff, 79, former Greek foreign minister, dies of a heart attack in Athens.
Jan. 2
Jan. 3
Jan. 4
The Americas
Asia & the Pacific
After an oil spill from an Iranian supertanker off the Moroccan coast, a tug begins towing the tanker to sea. . . . Reports emerge that dissidents launched another attempt to overthrow the regime of Liberian president Samuel K. Doe. Charles Taylor, a Liberian exile, claims responsibility. . . . In Israel, a Shamir aide denies knowledge of any telephone taps in science minister Ezer Weizman’s or other cabinet members’ homes. Arafat adviser Bassam Abu Sharif, in Baghdad, and Iraqi officials question Shamir’s move to fire Weizman.
The Panama Canal Commission is handed over to Panamanian control when Fernando Manfredo, deputy administrator since 1979, takes over as acting administrator. . . . Two Roman Catholic nuns are killed and another nun and a bishop wounded in an attack near Ojo de Agua in northeastern Nicaragua. The government and church officials blame the contras for the killings.
Reports emerge which increase the casualty toll in the Dec. 28, 1989, Newcastle earthquake to 12 dead, and 150 injured.
Gen. Doe states that two groups of rebels invaded Liberia from the Ivory Coast. He claims one group reached Monrovia before abandoning their arms and surrendering. The other group attacked a customs post in the frontier town of Butuo and killed a sergeant before the army intervened. . . . Israel’s Likud-Labor coalition government survives its latest crisis with a compromise that allows Science Minister Ezer Weizman to remain in the cabinet but with a reduced role.
The Pro-Canada Network, a liberal lobbying group, claims that 72,000 Canadian jobs have been lost because of the U.S.-Canada trade accord.
After tram workers refuse to sign a new contract, the government cuts off electricity to Melbourne’s entire tram system.
Ousted Panamanian dictator General Manuel Antonio Noriega surrenders to U.S. officials, 10 days after taking refuge in the Vatican’s diplomatic mission in Panama City. . . . Col. Roberto Armijo steps down as head of the new Panamanian Public Force, less than two weeks after he assumed the post. . . . Peruvian officials say their nation will be represented at international drug talks scheduled for February in Colombia.
The worst series of brush fires since 1983 sweeps southwestern New South Wales and northern Victoria. . . . Vietnamese Communist Party officials announce that the party’s secretary general, Nguyen Van Linh, will resign at an upcoming meeting of the Central Committee.
South African foreign minister P. W. Botha pays a surprise visit to Hungary, the first time a South African foreign minister visits a Warsaw Pact nation.
Share prices on the London stock exchange close at 2,463.7, exceeding the record set in 1987 . . . Employment Secretary Norman Fowler resigns from the cabinet, and Conservative prime minister Margaret Thatcher names Housing and Planning Minister Michael Howard as his successor.
The African National Congress “unequivocally condemns” Hungary for meeting with Botha.
Foreign journalists are barred indefinitely from Azerbaijan. . . . Reports emerge that detail Causescu’s population-growth program, which aspired to raise Romania’s population to 30 million from 22 million and encouraged every Romanian woman to bear a minimum of five children. . . . Romania’s National Salvation Front announces it will field its own candidates in April.
Liberian president Doe blames the Ivory Coast recent invasion on allowing dissidents to use its territory as a base and warns that he may send troops across the border. The Liberian government also blames Libya and Burkina Faso for training the rebels. . . . Reports surface that a progovernment Arab militia massacred more than 2,000 black villagers in a central Sudanese town at the end of December 1989.
The Extraditables claim they kidnapped wealthy Colombians in order to raise funds for the “war against the political oligarchy” and for “construction of popular housing.”. . . Chilean president-elect Patricio Aylwin announces an agreement to eliminate the military junta that currently rules the nation. . . . Alberto Lleras Camargo, 83, president of Colombia, 1945–46 and 1958–62, dies of lung cancer in Bogota, Colombia.
At least 210 people are killed and more than 700 injured when a crowded passenger train collides with a standing freight train near the city of Sukkur in the worst rail disaster in Pakistan’s history.
A general strike called by nationalists paralyzes much of Bulgaria. . . . A small group of former dissidents form a Helsinki Watch Committee in Bucharest to monitor human-rights practices in Romania.
Although Pres. Doe’s reports suggest that fighting has calmed, refugees claim the Liberian army is burning homes in border villages and chasing people into the bush. . . . Iraqi president Saddam Hussein offers a three-point plan aimed to negotiate a permanent end to the Iran-Iraq War.
The Human Rights Committee of Peru’s Senate reports 3,198 people were killed in political violence in 1989, the highest total in a decade of political violence, bringing the death toll of the period to more than 17,000. . . . Gen. Fernando Matthei of the Chilean air force and Gen. Rodolfo Stange of the paramilitary police, both believed to be unsympathetic to Pinochet, agree to remain in their posts following Pres. Aylwin’s inauguration.
In India, 11 cities in Jammu and Kashmir are placed under curfew in response to rumors of mass demonstrations by militant secessionists. . . . The first group of former political prisoners tied to the American-backed regime in Saigon during the Vietnam War is allowed to immigrate to the U.S.
Several days of nationalist rioting in the Azerbaijan republic culminate in the destruction of Soviet border stations separating Azerbaijan from Iran. Moscow sends in troops. . . . Poland’s Central Committee of the United Workers’ Party votes to debate disbanding of the party and reforming it to unite the entire Polish left. . . . Soviet foreign minister Edvard Shevardnadze visits Romania and vows Kremlin support for any future political system that emerges in that country.
The New York Times reports a recent attack on nine villages in southern Kordofan province, Sudan, suggesting that the militias have become more active under the regime of Gen. Omar Hassan Ahmed al-Bashir. . . . Iran faults the Jan. 5 Iraqi bid to end the war but does not reject it outright.
Jan. 5
Jan. 6
India and Sri Lanka reach an agreement on the withdrawal of the final 25,000 Indian peacekeeping troops from Sri Lanka.
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Includes developments that affect more than one world region, international organizations, and important meetings of major world leaders.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.
January 1–6, 1990—11
U.S. Politics & Social Issues
Rep. Robert Garcia (D, N.Y.) resigns his House seat less than three months after he was convicted of extortion and conspiracy involving Wedtech Corp., a defense contractor.
U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense
Pres. Bush names Deane R. Hinton as ambassador to Panama.
Federal medical authorities report that the spread of AIDS in the U.S. appears to be falling below anticipated rates.
U.S. Economy & Environment
Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle
The United Mine Workers union and Pittston Co. announces a tentative agreement on a new contract that may end a bitter nine-monthold strike. . . . A runaway barge dumps 10,000 gallons of gasoline in the Monongahela River, about 15 miles south of Pittsburgh.
Patrick Kelly, 40, a black Americanborn fashion designer, dies in Paris of a bone-marrow disease.
Jan. 1
The Dow Jones Industrial Average reaches a record high of 2,810.15 . . . . A major oil spill from a pipeline is discovered in the Arthur Kill shipping channel in New York Harbor.
Alan Hale Jr., 71, an actor best known as the skipper on “Gilligan’s Island,” dies of cancer of the thymus in Los Angeles.
Jan. 2
General Motors unveils a prototype of an electric car that offers performance rivaling that of many gasolinepowered automobiles. . . . A federal judge rules Pan American World Airways cannot be sued for punitive damages by families of the victims of Pan Am flight 103, which was destroyed by a terrorist bomb over Lockerbie, Scotland, in December 1988.
Pres. Bush extends economic sanctions against Libya for the fifth year. . . . Human Rights Watch accuses the Bush administration of “widespread disregard for human rights.”
A federal appeals court in Philadelphia overturns the first verdict in the U.S. that required a tobacco company to compensate the family of a smoker who died of cancer. . . . Former FDA chemist David Brancato pleads guilty in a Baltimore federal court to charges that he received $16,000 in illegal payments in 1988 and 1989 from generic-drug manufacturers Par Pharmaceuticals and Quad Pharmaceuticals.
Science, Technology, & Nature
Reports surface to show that confessed spy Klaus Fuchs was not instrumental in the development of the Soviet hydrogen bomb.
Jan. 3
Harold Eugene Edgerton, 86, professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and credited with inventions in photography, dies of a heart attack in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
The Bush administration offers $3 million to aid the relocation of contra rebels who wish to return to Nicaragua from bases in Honduras. . . . Pres. Bush expresses concern that the U.S. invasion of Panama injured U.S ties with Latin American nations and plans to send Vice President Dan Quayle to visit several Latin countries to help repair the damage.
Jan. 4
(John) Arthur Kennedy, 75, stage and film actor, dies of cancer in Branford, Connecticut.
Ian Charleson, 40, British actor, dies of AIDS in London.
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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)
Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.
Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.
Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.
Jan. 5
Jan. 6
12—January 7–11, 1990
World Affairs
Jan. 9
Jan. 10
Jan. 11
Africa & the Middle East
The Americas
Asia & the Pacific
In Hungary, Foreign Ministry spokesman Horvath admits the security service illegally bugged phones to keep track of its opposition. . . . More than 5,000 demonstrators in Sofia’s central square shout down Bulgarian premier Georgi Atanasov. . . . Reports emerge that Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev sent troops to Georgia to keep peace between ethnic groups. . . . Lord Gerald Austin Gardiner, 89, Lord Chancellor of Great Britain, 1964–70, dies in England. . . . The British government discloses Thatcher’s foreign-affairs adviser, Sir Percy Cradock, made a secret visit to Beijing in early Dec. 1989. . . . Italy’s “Leaning Tower” of Pisa closes to tourists for a minimum of three months for safety constructions. . . . Thousands of Romanians stage nationwide demonstrations complaining of the high-profile role of ex-communists in the provisional regime.
Western diplomats and relief officials claim that between 300 and 1,500 people were killed in a massacre of black villagers in Sudan in Dec. 1989. The Sudanese government puts the number of dead at 214 and vows further investigation.
President Alfredo Cristiani discloses that members of the military were involved in the Nov. 1989 slayings of six Jesuit priests, their housekeeper and the housekeeper’s daughter at the José Simeón Canas University of Central America in San Salvador.
The Khmer Rouge guerrilla group announces its troops attacked Battambang, Cambodia’s secondlargest city.
The Organization of American States condemns the search of the Nicaraguan ambassador’s residence by U.S. troops in late Dec. 1989.
Peter Koch, the East German government official in charge of disbanding the security service, reports that 60,000 Stasi personnel are still on the government’s payroll. . . . Major Ion Bundea is convicted of firing on army officers in Sibiu, Romania, during the Dec. 1989 uprising and is sentenced to a nine-year prison term. . . . Protests against Bulgaria’s plan to reverse discriminatory policies toward the nation’s Turkish-speaking minority reach a halt when talks are held.
Reports surface that the Iranian foreign ministry sent a delegation to Moscow.
Reports emerge that a cracked Hydro-Quebec transformer has leaked more than 9,000 gallons of oil contaminated with toxic polychlorinated biphenyls into a tributary of the St. Lawrence River. . . . U.S. troops in Panama surrounded the Peruvian embassy after two Noriega associates take refuge there.
In India, at least 13 people are killed and as many as 100 wounded in clashes between protesters and police in Kashmir. Ten deaths occur when police fire at stone-throwing demonstrators. Two other protesters are killed in Sopur. . . . Five children drown when a 36-foot pleasure fishing boat capsizes and sinks off Snapper Island in Nelson Bay, New South Wales. Marine police rescue the other 43 people aboard the vessel. . . . Reports suggest that Australian police have brought separate charges against a 36-yearold man and a 16-year-old boy for allegedly starting or failing to extinguish blazes in Cooma and Albury.
The US drastically cuts funding of the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization because of its decision to work with the Palestine Liberation Organization. . . . Separately, Ahmed Jabril, leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine–General Command, dismisses reports that link his group to the Pan Am Lockerbie bombing as “media fabrications.”
British Secretary Peter Brooke finds “common ground” after speaking with political leaders in Northern Ireland. . . . Suzuki Motor Co. Ltd. of Japan agrees to build Hungary’s first automobile plant. . . . In Armenia, legislation that incorporates Nagorno-Karabakh into a socioeconomic plan and allows citizens of the enclave to vote in the Armenian republic passes. . . . Japanese premier Kaifu begins a tour of Europe by announcing $1 billion in aid to Poland and Hungary. . . . . The National Salvation Front lifts restrictions on the travel of Romanians abroad.
President Mohamed Siad Barre dissolves Somalia’s government, accusing its members of failing to solve the country’s political and economic problems.
Brazilian justice minister Saulo Ramos reverses an earlier decision to force gold prospectors out of Roraima . . . . Enrique López Albujar, Peru’s defense minister until May 1989, is shot and killed. Officials believe Maoist Sendero Luminoso guerrillas are most likely responsible.
An Indian intelligence official is shot to death by unidentified gunmen in the town of Berwa.
The Council for Mutual Economic Assistance, the Soviet-bloc trade organization, agrees to adopt a free-market approach in their trading policies after a summit in Bulgaria. . . . The USSR upgrades the Palestine Liberation Organization’s mission to Moscow as an “embassy of the state of Palestine in the Soviet Union.”
The Presidium of the national Supreme Soviet declares the law passed Jan. 9 in Armenia is unconstitutional . . . . 20,000 Lithuanians hold a nationalist rally in the republic’s capital, Vilnius. . . . Romania’s exiled king Michael, speaking in Switzerland, restates his desire to return home.
Iran and Iraq agree to send foreign ministers to Moscow for talks on ending the Iran-Iraq War.
The UN halts informal contacts between UN officials and representatives of the popular fronts of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania.
In response to the Jan. 10 Supreme Soviet’s ruling, Armenia passes legislation to override national laws. . . . Pres. Gorbachev visits Lithuania to convince the Lithuanian Communist Party to rejoin the national Communist Party. . . . Azerbaijanis blockade local government and Communist Party offices and briefly seize a radio station in Lenkoran. . . . French foreign minister Dumas visits Bucharest and announces a package of economic assistance for Romania.
Amnesty International charges that Saudi Arabia allows torture and has “a clear pattern” of political detentions without trial. The Saudi government denies that it holds any political prisoners and says that, obeying the laws of God, it does not permit torture.
Jan. 7
Jan. 8
Europe
Chinese premier Li Peng lifts martial law in Beijing, which ends nearly eight months of military rule. . . . A Cambodian government statement acknowledges fighting near Battambang but asserts that the Khmer Rouge forces were repelled.
Reports show that a record number of murders, 4,015, were committed in 1989 in Medellín, known as the cocaine capital of Colombia.
Prime Minister V. P. Singh visits Punjab and offers to help find jobs for Sikh soldiers who deserted the Indian army after the assault on the Golden Temple at Amritsar . . . . Deputy Foreign Minister Zhou Nan is chosen as the Chinese envoy in Hong Kong. . . . Beijing’s Tiananmen Square, the geographical center of the 1989 democracy movement, is reopened to the public for the first time since the military crackdown.
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Includes developments that affect more than one world region, international organizations, and important meetings of major world leaders.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.
January 7–11, 1990—13
U.S. Politics & Social Issues
U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense
U.S. Economy & Environment
Science, Technology, & Nature
State and federal officials criticize Exxon for its slow response to an underwater pipeline oil spill into New York Harbor on January 1–2. Exxon is also faulted by Carol Ash, regional director for the New York State department of environmental conservation, for slow reaction to help the cleanup effort at Pralls Island.
In a speech, Pres. Bush outlines his goals to cut capital gains taxes and to introduce a Clean Air Act and tougher antidrug and crime legislation. . . . The Supreme Court refuses to hear an appeal on a libel suit filed against Peter Matthiessen for statements in his 1982 book, In the Spirit of Crazy Horse, which detail a shoot-out at the Pine Ridge Indian reservation.
The Bush administration calls off plans for U.S. Navy ships to monitor airborne drug traffic off the coast of Colombia.
Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle Bronislau (Bronko) Nagurski, 81, U.S. football player, dies of cardiopulmonary arrest in Minnesota.
First Chicago Corp.’s First National Bank of Chicago lowers its prime lending rate to 10%, and other money-center banks follow.
The federally funded National Assessment of Educational Progress reports that the reading and writing ability of U.S. students did not significantly improve during the 1980s, despite some advances by minority pupils.
Jan. 8
The space shuttle Columbia is launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida.
The Supreme Court reaffirms its stand by ruling out the use of illegally obtained evidence in a criminal trial.
AT&T files a suit against MCI Communications Corp. and Pioneer Teletechnologies Inc. for illegal marketing practices.
The Bush administration denounces a Democratic proposal to reduce the Social Security payroll tax.
Jan. 7
Jan. 9
Drew Middleton, 76, reporter for The New York Times, dies in NYC after suffering from heart ailments.
At an annual meeting of the American Astronomical Society, scientists announce that the Milky Way, Earth’s home galaxy, is being pulled by two gravitational sources, one of them far outside the galaxy. . . . The FDA informs Symbion Inc., the manufacturer of the Jarvik-7 artificial heart, that the device will be recalled.
Jan. 10
Jan. 11
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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)
Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.
Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.
Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.
14—January 12–17, 1990
World Affairs
Jan. 12
Jan. 13
Jan. 16
Jan. 17
Africa & the Middle East
Violent protests begin in Bucharest. . . . Bulgarian citizens are granted freedom of religion while the nation reasserts its borders. . . . An interior-ministry officer is killed, purportedly by Azerbaijani police. . . . Romania outlaws its Communist Party. . . . In Bulgaria, an accord is reached by the protesting Turkish-speaking minority and government officials after four days of talks.
Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak dismisses Interior Minister Zaki Badr, who had been the leader of Cairo’s hard-line policies against Islamic fundamentalists since 1986.
At an anti-Armenia rally in the Azerbaijan capital of Baku, Azerbaijani youths go on a rampage. Armenians are beaten, shot, stabbed to death, and burned alive, while homes and shops are looted. . . . Gaspar Miklos Tamas, a member of the Alliance of Free Democrats, is the first in his party to win a parliamentary seat by election in Budapest . . . . Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev expresses openness to a multiparty political system in the USSR . . . . In Romania, the National Salvation Front restricts political rallies to Cismigiu Park.
An Egyptian human-rights group charges that torture and sexual abuse of both political and regular prisoners “now appears to be a matter of policy by security forces.” The report was drawn up before the ouster of Interior Minister Zaki Badr.
Reports suggest that at least 30 Azerbaijanis were killed in Baku in the Jan. 13 riots. . . . More than 50,000 prodemocracy protesters rally in Sofia. The demonstration is described as the biggest in Bulgaria since Nov. 1989. . . . A fire at a discotheque in Zaragoza, Spain, leaves 43 people dead. . . . Corsican separatists blow up 60 cabins in Bastia and detain residents in the area by about 60 armed men from Corsican National Liberation Front while the bombings are carried out.
Jan. 14
Jan. 15
Europe
The five permanent members of the UN Security Council meet in Paris.
To quell an ethnic war between Azerbaijanis and Armenians, Soviet president Gorbachev declares a state of emergency in Azerbaijan and approves the airlifting of 11,000 military, KGB, and interior-ministry troops to the republic to restore order. . . . Algirdas Brazauskas is elected head of the Lithuanian Communist Party. . . . Bulgaria becomes the last Soviet bloc country to end the domination of the Communist Party . . . Thousands of protesters storm East Berlin headquarters in response to the slow pace of reform in Germany.
An unprecedented seminar attended by top military officials from 35 European and North American nations, opens in Vienna. The gathering includes representatives of NATO and the Warsaw Pact as well as nonaligned countries. . . . The UN Security Council calls for a greater role in the settlement of Cambodia’s 11-year-old civil war. It is the first major diplomatic initiative regarding the Cambodian conflict since Aug. 1989.
More than 6,000 miners strike in the Silesia coal region in Poland. . . . Elena Petrescu, 103, mother of Elena Ceausescu, dies in Bucharest. . . . Talks between Bulgaria’s communist government and the political opposition start in Sofia.
China and Hong Kong announce they will not obey a global ban on ivory trading, intended to save Africa’s elephant herds from extinction. . . . The U.S. vetoes a resolution in the UN Security Council that would have censured U.S. troops for raiding the home of the Nicaraguan ambassador in 1989.
An oil slick of unknown origin begrimes the northern shore of Madeira, Portugal. . . . (Eugene) Charles Hernu, 66, French defense minister, 1981–85, dies of a heart attack near Lyons. . . . East and West Germany’s Evangelical churches agree to reunite, reversing a 1969 decision. . . . The Kremlin orders troops in the Transcaucasus region to fire on militants in self-defense and to protect civilians. The official death toll in the area reaches 56.
Walter Sisulu and other senior members of the African National Congress arrive in Zambia for talks.
The United Democratic Front, the antiapartheid coalition and African National Congress ally, announces that it will defy government restrictions by reopening its offices and resuming public activities. The special meeting of the African National Congress’s executive council formally opens.
The Americas
Asia & the Pacific
The Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front reconsiders a proposal to renew peace talks with the Salvadoran government after the murder of leftist political leader Manuel Antonio Colindres. . . . A colonel, two lieutenants, and five lower-ranking soldiers are arrested for the 1989 slaying of six Jesuit priests and others in San Salvador.
British foreign secretary Douglas Hurd arrives in Hong Kong for the first time since assuming office.
Protests are staged in Montreal, Toronto, and other major cities in response to planned cutbacks in service on Via Rail Canada.
More than 5,000 people attend a demonstration in Mongolia, making it the largest protest in modern Mongolian history.
A Brazilian federal judge orders the closing of a road that leads to the world’s largest modern tin mine because it illegally cuts across a reservation of the Waimiri-Atroari Indians . . . . Cutbacks in service on Via Rail Canada go into effect.
Amnesty International accuses Hong Kong authorities of forcing the repatriation of Vietnamese refugees who are in danger of persecution in their homeland. Both the Hong Kong government and the British Foreign Office reject the Amnesty allegations as unfounded.
The union at Brazil’s state-owned oil company Petroleo Brasileiro, S.A., goes on strike.
British foreign secretary Hurd asserts that if Britain and China cannot reach agreement regarding Hong Kong, then the U.K. will make its “own decisions” on democratic reforms. . . . Reports suggest that more than 800 Chinese were sentenced to prison for involvement in the prodemocracy movement.
In Colombia, the Medellín drug cartel issues a declaration of conditional surrender, claiming it will halt its bombing and assassination campaign and all other illegal activity in exchange for an amnesty or pledges not to be extradited to the U.S. The cartel begins releasing some of the 20 hostages it seized.
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Includes developments that affect more than one world region, international organizations, and important meetings of major world leaders.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.
January 12–17, 1990—15
U.S. Politics & Social Issues
U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense
William L. Roper, a physician and White House adviser, is named director of the federal Centers for Disease Control. . . . Joseph Sill Clark, 88, reform-minded Pennsylvania politician, dies of unreported causes in Philadelphia.
U.S. Economy & Environment
Science, Technology, & Nature
Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle
Reports emerge that retail sales climbed 5% in 1989, the smallest rise since 1982. In response, the Dow Jones Industrial Average drops 71.46 points, the biggest drop since Oct. 1989.
The space shuttle Columbia retrieves a bus-sized scientific satellite from its falling orbit and stores it in the cargo bay for return to Earth.
Laurence J. Peter, 70, Canadianborn author and educator, dies in Palos Verdes Estates, Calif., of complications from a stroke he had suffered in 1988.
L. Douglas Wilder (D) is sworn in as governor of Virginia by U.S. Supreme Court justice Powell Jr., and thus becomes the first elected black governor to take office in the U.S.
The astronauts aboard the Columbia hold an upbeat news conference from space.
An Exxon Corp. spokesman reports 130,000 gallons of oil have been recovered from the spill in New York Harbor. Half of the remainder of the 446,000 gallons of the spill evaporated.
Jan. 13
The Denver Broncos advance to the Super Bowl with a 37-21 victory over the Cleveland Browns in Denver. The San Francisco 49ers beat the Los Angeles Rams, 30-3, in the National Conference championship in San Francisco.
AT&T’s long-distance phone operations are severely curtailed for nine hours by a computer software fault.
The FDA halves the recommended dosage level of AZT for treatment of AIDS.
Officials announce looser restrictions on entry permits for foreign travelers to the U.S. who are infected with HIV.
Housing and Urban Development Secretary Jack Kemp announces plans to end the coinsurance program. . . . In Kirkpatrick Co. v. Environmental Tectonics Corp., the Supreme Court rules unanimously that a company can bring suit against a competitor for bribing foreign officials. . . . In Swaggart Ministries v. California Board of Equalization, the Supreme Court rules unanimously that states may require religious organizations to pay sales tax on religious materials that they sell.
Jan. 14
Jan. 15
The Bush administration intensifies its attack on the proposal by Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D, N.Y.) to cut Social Security taxes. . . . Two units of the BCCI, an international bank, agree to plead guilty to reduced charges of money laundering in a Tampa, Fla., federal court. The case, the first in which the U.S. Justice Department has charged a major international bank with money laundering, is the result of a two year “sting” investigation. The Federal Reserve Board reports its industrial production index advanced 0.4% in December 1989. The U.S. merchandise trade deficit widened to a seasonally adjusted $10.5 billion in November 1989, the year’s largest monthly gap. . . . In Guidry v. Sheet Metal Workers Pension Fund, the Supreme Court unanimously rules out seizing the pension benefits of a former union official to pay back union funds that he embezzled.
Jan. 12
Jan. 16
The National Transportation Safety Board reports 11 fatal air crashes involving U.S. commercial air carriers in 1989, the most per year since 1968.
The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inducts Hank Ballard, Bobby Darin, the Four Seasons, the Four Tops, the Kinks, the Platters, Simon and Garfunkel, and the Who.
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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)
Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.
Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.
Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.
Jan. 17
16—January 18–23, 1990
World Affairs
Jan. 19
Jan. 20
Commercial air service between Argentina and Britain is renewed. British Airways PLC and Aerolineas Argentinas inaugurate the service, which had been suspended since the 1982 Falkland Islands conflict.
Jan. 22
Jan. 23
Africa & the Middle East
The Americas
Asia & the Pacific
Ecuador’s Supreme Court orders the arrest of former president León Febres Cordero Rivadeneira on embezzlement charges.
The Chinese government frees 573 people arrested during a military crackdown on prodemocracy unrest in Beijing in 1989. . . . Mongolian authorities announce a ban on protests.
In Poland, workers at four of the five mines hit by strikes end their job action. However, workers at the fifth mine remain on strike, and workers walk out at a mine in Lubiaz. . . . The Soviet national Communist Party Central Committee appeals to Armenians and Azerbaijanis to put down their weapons. . . . Aldo Gucci, 84, the last surviving son of Guccio Gucci, who founded the well-known Italian leather-goods firm, dies of unreported causes in Rome.
Col. André Neptune, his wife, and their maid are shot and killed by unidentified gunmen in a suburb of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, near the home of presidential candidate, Hubert de Ronceray. . . . In El Salvador, soldiers arrested Jan. 13 for the Nov. 1989 slaying of six Jesuit priests and two others plead not guilty. The suspects include Col. Guillermo Alfredo Benavides Moreno, the highestranking soldier ever detained in connection with human-rights abuses in the decade-old war.
Rodolfo Aguinaldo, governor of the Philippine province of Cagayan, steps down under pressure from Pres. Corazon Aquino. . . . Tomisaburo Hashimoto, 88, powerful figure in Japan’s Liberal Democratic Party, dies of pneumonia in Tokyo.
Soviet troops, in an attack spearheaded by tanks and armored personnel carriers, force their way into central Baku, the capital of the Azerbaijan republic. Heavy gunfire is reported. . . . In Yugoslavia, 1,654 delegates open negotiations, providing an opportunity for the Communists to find solutions to the nation’s economic and ethnic problems.
In Haiti, Lt. Gen. Prosper Avril declares a state of siege and begins arresting and deporting a number of opposition politicians following the Jan. 19 slaying of André Neptune. Hubert de Ronceray, a presidential candidate, is arrested and forced into exile in the U.S. Louis Roy, founder of the Haitian Red Cross, is arrested.
Rioting breaks out in Srinagar, triggered by India’s decision to impose central government rule in Kashmir after the resignation of Farooq Abdullah . . . . China adopts a press code that expands government control over foreign journalists. . . . Naruhiko Higashikuni, 102, a member of the Japanese imperial family, dies in Tokyo.
In India, 50 people are killed and 100 wounded as army troops open fire on Srinagar residents defying a government curfew. This action sets off a string of violent riots. Foreign ministers of Pakistan and India meet in New Delhi. . . . Separately, Indian prime minister V. P. Singh announces that his government has decided to reject a $470 million settlement agreement with U.S.-based Union Carbide Corp. to provide compensation for a 1984 gas leak in Bhopal. . . . More than 2,500 people stage a peaceful prodemocracy rally in Ulan Bator, Mongolia, defying a Jan. 18 ban on demonstrations.
Czechoslovakian premier Marian Calfa resigns from the Communist Party but remains the head of government. . . . Bulgaria’s state news agency reports that ousted Communist Party leader Todor Zhivkov has been placed under house arrest on charges of inciting ethnic hostility, misuse of government property and money, and malfeasance in office. . . . In Poland, Lech Walesa, the founder of the Solidarity labor movement, appeals to striking miners to return to work.
Jan. 18
Jan. 21
Europe
Reports emerge that 50,000 civilians have been killed thus far during the civil war in Somalia.
Thousands of people in Baku, Azerbaijan, defy a ban on demonstrations and hold mass funerals for those killed in the attack on the city. The funerals coincide with a general strike. . . . In a speech to the congress, Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic accuses Slovenia of attempting to break up the party “into six autonomous organizations (representing Yugoslavia’s six republics),” so the Slovenes can “rule their own feudal estates.”
Talks between Walter Sisulu and the ANC’s external leadership end with the willingness of the guerrilla organization to engage in peaceful negotiations with the South African government. . . . Reports confirm that Gen. Michel Aoun shut down most newspapers based in east Beirut for refusing his demand that they not refer to Elias Hrawi as president or Selim al-Hoss as premier. He kept newspapers published in Muslim west Beirut from being distributed. The Phalangist party, the Lebanese Forces’s parent organization, protested by suspending news coverage in its media outlets.
Louis Roy, founder of the Haitian Red Cross, is deported.
Mutinous Azerbaijani military cadets fire on troops in Baku. The Azerbaijani Supreme Soviet condemns as “unconstitutional” the military occupation of Baku, and threatens an Azerbaijan secession from the Soviet Union unless troops are promptly withdrawn. . . . Slovene delegates walk out when the Serbian-led congress votes down Slovene resolutions. Prior to the walkout, the delegates vote to allow a multiparty system, overturning a 1972 constitutional provision.
Kuwaiti police disperse thousands of peaceful prodemocracy protesters with tear gas, water cannons and stun grenades since the rally was declared illegal. . . . In Egypt, police open fire to disperse protesting fundamentalists in Asyut, a hotbed of Muslim militancy. One demonstrator is killed and 12 arrested.
Haiti’s ambassador to the U.S., François Benoit, resigns in response to Lt. Gen. Prosper Avril’s recent actions.
A congress of Yugoslavia’s ruling Communists indefinitely adjourns, and the Slovene party considers a break with the national party. . . . Hungarian Premier Miklos Nemeth states the USSR agreed in principle to a withdrawal of Soviet forces from Hungary. . . . Turkish foreign minister Mesut Yilmaz accuses Soviet troops of a “massive violation of human rights” in the Azerbaijan region, where the official death total reaches 93.
Jewish residents of Azerbaijan begin arriving in Israel. Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir announces “special measures” to bring Azerbaijan Jews to Israel as refugees.
The Haitian government imposes censorship, permitting only officially approved news to be broadcast. . . . In Colombia, Medellín cartel boss Pablo Escobar Gaviria vows to continue a war with the Cali cartel. . . . British Columbia premier William Vander Zalm unveils a compromise plan designed to salvage the Meech Lake accord.
Two people are killed when security forces fire on a crowd of protesters who threw cinders at a UN vehicle in Srinagar. . . . Foreign Minister Gareth Evans announces that Australia is ending its ban on visits to China by government officials.
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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.
January 18–23, 1990—17
U.S. Politics & Social Issues
U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense
U.S. Economy & Environment
Science, Technology, & Nature
Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle
Washington, D.C., mayor Marion S. Barry Jr. (D) is arrested by city police and FBI agents for allegedly purchasing and smoking crack cocaine. . . . In N.Y.C., black groups boycott two grocery stores owned by Korean immigrants in the wake of allegations that store owners beat a Haitian woman. . . . Health and Human Services Secretary Louis Sullivan blasts R.J. Reynolds’s introduction of the Uptown cigarette, charging it is “cynically and deliberately targeted toward black Americans.”
Reports indicate that housing starts fell 8% in Dec. 1989, its lowest level in seven years. . . . The government’s index of consumer prices rose 4.6% in 1989, the highest rate since 1981.
Harvard University researchers challenge claims about the ability of oat bran fiber to lower blood serum cholesterol levels. . . . Astronauts aboard the Columbia receive a telephone call from Pres. Bush in the White House.
Rusty Hamer, 42, former child actor, is found dead of a selfinflicted gunshot wound in De Ridder, La.
In response to the Jan. 18 charge, R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. cancels its plans to test-market a new cigarette, Uptown, aimed at African-American smokers. . . . Arthur Joseph Goldberg, 81, former U.S. secretary of labor, 1961–62, Supreme Court Justice, 1962–65, and United Nations representative, 1965–68, is found dead of heart disease in Washington, D.C.
According to the American Lung Association, $40 billion is the midrange of the annual cost for health care necessitated by air pollution from automobiles. . . . Pres. Bush cautions Congress not to exceed his cost estimates in passing his proposed clean-air legislation.
A Kentucky journalist and antisegregation activist, Anne Braden, is named the winner of the first Roger Baldwin Medal of Liberty, awarded by the ACLU.
Jan. 18
Jan. 19
The Columbia lands safely at Edwards Air Force Base, concluding the longest flight of a U.S. space shuttle.
Barbara Stanwyck (born Ruby Stevens), 82, movie and television actress, dies of congestive heart failure in Santa Monica, Calif. . . . Canadian sprinter Ben Johnson is officially stripped of three world records because of his admitted use of performanceenhancing drugs.
Jan. 20
Jan. 21
A federal jury in New York convicts a former Cornell University graduate student for setting loose a program that disrupted a nationwide computer network in Nov. 1988.
The 101st Congress reconvenes to confront legislation still pending from 1989, including bills on clean air, child care, education, housing, and drugs and crime.
Jan. 22
A federal judge in Los Angeles orders the extradition of Bruno Karl Blach, a retired grocery clerk who was accused of killing three prisoners while serving as a guard in a Nazi concentration camp in World War II.
Cartoonist Charles Schulz, who draws the “Peanuts” comic strip, is named a Commander of Arts and Letters by the French Culture Minister in Paris. . . . . Roman Catholic auxiliary bishop Austin Vaughan claims that New York governor Mario Cuomo (D) is at “serious risk of going to hell” for his views on abortion.
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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)
Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.
Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.
Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.
Jan. 23
18—January 24–28, 1990
World Affairs
Europe
Africa & the Middle East
Hungary passes legislation guaranteeing freedom of religion. . . . In Bucharest, the government outlaws unauthorized demonstrations. . . . Nearly daily battles between armed demonstrators, ethnic Albanians, and Serbian paramilitary riot police begin in Kosovo. Much of the violence takes place in Podujevo, but clashes are reported in other Kosovo communities. . . . Azerbaijani troops break a blockade at Baku harbor by shelling oil tankers taken over by nationalist forces.
Jan. 24
Storms with winds of more than 100 miles per hour claim at least 94 lives in Western Europe. . . . Troops round up members of a militant faction of the Azerbaijan Popular Front in Baku and seize a storehouse of weapons and ammunition.
Jan. 25
The first detailed political statement from Nelson Mandela in 26 years is published inside South Africa. . . . Torrential rains cause flooding that leaves at least 24 people dead, 32 missing, and thousands homeless in Tunisia.
In Haiti, Lt. Gen. Prospev Avril states he intends to lift the state of siege and pledges to proceed with scheduled elections.
In Poland, the United Workers’ Party votes itself out of existence and re-forms as the leftist Social Democracy Party. The delegates adopt new bylaws and a democratic-socialist platform. . . . A cease-fire takes effect when the Azerbaijan Popular Front and the Armenian National Movement agree to begin peace talks. . . . In East Germany, another mishap is reported to have happened at the Bruno Leuschner nuclear plant in Greifswald on Nov. 24, 1989. . . . The People’s Chamber approves legislation to free East Germany’s state media from communist control and to end state censorship.
Jan. 28
Four Indian air force soldiers are shot and killed by militants in Srinagar, while in Handawor, nine people are killed and 40 wounded when police open fire on a crowd of protesters. Indian officials report that about 70 people have been killed in the last five days of violence. . . . Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto becomes the first modern head of government to give birth while in office.
Haiti’s largest foreign-aid donor, France suspends its financial aid to protest the state of siege. . . . Archbishop Lewis Samuel Garnsworthy, 67, outspoken former Anglican archbishop of Ontario, dies in Toronto after suffering from cancer.
Reports show that Great Britain was the hardest hit from a wave of storms in Europe since 46 people died there. . . . In Poland, the United Workers Party opens its congress.
Jan. 27
Asia & the Pacific
Brazilian president-elect Fernando Collor de Mello begins a world tour. . . . An Israeli tied to Colombia’s drug cartels, Arik Afek, who helped plan security for Pres. Bush’s planned visit to Cartagena, is found slain. . . . Gilberto Rodríguez Orejuela, reputed leader of the Cali drug cartel, offers to surrender in a letter. . . . Argentine defense minister Italo Luder resigns.
The Bulgarian government announces it will remove the Communist Party’s control of military and police forces. . . . In Romania, interim vice president Dumitru Mazilu resigns. . . . Separately, Deputy Premier Gelu VoicanVoiculescu reveals the bodies of Nicolae and Elena Ceausescu were buried in secret in Bucharest after their execution in Dec. 1989. . . . AP reports that, from the storm begun Jan. 25, there have been 19 deaths in the Netherlands, 10 in Belgium, eight in France, seven in West Germany, and four in Denmark.
Jan. 26
The Americas
The Australian government charges Ukrainian immigrant Ivan Timofeyevich Polyukhovich, 73, with war crimes allegedly committed during the Nazi German occupation of the Soviet Union in World War II. He is the first person to be charged under Australia’s War Crimes Amendment Act, passed in 1988.
A South African newspaper reports that President F. W. de Klerk, in a closed-door speech to police officers, said the police would no longer be used to fight political battles.
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Includes developments that affect more than one world region, international organizations, and important meetings of major world leaders.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.
January 24–28, 1990—19
U.S. Politics & Social Issues
A federally funded study on black, inner-city teenagers finds that pregnant teens who had abortions did better economically, educationally, and emotionally than those who had children.
U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense
U.S. Economy & Environment
Science, Technology, & Nature
Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle
Retired air force major general Richard V. Secord is sentenced to two years’ probation for making false statements in the Iran-contra arms investigation.
Empire of America Federal Savings Bank is seized by federal regulators because they deem it insolvent.
IBM joins Siemens AG of West Germany in researching and developing a new semiconductor, or memory chip. . . . . Japan launches a satellite toward the Moon to test methods and equipment for future planetary probes.
Madge Bellamy, 89, Hollywood actress, dies of a heart ailment in Upland, Calif.
The Senate votes to sustain President Bush’s veto of a 1989 bill that would have prohibited Chinese exchange students from being deported.
General Electric’s NBC unit announces an agreement with Philips Consumer Electronics Co. and Thomson CSF of France to develop high-definition television for the U.S. market.
A Colombian Avianca Airlines jetliner crashes in Cove Neck, N.Y. Seventy-three are killed and dozens more are injured.
Ava Lavinia Gardner, 67, one of Hollywood’s best-known movie stars from the 1940s, dies of pneumonia in London.
In a letter to Pres. Bush, Manuel Noriega claims to be a prisoner of war because he surrendered to U.S. authorities in the wake of the Dec. 1989 invasion of Panama.
Federal banking regulators announce their intention to sanction Neil Bush, one of Pres. Bush’s sons, for alleged “conflicts of interest” while the director of a Denver-based savings and loan bank.
The Dark Half by Stephen King tops the bestseller list. . . . Lewis Mumford, 94, American cultural critic, urban planner, historian, and political commentator, dies in his sleep in Amenia, New York.
The Miami Herald reports that Arik Afek, found slain on Jan. 24, told friends that he had traveled to Colombia with Secret Service agents four times to help them prepare for president Bush’s trip. . . . U.S. vice president Dan Quayle begins a visit to Panama, Honduras, and Jamaica in an effort to reassure regional leaders about U.S. policy in the wake of the December 1989 U.S. invasion of Panama.
Jan. 24
Jan. 25
Jan. 26
Jan. 27
A U.S. Secret Service agent confirms reports that the Secret Service questioned Arik Afek on the military capabilities of the Medellín cartel.
Investigators find that the Colombian Boeing 707 jet that crashed on Jan. 25 had apparently ran out of fuel and that none of its four engines were functioning at the time of the crash.
The San Francisco 49ers win Super Bowl XXIV with a record-breaking score of 55-10 over the Denver Broncos.
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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)
Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.
Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.
Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.
Jan. 28
20—January 29–February 3, 1990
World Affairs
Feb. 2
Feb. 3
The Americas
Asia & the Pacific
In Haiti, Lt. Gen. Prosper Avril ends a state of siege. . . . A resolution passes by the City Council of Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, which declares English the city’s official language, sets off controversy in Canada. . . . In Nicaragua, President Daniel Ortega agrees to allow Catholic priests to say mass at prisons and military bases. . . . Argentina’s chief of intelligence, Juan Bautista Yofre, resigns. He is the fourth major government figure to resign since the beginning of 1990.
An emergency congress of the ruling Bulgarian Communist Party begins.
In response to clashes between Christian soldiers and militiamen in Lebanon Gen. Michel Aoun declares that only his men have the right to carry weapons, claiming “there are no armed elements outside the framework of the army.” . . . In South Africa, Clayton Sizwe Sithole is found hanged in a police cell.
The Ontario Court of Appeal declares unconstitutional a provincial regulation that provides for religion classes in the regular curriculum of public elementary schools. . . . Reports that tiny microphones were found in Argentine president Carlos Menem’s official residence and in his private home emerge.
In NYC, Salvadoran president Alfredo Cristiani meets with UN secretary general Javier Pérez de Cuellar. They reach an agreement to try to revive peace talks with the leftist Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front rebel organization that stalled in Nov. 1989.
Frantisek Pitra, a hard-line Communist, resigns as the premier of the Czech republic. . . . McDonald’s opens its first outlet in the Soviet Union and serves more than 30,000 people on its debut day, setting an international record.
In Lebanon, fighting begins when army troops loyal to Gen. Aoun move against the Lebanese Forces, led by Samir Geagea. . . . Reports emerge that almost all Western relief workers have been evacuated from Juba in Sudan, which is under siege by rebels. . . . In South Africa, Pres. F. W. de Klerk announces an investigation the death of Clayton Sizwe Sithole. He also states there will be a probe into allegations that a secret police unit ran death squads to assassinate antiapartheid activists.
In Haiti, Prosper Avril states at a news conference that seven opposition politicians exiled under the state of siege may return to Haiti and will have “all necessary guarantees to participate in elections.” The seven include Hubert de Ronceray, Antoine Izméry, Max Bourjolly, and Louis Roy.
Cuba’s representative to the UN, Ricardo Alarcón de Quesada, takes over as president of the UN Security Council, the first time since 1957 that a Cuban has held the post.
After nearly daily battles that started on Jan. 24, army units move into Kosovo province under a state of emergency. The official death toll reaches 19, with most of the victims ethnic Albanians. . . . Storms begin in Great Britain that continue on the continent for the next three days and take over 50 lives. . . . Reports emerge that a Soviet nuclear submarine sunk off Norway in 1989 is leaking radiation. . . . In Bulgaria, Premier Georgi Atanasov and his entire 22-member cabinet resign.
The UN World Health Organization estimates there were 215,144 AIDS cases worldwide by the end of Jan. 1990, up from 203,599 at the end of 1989.
A military court in Bucharest sentences four Ceausescu aides of complicity to commit genocide to life imprisonment. . . . Yugoslav president Janez Drnovsek meets with Kosovo’s political leaders. . . . Armenian and Azerbaijani negotiators hold peace talks. . . . A congress of the ruling Bulgarian Communist Party elects Alexander Lilov as party chairman.
South African president de Klerk lifts a 30-year ban on the African National Congress and promises to release activist Nelson Mandela shortly. Celebratory marches are held in major South African cities.
The question of German reunification dominates the annual World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. At the meeting, West German chancellor Helmut Kohl outlines a plan for reunification that has been discussed by U.S. secretary of state James Baker and West German foreign minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher.
In Bulgaria, Andrei Lukanov is nominated and confirmed as premier with a unanimous vote at a parliament session.
The South African government gazette publishes the names of at least 165 people whose names and words will no longer be blacklisted from publication. The list includes Oliver Tambo, Joseph Slovo, and ANC secretary general Alfred Nzo.
Jan. 30
Feb. 1
Africa & the Middle East
About 20,000 people demonstrate in Bucharest, Romania, while an equally large counter-protest is staged in support of the interim regime. Police and soldiers protect Corneliu Coposu, the Peasants Party leader, from a mob. . . . Former Bulgarian leader Todor Zhivkov is placed under formal arrest and is transferred to a prison in Sofia. The prosecutor’s office announces indictments against two Zhivkov associates for “malfeasance in office.” . . . The final report into the 1989 tragedy at Hillsborough Stadium that killed 95 football fans rejects the British government’s plan for an ID card scheme and calls for phasing out standing sections for fans at stadiums.
Jan. 29
Jan. 31
Europe
Ricardo J. (Ricky) Bordallo, 63, governor of the U.S. territory of Guam, who was convicted in 1987 of bribery and extortion, wraps himself in Guam’s national flag, chains himself to a statue in Guam, and shoots himself in the head.
South Korean transportation minister Kim Chang-keun announces plans for a new international airport and two new rail lines.
Reports surface that a prominent Chinese dissident, Liu Qing, was released from prison in Dec. 1989, 10 years after his arrest.
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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.
January 29–February 3, 1990—21
U.S. Politics & Social Issues
U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense
U.S. Economy & Environment
Science, Technology, & Nature
Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle
The FDA approves the use of fluconazole to treat fungal infections in AIDS patients. . . . Marilyn Harrell pleads guilty in federal court to charges that she embezzled $4.5 million from the Department of Housing and Urban Development.
Defense Secretary Dick Cheney formally unveils the fiscal 1991 defense budget.
Pres. Bush sends to Congress a $1.23 trillion budget for fiscal 1991 that does not raise taxes, abides by the federal-deficit ceiling set by law, and sets forth several domestic initiatives. However, it also embodies only slight cuts in real defense spending and larger cutbacks in a variety of domestic programs. Bush’s budget is quickly attacked by key Democrats in Congress as unrealistic.
While reporting on the Jan. 25 crash, The Wall Street Journal cites a 1989 study by MIT and the U.S. Air Force Center for Studies and Analyses that found that Colombian airline Avianca has the second-worst fatality record of any air carrier in the world.
A federal judge orders former president Ronald Reagan to provide excerpts of his personal diaries for use in former national security adviser John Poindexter’s Irancontra trial. . . . Salvadoran president Alfredo Cristiani visits the U.S. to discuss U.S. aid to El Salvador and possible peace talks with leftist rebels.
The Senate authorizes $9.7 billion in funding for the State Department and related agencies in fiscal 1990 and 1991.
Jan. 30
Pres. Bush delivers his State of the Union message and declares that political changes in 1989 brought about a “new era” in world affairs.
Pres. Bush proposes that the U.S. and Soviet Union reduce forces in Central Europe to 195,000 troops on each side in his State of the Union address. . . . A grand jury in Los Angeles charges Mexican officials in the 1985 torture and slaying of a U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agent.
Federal regulators seize MeraBank because it is in violation of new savings-and-loan industry capital requirements.
Jan. 31
Attorney General Richard Thornburgh recommends the appointment of a special prosecutor to investigate former Housing and Urban Development officials.
The State Department proposes an increase of $50 million in aid to El Salvador in fiscal 1991. . . . Iranian-American businessman Albert Hakim is sentenced for a misdemeanor in the Iran-contra arms scandal.
John J. Phelan Jr. states he will resign as chairman of the New York Stock Exchange at the end of 1990. . . . Chrysler announces it will close its St. Louis, Mo., car plant, the third to close since 1987.
More than 700 eminent American scientists, including 49 winners of the Nobel Prize, urge Pres. Bush to take action on global warming.
Peter Racine Fricker, 69, composer, dies of unreported causes in Santa Barbara, Calif.
Feb. 1
California senator Joseph Montoya is convicted on seven counts of extortion, racketeering, and money laundering.
The Justice Department agrees to treat ousted Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega as a prisoner of war, but that designation makes no difference to Noriega’s case. . . . Pres. Bush orders a state-controlled Chinese corporation to divest itself of the controlling interest in an American aircraft-parts manufacturer purchased in 1989.
Federal regulators seize CenTrust Bank, Florida’s largest thrift, declaring it insolvent.
Pres. Bush names 13 scientists and engineers to his newly created President’s Council of Advisers on Science and Technology and taps D. Allan Bromley to serve as the chair of the council.
Mel Lewis (born Melvin Sokoloff), 60, jazz drummer and orchestra leader, dies of cancer in NYC.
Feb. 2
Jan. 29
Jockey Bill Shoemaker ends a farewell tour preceding his retirement with a fourth-place ride aboard Patchy Groundfog at Santa Anita Park in Arcadia, Calif.
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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)
Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.
Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.
Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.
Feb. 3
22—February 4–9, 1990
Feb. 4
Feb. 5
Feb. 6
Europe
At the World Economic Forum in Davos, Polish president Wojciech Jaruzelski indicates that the main reason that Poland has not yet joined Hungary and Czechoslovakia in pressing for withdrawal of Soviet troops is concern over possible disputes with a reunified Germany over its eastern border with Poland.
The Slovene branch of the ruling League of Communists secedes from the central party, a serious blow to Yugoslav national unity. . . . Tens of thousands of people participate in a massive prodemocracy rally in Moscow, the largest unofficial demonstration in the Soviet capital since the 1917. . . . Storms continue throughout Europe. . . . Silviu Brucan, a leading spokesman for Romania’s provisional regime, resigns from the ruling front’s executive council.
Masked gunmen stop an Egyptian bus filled with Israeli tourists and open fire with automatic weapons and grenades. Eight Israelis are killed, and 17 are wounded, one of whom later dies. It is the worst anti-Israeli terrorist incident in Egypt since 1979. Egyptian Pres. Hosni Mubarak expresses his revulsion at the incident to P.M. Yitzhak Shamir of Israel. . . . Suspected far-right extremists escape after shooting out windows at the British embassy in Pretoria and painting pro-Boer graffiti on the building.
Rafael Angel Calderón Fournier of the opposition Social Christian Unity Party is elected president of Costa Rica. . . . The government admits that Argentina’s intelligence agency planted tiny microphones throughout Argentine president Carlos Menem’s official residence and in his private home and offices.
The International Monetary Fund approves $723 million in standby credit for Poland.
Hundreds of right-wing skinhead protesters march through a demonstration for reform in Leipzig while shouting Nazi slogans. . . . The Financial Times reports that storms in Europe took 29 lives, 23 in France. . . . East Germany’s communists lose their government majority when eight opposition figures are added to the coalition cabinet.
In South Africa, police report incidents of serious violence in 11 black townships nationwide, including a major clash between police and protestors in Tembisa. Conservative Party officials state they are mobilizing discontented whites, registering them to vote, and planning a freedom march and general strike to demonstrate white anger in South Africa.
In response to the Jan. 29 Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, resolution to make English the city’s official language, opposition leaders John Turner and Audrey McLaughlin ask P.M. Brian Mulroney to endorse a resolution reaffirming Canada’s commitment to bilingualism.
A three-judge panel in Seoul sentences a dissident student, Lim Su Kyong, to 10 years in prison for making an illegal visit to North Korea in 1989. A Roman Catholic priest, Reverend Moon Kyu Hyun, who accompanied Kyong, receives an eight-year sentence.
The World Bank approves two loans to Poland totaling $360 million.
The West German government outlines a plan to establish the West German mark as the single currency for East and West Germany. . . . Interior Minister Atanas Semerdzhiev announces that Bulgaria’s secret police has been disbanded. . . . Despite the Jan. 28 cease-fire between Armenians and Azerbaijanis, an Azerbaijani blockade of Armenia, protest strikes in Azerbaijan, and sporadic clashes between Soviet forces and Azerbaijanis continue.
The Soviet Communist Party Central Committee votes to renounce the party’s constitutionally guaranteed monopoly on political power. It is a historic victory for Pres. Gorbachev’s plan for “democratization.” . . . Janez Drnovsek, Slovene representative to the Yugoslavian presidency, discloses that the military presence in Kosovo will increase.
Jesse Jackson, a U.S. civil-rights leader and former presidential candidate, begins his first visit to South Africa since 1979.
The Haitian government declares a general amnesty for political prisoners to mark the fourth anniversary of the fall of Pres. Jean-Claude Duvalier. . . . A forest fire in the Poco das Antas Wildlife Reserve in Brazil threatens the last population of the nearly extinct golden lion marmoset. . . . In Peru, Henry Pease, a candidate from the United Left in upcoming elections, is hit in the knee by shotgun pellets when police break up a campaign march.
The state education commission adopts new restrictions that make it more difficult for Chinese students to study abroad.
Premier Lukanov appoints a cabinet composed entirely of communists in Bulgaria. . . . East Germany accepts responsibility for the crimes of Nazi Germany against the Jews. . . . Reports emerge that the Bucharest government banned adoptions of Romanian children by foreigners. . . . Sir Ernest William Titterton, 73, British nuclear scientist, dies in Australia. . . . Georges de Mestral, 82, Swiss inventor who created Velcro, dies in Switzerland.
While Ethiopian government troops are occupied with resisting Tigray People’s Liberation Front forces, another rebel group, the Eritrean People’s Liberation Front launches an offensive against the strategic port of Massawa.
The Ontario government and five Indian bands on Manitoulin Island reach historic land-claim settlement; the bands will receive a total of approximately C$8 million. . . . P.M. Mulroney forcefully defends Canada’s bilingual tradition in a speech. . . . According to Nicaraguan rebel reports, Enrique Bermúdez was ousted as commanding general of the contras. . . In Brazil, president-elect Collor states his administration will create an environmental secretariat.
Hungary reestablishes diplomatic relations with the Vatican. . . . In Bucharest, the new Council for National Unity convenes its first session and decides to expand the interim parliament to accommodate newer parties.
Iran’s supreme religious leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, reaffirms a yearold death edict on British novelist Salman Rushdie. . . . Namibia’s Constituent Assembly votes to adopt a constitution that will give the country the most liberal multiparty democracy in Africa.
The Nicaraguan government frees all remaining political prisoners as a gesture of goodwill two weeks before national elections. . . . In Peru, reports confirm that Interior Minister Agustín Mantilla tendered his resignation after police wounded a presidential candidate at a political demonstration on Feb. 7.
Feb. 7
Feb. 8
Feb. 9
Africa & the Middle East
World Affairs
The World Health Organization approves a plan to aid Romania since the country is suffering an epidemic of AIDS in children
The Americas
Asia & the Pacific
South Korea’s ruling Democratic Justice Party and two opposition groups formally merge into one party. Students in Seoul battle riot police in two days of protests over a party merger. In Kwangju, 1,000 students clash with police following an antigovernment demonstration.
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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.
February 4–9, 1990—23
U.S. Politics & Social Issues
U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense
U.S. Economy & Environment
Science, Technology, & Nature
The Washington Post reports that federal prosecutors are currently investigating Houston developer Robert L. Corson in connection with savings and loan fraud. Corson is described as a “known money launderer” with reputed links to the CIA and organized crime.
Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle The National Football Conference defeats the American Football Conference, 27-21, in the National Football League’s annual Pro Bowl All-Star Game in Honolulu.
Feb. 4
In Selma, Ala., in response to the firing of its first black school superintendent, Norward Roussell, a group of black students walk out of Selma High School, and school officials close the city’s schools for a week to prevent further disturbances. . . . Ed Herschler (D), 71, who served three terms as governor of Wyoming, dies of cancer in Cheyenne.
A federal judge orders former president Ronald Reagan to give videotaped testimony for use in the Irancontra trial of John Poindexter.
A 12-person Superior Court jury in Anchorage, Alaska, begins hearing evidence in the criminal case against Capt. Joseph Hazelwood, master of the Exxon Valdez at the time of the the ship’s oil spill. . . . Reports indicate that productivity among the nation’s nonfarm businesses rose just 0.9% in 1989, the smallest gain since 1982.
The House passes legislation that makes it easier for U.S. citizens to register to vote. . . . The Los Angeles board of education votes to require all schools within the Los Angeles Unified School District to convert to a year-round schedule. . . . Officials of the Roman Catholic Franciscan order announce that Rev. Bruce Ritter, the head of Covenant House in NYC, the nation’s largest shelter for runaway youths, is stepping aside temporarily in the wake of allegations that he had sexual relations with three male runaways.
Secretary of State James Baker begins a visit to the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, and Romania. . . . Pres. Bush starts a three-day tour of military bases and weapons facilities in an attempt to win public support for his recently released fiscal 1991 defense budget.
Pres. Bush’s Council of Economic Advisers issues its first annual economic report, lauding the free-market beliefs that guided fiscal policy during the Reagan administration and issuing ambitious goals for the 1990s. . . . Agriculture Secretary Clayton Yeutter unveils recommendations for a new farm bill that proposes “flexibility” and “positive incentives” to meet environmental and market concerns. The bill, however, avoids specifying cuts in farm subsidy programs asked for in the administration’s budget proposals.
Rock singer Billy Idol suffers compound fractures of his right leg and forearm in a motorcycle accident in Los Angeles.
Feb. 6
A bipartisan group of legislators introduces legislation in both houses of Congress to strengthen laws against job discrimination that were weakened by several Supreme Court decisions in 1989.
The House and Senate approve $42 million in emergency aid to Panama. . . . Former president Reagan invokes executive privilege and refuses to surrender his diaries in the Iran-contra hearings. . . . Congress approves $10 million in aid to “support the democratic transition in Eastern Europe.”
New York City files a damage suit against Exxon Corp. over the January pipeline spill of 567,000 gallons of heating oil into the Arthur Kill waterway off Staten Island. . . . An American Transport and Trading Co. tanker spills nearly 400,000 gallons of crude oil a few miles off Huntington Beach, Calif.
Nathan (Nat) Wartels, 88, founder and former chairman of Crown Publishers, dies of pneumonia in NYC.
Feb. 7
A proposal by Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D, N.Y.) to reduce the Social Security payroll tax encounters significant opposition. . . . The FCC accuses two Nynex Corp. units, New York Telephone Co. and New England Telephone and Telegraph Co., of overcharging customers by $35.5 million and orders them to return the money and pay a $1.4 million fine.
CBS News suspends satirical commentator Andy Rooney for three months without pay in response to remarks that Rooney allegedly made that were derogatory to blacks and homosexuals.
Daniel P. Kearney resigns as president and CEO of the Oversight Board of the Resolution Trust Corp.
Susan Eisenhower, granddaughter of former president Dwight D. Eisenhower, marries Soviet scientist Roald Sagdeyev in Moscow.
The first test of student geography skills administered by the National Assessment of Educational Progress shows that U.S. high school seniors lack geographical knowledge. . . . In Alabama, about 150 students and sympathizers launch a sit-in at Selma High School to protest the firing of the city’s first black school superintendent, Norward Roussell.
John Gotti, reputed head of the Gambino crime family, is acquitted in NYC of assault and conspiracy charges involving the 1986 shooting of a carpenters’ union official. . . . James Fleming Gordon, 71, retired federal judge, dies of complications from lung surgery in Sarasota, Fla.
Former president Reagan agrees to provide videotaped testimony for the Iran-contra trial of former national security adviser John Poindexter.
Feb. 5
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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)
Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.
Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.
Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.
Feb. 8
Feb. 9
24—February 10–15, 1990
World Affairs
Feb. 10
Feb. 11
An unprecedented meeting of the foreign ministers of the 16 NATO nations and the 7 Warsaw Pact countries convenes in Ottawa. . . . The release of Nelson Mandela is applauded by the UN, the EC, the Commonwealth, and the Organization of African Unity. Leaders of several countries, including the U.S., praise the release.
Feb. 12
Feb. 13
At a landmark conference in Ottawa, the Soviets tentatively agree to limit their total number of troops in Europe to 195,000, all in the central zone, giving the U.S. a manpower advantage.
Feb. 14
Feb. 15
The presidents of the U.S., Peru, Bolivia, and Colombia meet in Cartagena, Colombia, and pledge to fight against illegal narcotics trafficking. . . . Negotiators for Great Britain and Argentina agree to fully restore diplomatic relations that were cut after a 1982 war over the Falkland Islands.
Europe
Africa & the Middle East
The Americas
Asia & the Pacific
James Baker becomes the first U.S. official to testify before a committee of the Soviet parliament. He is also the first secretary of state to visit Bulgaria as he flies to Sofia to meet with Pres. Petar Mladenov and Premier Andrei Lukanov after testifying. . . . West German chancellor Helmut Kohl meets with Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev to discuss Germany’s reunification, and they agree on a number of issues as momentum toward the reunification of East and West Germany grows.
In Ethiopia, the Eritrean People’s Liberation Front claims to have captured Massawa in one of the greatest rebel victories of the nearly 30-year-old Eritrean war, Africa’s longest.
In Bulgaria, 30 reformists quit the Communist Party and form the Alternative Socialist Party. . . . Secretary of State Baker meets with Romanian interim president Ion Iliescu and interim premier Petre Roman.
South African black nationalist leader Nelson Mandela is freed after more than 27 years in prison; he gives an address that backs the African National Congress’s armed struggle and calls for the complete destruction of apartheid.
Colombian drug traffickers begin to admit journalists to a complex of three drug-processing laboratories near the town of Turbo. Reporters state the complex, capable of producing as much as 20 tons of cocaine a month, is larger than any yet discovered by the authorities.
Hungary revives dual citizenship for Romanians of Hungarian descent for the first time since 1979. . . . Three days of demonstrations are held in Bucharest by thousands of junior military officers who call for the dismissals of Gen. Nicolae Militaru and Interior Minister Mihai Ghitac. The officers disobey orders by participating in the protests, and the statecontrolled press characterizes the protests as a “mutiny.”. . . Rioting begins in Dushanbe, Tadzhikistan, when several thousand people launch a protest in front of the CP headquarters.
In Israel, Trade and Industry Minister Ariel Sharon announces that he is quitting the cabinet, which sparks controversy.
A fire ignites at the Tyre King Recycling Ltd. dump in Ontario and burns for more than two weeks. . . . The New Democratic Party wins its first parliamentary seat in Quebec.
Western Australia premier Peter Dowding resigns after serving just under two years as state leader because of his role in a scandal involving mismanagement at a joint state government-private business enterprise known as WA Inc. Deputy Premier David Parker resigns as well.
After a meeting in Bonn, West German chancellor Kohl and East German Premier Hans Modrow agree to open talks on uniting the monetary systems of the two nations . . . . . Reports from the KGB estimate that 786,098 people were shot to death as enemies of the state during the reign of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin. . . . In Tadzhikistan, a mob storms the Communist Party headquarters.
In South Africa, the far-right Conservative Party files formal charges of treason against Mandela for continuing to advocate armed struggle, and CP leader Andries Treurnicht states that president F. W. de Klerk no longer has the support of Afrikaners. It is also reported that the fighting in Natal since Mandela’s release resulted in the deaths of 50 people.
Colombian drug traffickers announce they will turn over to the government the three drug-processing laboratories and 15,000 barrels of chemicals used to refine cocaine that were shown to journalists Feb. 11. . . . Guerrillas of Colombia’s leftist National Liberation Army announce that they kidnapped David Kent and James Donnelly, two U.S. citizens, to protest Pres. Bush’s visit and drug policy.
Carmen Lawrence is unanimously elected by an emergency meeting of the Labor Party Caucus in Perth as the state’s first woman premier in Australian history.
The Soviet media reports pitched battles between Tadzhiks and police and interior-ministry troops. Clashes erupt in other parts of Tadzhikistan as well. . . . The Supreme Soviet convenes in Moscow, and Pres. Gorbachev calls for tough new laws to counter ethnic strife.
The African National Congress holds a preliminary meeting in Lusaka, the capital of Zambia. . . . Before embarking on a trip to West Germany, Israeli foreign minister Moshe Arens states that Israel can back a united Germany if it is “a democratic Germany fully conscious of the responsibilities that it has towards the Jewish people.”
Ernesto Díaz Rodriguez, a long-term political prisoner, begins a fast to press for UN scrutiny of the human rights situation in Cuba. . . . Some 10,000 people march in Bogotá, Colombia, to protest Pres. Bush’s visit. . . . Canadian prime minister Brian Mulroney admits that the Feb. 12 election result shows that the Progressive Conservatives are losing support across the country.
At least 91 people are killed when an Indian Airlines passenger jet crashes while preparing to land in Bangalore. . . . U.S. defense secretary Dick Cheney starts a tour of South Korea, the Philippines, Hong Kong, and Japan.
Communist Party and government leaders of Tadzhikistan resign after outbursts of ethnic strife . . . . Romania’s interim premier Petre Roman vows a probe of the military’s actions in Timisoara after days of protests. . . . A debate on reunification in West Germany’s lower parliamentary house produces heated exchanges. . . . Sweden’s premier, Ingvar Carlsson, resigns after a heated economic debate. . . . (Edward) Guy Schofield, 87, British newspaper editor, dies in London.
As many as 15,000 right-wing whites attend a rally in Pretoria to protest Pres. de Klerk’s legalization of the African National Congress and freeing of Mandela, one of the largest crowds of whites at a political gathering in South Africa in years.
The National Liberation Army abducts a U.S. priest, Reverend Francisco Amico Ferrari, along with two U.S. citizens kidnapped on Feb. 13, to protest Pres. Bush’s drug policies in Colombia.
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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.
February 10–15, 1990—25
U.S. Politics & Social Issues
U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense
U.S. Economy & Environment
Science, Technology, & Nature
Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle
The goal of a “sustainable” society is set forth by the Washingtonbased research organization Worldwatch Institute, which warns that without change, a period of global degradation will be reached within 40 years.
NASA’s Galileo spacecraft completes a “celestial billiard shot” around Venus. The craft makes its closest approach to Venus, about 10,000 miles above the surface.
Jill Trenary wins her third U.S. Figure Skating championship.
The Soviet Union launches a new team to the space station Mir from the Baikonur space complex.
Donald and Ivana Trump announce they are divorcing. . . . Todd Eldredge wins the men’s title in the U.S. Figure Skating championship. . . . The Eastern Conference wins NBA’s All-Star Game. . . . James (Buster) Douglas scores one of the greatest upsets in the history of boxing when he knocks out undefeated heavyweight champion Mike Tyson.
Franklin R. Collbohm, 83, pioneering aviation engineer, dies in Palm Desert, Calif., after suffering a stroke.
The National Book Critics Circle presents awards to E. L. Doctorow, Michael Dorris, Rodney Jones, Geoffrey C. Ward, and James Clive.
Pres. Bush indicates that he will not immediately ask Congress to lift economic sanctions against South Africa in a news conference.
The American Bar Association votes for the first time to support a constitutional right to abortion.
The White House announces the U.S. military presence in Panama is now equal to the number of troops before the invasion.
Drexel Lambert Group Inc. file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection from creditors.
According to a report by the National Academy of Science’s Institute of Medicine and National Research Council, the U.S. is decades behind many other countries-in the development of new birth-control methods. . . . The Justice Department files suit against six locals of the International Longshoremen’s Association in a move to end alleged influence by organized crime.
Feb. 10
Feb. 11
Feb. 12
Feb. 13
Voyager 1 indicates that its cameras took pictures of the solar system while 3.7 billion miles from Earth. . . . A rocket launched from Cape Canaveral puts two satellites into orbit to test reflection techniques.
A federal grand jury in Washington, D.C., indicts Mayor Marion S. Barry Jr. (D) on eight counts of drug possession and perjury.
Feb. 14
Keyes Beech, 76, foreign correspondent who won a Pulitzer Prize in 1951, dies of emphysema in Washington, D.C.
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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.
Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.
Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.
Feb. 15
26—February 16–21, 1990
World Affairs
Europe East German premier Hans Modrow agrees that Poland should be included in reunification plans. . . . Romania’s interim defense minister Gen. Nicolae Militaru resigns, and Col. Gen. Victor Stanculescu replaces him. . . . Vladimir Vasilievich Shcherbitsky, 71, former member of the Soviet Politburo, dies in the USSR.
Feb. 16
Feb. 19
Feb. 20
U.S. secretary of state James Baker calls on the UN to adopt a global antinarcotics program. . . . Foreign ministers of the EC, meeting in Dublin, for the first time give unanimous approval to German unity. . . . The United Kingdom announces that it will unilaterally lift a ban on new investments in South Africa. The move angers members of the EC, which opposes easing economic sanctions against the white minority government in Pretoria until it makes greater steps to abolish apartheid.
Feb. 21
The Americas
Namibia’s Assembly votes to elect SWAPO leader Sam Nujoma as the nation’s first president. . . . . The partially burned body of Kenyan foreign minister Robert Ouko is found in Koru. . . . Army troops overrun the east Beirut headquarters of the Lebanese Forces in Ain al Rummaneh.
Asia & the Pacific A drafting committee gives final approval to a new constitution for Hong Kong, ending several years of negotiations over the island’s political future.
In Lebanon, Samir Geagea’s militiamen launch an attack on the army helicopter base at Adma. However, a shaky cease-fire brings at least a temporary halt after two weeks of fighting between rival Christian forces in Lebanon that has killed over 600 people. Gen. Michel Aoun takes advantage of the pause to evacuate his men from Adma, leaving it to Lebanese Forces control.
In Cuba, the Central Committee of the Communist Party announces a campaign to “perfect” and “revitalize” the nation’s political system.
In Romania, 1,000 anticommunist demonstrators storm the government’s headquarters and seize Interim Deputy Premier Gelu VoicanVoiculescu, before being persuaded by soldiers to leave the building.
In Israel, Trade and Industry Minister Ariel Sharon formally resigns from the cabinet.
Some 50,000 National Opposition Union supporters gather in Nicaragua for UNO’s final rally, which is described as the largest anti-Sandinista demonstration ever staged in Managua.
About 10,000 people rally in Nepal, even after 700 political dissidents were jailed prior to planned demonstrations. . . . Japan’s Liberal Democratic Party is a surprise winner in general elections for the lower house. . . . About 600 people establish the Mongolian Democratic Party, the first opposition party in modern Mongolian history. A series of prodemocracy protests begins in Mongolia.
In Romania, interim president Ion Iliescu calls for measures to strengthen the military and police after days of protests. . . . A Bulgarian government decree is made public that grants private farmers the right to choose methods of farming and to export produce. The decree sets no limit on the amount of land a private farmer can cultivate.
Three members of Lesotho’s ruling six-man military council and a fourth senior army officer are arrested for apparently plotting against the government of Major Gen. Justin Lekhanya. . . . Students begin to protest in the Ivory Coast by boycotting classes. . . . In South Africa, Defense Minister Magnus Malan confirms accounts of the existence of the covert unit euphemistically named the Civil Cooperation Bureau.
Bank clerks, prison employees, and construction workers strike, as Peru’s economic crisis deepens. . . . In Colombia, Amico Ferrari is freed after a Feb. 15 abduction. He conveys a list of targets of the National Liberation Army, including the U.S. ambassador to Colombia, Thomas McNamara, and U.S. military advisers in the country.
In Nepal, a general strike is called by the Movement to Restore Democracy, an alliance of banned political parties. . . . In an attempt to calm protests, Kashmir governor Shri Jagmohan dissolves the state legislature since rumors of election fraud anger Muslim separatists. . . . . U.S. defense secretary Dick Cheney meets with Defense Secretary Fidel Ramos to discuss aid and the future of U.S. bases in the Philippines.
The city of Bremen becomes the first West German city to declare a freeze on accepting East German resettlers. . . . Reports state that Albania is encouraging limited foreign joint ventures. . . . In response to the unrest, the National Salvation Front calls for new laws to maintain public order in Romania.
Government investigators state that Kenyan foreign minister Robert Ouko was shot once in the head.
Looting for food by groups of women and their children breaks out in the city of Córdoba, and riots spread in Argentina.
In Nepal, police open fire on protesters in the village of Jaddukuha, killing at least 3 people. Reports indicate that at least 12 people died in violent demonstrations that started two days earlier.
Polish premier Tadeusz Mazowiecki declares that Soviet troops will remain in Poland until the “German problem” is resolved. . . . Romania’s Col. Gen. Stanculescu assures reporters that the Securitate has been disbanded.
Maj. Gen. Justin Lekhanya. strips King Moshoeshoe II of his powers in Lesotho, a landlocked state completely encircled by South Africa.
In Argentina, looting spreads to Rosario, the site of rioting in 1989. The riots continue and spread to other cities, including a suburb of Buenos Aires.
Feb. 17
Feb. 18
Africa & the Middle East
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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.
February 16–21, 1990—27
U.S. Politics & Social Issues
U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense
U.S. Economy & Environment
Former president Reagan gives videotaped testimony that he did not order any illegal acts in the Irancontra affair.
Federal district judge D. Brooks Smith approves a $30 million settlement of 20 lawsuits against Ashland Oil Inc. for a 1988 fuel spill into the Monongahela River. . . . Reports state the U.S. merchandise trade deficit shrank in 1989 to $108.58 billion, the smallest gap since 1984.
The R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. comes under fire for its plan to introduce a new cigarette, Dakota, aimed specifically at young, white, poorly educated, blue-collar women. The controversy comes in the wake of a furor involving another Reynolds cigarette, aimed at black smokers, that had been withdrawn in January following complaints that the company was exploiting African Americans.
Science, Technology, & Nature
Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle Keith Haring, 31, New York graffiti artist, dies of complications from AIDS in NYC.
According to federal tax officials, many U.S.-based companies with foreign owners are currently undertaxed.
Feb. 16
Feb. 17
Feb. 18
The R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. denies Feb. 17 reports that Dakota is intended to appeal only to young women. . . . Francis Keppel, 73, U.S. commissioner of education, 1962–66, dies of cancer in Cambridge, Mass.
Miners at Pittston Co. vote to ratify a new contract and end a 10-month strike. The previous contract expired more than two years earlier. . . . The FDIC sues the Drexel Burnham Lambert Group, along with Shearson Lehman Hutton Holdings Inc., for allegedly participating in a scheme to defraud the failed Guaranty Federal Savings and Loan Association of Dallas.
The Supreme Court rules that a program for disabled children from poor families had been illegally restricted. . . . The Supreme Court states a woman could not use her Fifth Amendment right to refuse to reveal the whereabouts of her abused son. . . . Health and Human Services Secretary Louis Sullivan states cigarette smoking costs the U.S. more than $52 billion a year. . . . The Supreme Court lets stand a ruling by a federal appeals court that looks with disfavor on use of quotations from unpublished materials without permission.
Exxon Corp. agrees to renew the cleanup of Alaska beaches soiled by the Exxon Valdez oil spill in March 1989. . . . Federal Reserve Board chairman Alan Greenspan presents a semiannual monetary policy report to the House Banking Committee’s subcommittee on domestic monetary policy. Greenspan expects the economy to grow modestly in 1990.
Federal district judge Barbara Rothstein strikes down the federal law enacted in 1989 to outlaw desecration of the American flag. . . . The Supreme Court rules that the Office of Management and Budget overreached the law in curbing health and safety disclosure regulations.
The U.S. State Department issues its annual report on the status of individual human rights around the world. Because of the revolutionary changes in Eastern Europe, the report argues that 1989 is likely to be considered “a watershed year regarding the worldwide cause of human rights.” The reports condemns other nations for human rights abuses, including China, Cuba, Israel, Cambodia, and El Salvador.
Soviet astronauts Aleksandr Viktorenko and Aleksandr Serebrov return safely to Earth after spending more than five months on the space station Mir.
Feb. 19
Feb. 20
Chrysler chairman Lee Iacocca makes the first of several appearances in a nationwide campaign to improve Chrysler’s image. . . . Reports suggest that executives of Drexel Burnham Lambert Group Inc. received bonuses totaling between $300 and $350 million shortly before the firm filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. . . . The Supreme Court rules that interest-bearing promissory notes issued by a farmers’ cooperative are securities subject to federal regulation.
Feb. 21
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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)
Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.
Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.
Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.
28—February 22–27, 1990
World Affairs
Feb. 22
Feb. 23
Foreign Minister Gyula Horn expands on his notion that Hungary should have a nonmilitary role in NATO.
Feb. 24
Feb. 25
Feb. 26
A multinational Cambodian peace conference convenes in Jakarta, Indonesia, and Australia reveals a new peace plan.
Europe
The Americas
Asia & the Pacific
Czechoslovak and Soviet deputy foreign ministers Evzen Vacek and Ivan Aboimov, respectively, announce a basic withdrawal pact concerning Soviet troops.
After days of peace in Lebanon, Samir Geagea declares the interChristian war is over, but Gen. Michel Aoun warns the mediation is temporary . . . . Although the king’s palace in Lesotho is reported surrounded by soldiers, Maj. Gen. Justin Lekhanya denies that the monarch is under house arrest.
In Argentina, Buenos Aires authorities declare a provincial state of emergency and announce measures to provide food to the poor, suspend tax payments, and lower utility rates.
Japanese government leaders accept U.S. defense secretary Dick Cheney’s plan for withdrawal of 5,000 U.S. troops stationed in their country over the next two to three years.
Former Swiss justice minister Elisabeth Kopp is acquitted in Geneva of divulging official secrets. . . . The U.K. government formally lifts the investment ban and a ban on the promotion of tourism in South Africa.
In Kenya, memorial rites for Dr. Robert Ouko spark violence as riot police armed with tear gas and clubs clash with demonstrators. . . . About 200 students hold a peaceful sit-in at the Roman Catholic cathedral in the Ivory Coast.
José Napoleón Duarte Fuentes, 64, president of El Salvador, 1980–82 and 1984–89, dies in San Salvador.
Cambodian radio reports that forces loyal to Hun Sen’s government recaptured the town of Svay Chek. . . . In India, 400,000 proindependence protesters march peacefully in Srinagar in the largest such demonstration in decades.
Candidates backed by the Lithuanian nationalist organization win a majority of the seats in the Supreme Soviet in the first true multiparty contest in the USSR in 70 years. . . . Alessandro (Sandro) Pertini, 93, president of Italy, 1978–85, dies in his sleep in Rome.
Ivory Coast students end an occupation of a Roman Catholic church after supposedly receiving a promise of safe passage from the authorities. However, the protesters are then allegedly detained and beaten, prompting violent confrontations. Students are joined by striking civil service workers who demand the ouster of Pres. HouphouetBoigny. . . . A string of reports conclude that 70,000 refugees fled to the Ivory Coast and Guinea to escape fighting between the Liberian army and rebel forces in Dec. 1989.
The leader of the opposition Radical Civil Union, Eduardo Angeloz, refuses to join Pres. Carlos Menem’s cabinet in Argentina.
About 200,000 Kashmiri Muslims travel to a Muslim shrine in Charare-Sharif seeking divine help for the pro-independence movement. Indian police claim that at least 50,000 more had to turn back because of crowding on the narrow road from Srinagar.
More than 80,000 people participate in an anticommunist protest in Sofia, Bulgaria, the biggest demonstration since the ouster of Premier Todor Zhivkov. . . . A series of storms begins that cross Europe. . . . The refashioned Communist Party officially changes its name to the Party of Democratic Socialism in East Germany. . . . Hundreds of thousands of Soviets participate in peaceful nationwide prodemocracy marches.
In South Africa, Nelson Mandela gives a major pro-unity speech to a crowd of at least 60,000 in Natal.
In a startling political upset, Violeta Barrios de Chamorro of the National Opposition Union defeats incumbent president Daniel Ortega Saavedra in national elections, ending the 10-year rule of the Sandinista National Liberation Front in Nicarargua. Some 2,000 foreign observers monitor the election, and few irregularities are reported.
Ingvar Carlsson returns as Sweden’s premier by a vote of parliament after his Jan. 15 resignation, temporarily settling what is called Sweden’s biggest political crisis in 30 years. . . . The Soviet Union begins a phased withdrawal of troops from Czechoslovakia under an agreement reached in Moscow. . . . Israeli foreign minister Moshe Arens arrives in Poland and pays homage at monuments to the millions of Polish Jews slain during World War II. In Italy, three North Africans are beaten by a band of white youths. . . . Hungary files a protest over a recent Romanian ban on the import of Hungarian-language books to Romania’s Transylvania region. . . . Poland resumes full diplomatic relations with Israel.
Feb. 27
Africa & the Middle East
Peasants from a Peruvian village capture and decapitate four Sendero Luminoso guerillas. . . . Pres. Menem gives the Argentine military increased authority to repress civil unrest. . . . The first democratic transition of power in Nicaragua’s history starts alongside sporadic confrontations between UNO and Sandinista supporters.
Black nationalist leader Mandela arrives in Zambia for his first trip outside of South Africa in 27 years.
At a Nicaraguan rally of 10,000, Pres. Daniel Ortega states the contras have to demobilize before the Sandinistas give up control of the army and police. President-elect Chamorro urges the contras to disband quickly for a smooth transfer of power.
Senate opposition leader Juan Ponce Enrile is arrested in Manila for allegedly participating in the Dec. 1989 coup attempt. . . . In India, the Congress (I) party of former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi faces a election setback in eight states, and at least 82 people are killed in clashes between rival political gangs.
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Includes developments that affect more than one world region, international organizations, and important meetings of major world leaders.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.
February 22–27, 1990—29
U.S. Politics & Social Issues
U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense
U.S. Economy & Environment
Science, Technology, & Nature
Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle
The Indiana Senate votes down legislation that would ban abortions in public hospitals, except in cases of rape, incest, or danger to the mother’s life, and that would require doctors to test for fetal viability beyond the 20th week of pregnancy. . . . Pres. Bush announces that he asked his domestic policy council to determine what steps can be taken “to restore common sense and fairness to America’s medical malpractice system.”
Foreign trade representative Carla Hills states the U.S. will fight any attempts by Europeans to close their markets to Japanese cars manufactured in U.S. “transplant” factories.
The Justice Department reportedly warns Alaska that it will proceed with plea bargaining talks with Exxon even without the state’s participation, and Alaska officials walk out of the negotiations.
A rocket with two Japanese satellites on board explodes 101 seconds after liftoff from Kourou, French Guiana.
Victor Lasky, 72, anticommunist journalist and author, dies of cancer in Washington, D.C.
Feb. 22
Pres. Bush names Arthur A. Fletcher as chairman of the U.S. Civil Rights Commission. . . . Bishop College in Dallas, Texas, once the largest black college in the western U.S., is sold in the first bankruptcy auction of an entire college in the U.S.
Retired Lt. Gen. James Maurice Gavin, 82, one of the U.S.’s top combat leaders in World War II, dies of complications from Parkinson’s disease in Baltimore, Md.
Federal regulators seize Imperial Savings and Mercury Savings, two of California’s largest savings and loan institutions.
The U.S. spacecraft Pioneer 11 flies beyond Neptune’s orbit, 2.8 billion miles from Earth, and out of the solar system.
Publisher’s Weekly lists The Bad Place by Dean R. Koontz as the top bestseller.
Feb. 23
West German chancellor Helmut Kohl meets with Pres. Bush at Camp David, Md.
Malcolm Stevenson Forbes, 70, chair of Forbes Inc., dies of a heart attack in Far Hills, N.J. . . . Anthony Richard (Tony) Conigliaro, 45, outfielder with the Boston Red Sox in the 1960s, dies of kidney failure.
The National Governors’ Association adopts a set of six goals designed to boost student achievement in the U.S. by the year 2000. The FEC reports that Sen. Phil Gramm (R, Tex.) raised almost $6 million in 1989, the highest total of anyone running for the Senate in 1990. Rep. Lynn M. Martin (R, Ill.), who plans to challenge the incumbent, raised $1.5 million, the highest total reported to the FEC by a challenger for a Senate seat. The House Energy and Commerce investigations subcommittee criticizes the FDA for allowing the continued sale of a heart valve after the manufacturer learned of fatal malfunctions.
Feb. 24
Feb. 25
Pres. Bush begins negotiations aimed at lifting economic sanctions imposed against Nicaragua in 1985. . . . The Supreme Court declines to review challenges to the military’s policy of barring homosexuals from service.
Rev. Bruce Ritter, founder of the Covenant House network of shelters for runaways, resigns in the wake of allegations that he had engaged in sexual misconduct with young male residents. . . . The Supreme Court rules states can treat mentally ill prisoners with antipsychotic drugs against their will without a court hearing.
Cornell Gunter, 53, lead singer of the Coasters doo-wop singing group, is shot and killed while driving his car in Las Vegas.
Exxon Corp. is indicted by a federal grand jury in Anchorage, Alaska, on criminal felony and misdemeanor charges stemming from the Exxon Valdez oil spill Mar. 24, 1989, in Prince William Sound.
Feb. 26
Feb. 27
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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)
Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.
Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.
Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.
30—February 28–March 5, 1990
World Affairs
Feb. 28
March 1
The multinational Cambodian peace conference concludes without reaching any agreements, and it is unclear whether talks will resume.
Europe
Africa & the Middle East
Greville Maynard Wynne, 71, spy for the British secret intelligence service in the 1960s, dies of cancer in London.
Nelson Mandela gives a news conference in which he expresses support for Yasser Arafat and the Palestinian cause.
The Financial Times reports storms that started in Europe on Feb. 25 have killed 45 people in 8 countries, 14 of them from Britain . . . . Hungary’s parliament amends the constitution to allow direct presidential elections.
In Bulgaria, 20,000 people stage a prodemocracy protest in Sofia. . . . A parliamentary committee reveals that high-ranking officials, including Premier Miklos Nemeth, Acting President Matyas Szuros, and Minister of State Imre Pozsgay, received secret intelligence reports after Hungary revised its constitution in Oct. 1989. . . . Striking workers at two British Aerospace PLC plants approve a pact.
March 2
At the end of a two-day meeting in Lusaka, Zambia, the 35-member executive committee of the African National Congress formally names Nelson Mandela as deputy president. . . . Israel imposes military censorship on domestic and foreign news media coverage of the Jewish Soviet immigration issue.
Around 30,000 people demonstrate in Bern against secret surveillance of citizens, and the march ends in vandalism. The demonstration is prompted by revelations, first made in Nov. 1989, that the federal police had 900,000 secret security files on 200,000 Swiss citizens and foreigners. . . . Gerard Blitz, 78, Belgian founder of the Club Med empire of vacation villages, dies in Paris.
March 3
March 4
March 5
The Americas
Asia & the Pacific
In Nicaragua, Daniel Ortega calls for an immediate cease-fire with the contras.
Several people are reported to have been killed by bomb attacks on public buildings in Srinagar, India.
In Peru, peasants ambush 20 Maoist guerrillas, decapitating nine. . . . Panamanian president Guillermo Endara begins a 12-day fast in solidarity with the poor. . . . Luis Alberto Lacalle is sworn in as president of Uruguay. . . . Zelia Cardoso de Mello becomes the first woman to serve in a major cabinet post in Brazil.
At least 32 people are killed when Indian security forces fire on crowds of pro-independence marchers in Srinagar.
President-elect Fernando Collor de Mello names José Antonio Lutzenberger, Brazil’s noted environmentalist, as minister of the environment. . . . Reports surface of widespread desertions of army draftees since Violeta Barrios de Chamorro’s election win in Nicaragua. . . . One soldier is killed, and 15 U.S. military personnel and 12 Panamanians are injured in a grenade attack on a nightclub in Panama City. . . . The Alberta government accepts a review panel’s recommendation to bar construction of a C$1.3 billion Japanese-controlled pulp mill until further environmental impact studies are completed.
Indian officials impose an indefinite curfew on Srinagar and the rest of the Vale of Kashmir. Police are ordered to shoot curfew violators on sight.
In Nicaragua, a military helicopter drops a grenade on the home of UNO member Trinidad Ubeda Gonzales as Sandinistas are unwilling to accept election results. Lenin Cherna, director of the state security service, refuses to recognize Chamarro’s authority, stating that “there is going to be a new government, but you cannot change the regime. I will never obey the orders of Violeta.”
Candidates from the Lithuanian nationalist organization solidify their legislative majority in run-off elections as 90 of the 141 seats in the Lithuanian Supreme Soviet are held by pro-independence deputies. . . . Peter Walker, the secretary of state for Wales, announces his decision to leave the British cabinet on good terms.
Black nationalist military officers sympathetic to the ANC overthrow Ciskei’s president-for-life, Lennox Sebe. During the coup, Sebe is in Hong Kong, but his son and three officers are arrested. . . . Mahmoud Hashemi, an Iranian envoy, meets with a Syrian Foreign Minister to discuss the release of hostages in Lebanon.
Eleven opposition groups and one civic group form a coalition to call for free elections and demand Lt. Gen. Prosper Avril’s resignation in Haiti. . . . Argentina unveils a new austerity plan aimed at cutting $2 billion in government spending over the next year.
Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev holds a closed-door meeting in Moscow with Lithuanian Communist Party leader Algirdas Brazauskas in an attempt to dissuade the Baltic republic from declaring its independence from the Soviet Union.
Ugandan wildlife officials report efforts to save the mountain gorilla from extinction is succeeding as the gorilla population increased from 300 to 450 over the four years. . . . Pres. Mengistu Haile Mariam calls for Ethiopia to scrap its economic system and replace it with a liberalized mixed economy. . . . South African soldiers are dispatched to Ciskei by Brig. Joshua Oupa Gqozo, who also expresses his regime’s sympathy for the ANC by releasing 500 political prisoners. . . . In his first news conference in five years, Pres. Félix Houphouët-Boigny blames multinational corporations for trying to destabilize the Ivory Coast.
In Haiti, an 11-year-old girl, Roseline Vaval, is killed by a stray bullet fired by a soldier breaking up a protest in Petit Goave. . . An economic austerity plan is met with protests from Argentine unions, as about 2,500 workers take control of the targeted bank to resist the planned closing. . . . In Cuba, mobs of youths raid two homes where representatives of four human rights groups met to discuss forming a national opposition front.
Fourteen people are killed when army units recapture a Philippines hotel seized by forces loyal to Rodolfo Aguinaldo. . . . In India, security forces raid the homes of suspected militants and arrest more than 100 activists. . . . In Mongolia, 20,000 prodemocracy protesters gather in Ulan Bator in the largest demonstration since 1989.
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Includes developments that affect more than one world region, international organizations, and important meetings of major world leaders.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.
February 28–March 5, 1990—31
U.S. Politics & Social Issues
U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense
U.S. Economy & Environment
Science, Technology, & Nature
The Supreme Court rules Pennsylvania’s death penalty law is constitutional, removing a threat to 13 similar state laws. . . . The Supreme Court states police arresting a suspect in his home can conduct a search to ensure they are not in danger without a warrant. . . . The Supreme Court upholds a search abroad of a foreigner’s property by U.S. officials without a warrant.
Zulu chief Mangosuthu Gatsha Buthelezi urges Pres. Bush to lift economic sanctions against Pretoria. . . . U.S. humanitarian aid to the contras in Nicaragua expires.
Around 24,000 gallons of heating oil leak from a hole in an Exxon barge at Bayonne.
An earthquake that registers 5.5 on the Richter scale, strikes southern California, causing minor damage to buildings and roadways from Santa Barbara to the Mexican border.
Dr. Antonia Coello Novello is confirmed as surgeon general, the first woman and the first Hispanic to hold the position. . . . Researchers at Harvard University find that thousands of people in New York State die or are injured each year in hospitals because of medical negligence.
A compromise on clean-air legislation is announced by the Senate and White House. . . . Around 3,500 gallons of oil spill from a barge at Exxon Corp.’s Bayway plant. . . . The Nuclear Regulatory Commission approves a license for the Seabrook, N.H., nuclear power plant, despite protests. About 30 protesters are arrested.
The FDA approves the use of AZT in patients who are infected with the AIDS virus but do not have the disease itself. . . . A bipartisan commission recommends legislation to provide health insurance to every American, a plan estimated to cost $66.2 billion per year. . . . A retired federal judge, Arlin M. Adams, is named special prosecutor to investigate allegations that former Housing and Urban Development officials siphoned federal money into housing projects backed by prominent Republicans.
Japanese premier Toshiki meets with Pres. Bush in Springs, Calif., to discuss imbalance between the two tries.
Publishing tycoon Walter H. Annenberg donates an unprecedented $50 million to the United Negro College Fund. The gift is said to the largest ever given for black colleges.
Pres. Bush gives a news conference where he declares a U.S. policy that no new Jewish settlements should be built “in the West Bank or east Jerusalem.” His remarks precipitate an uproar over the next week.
For the second time in two weeks, a federal district judge declares unconstitutional a law that makes it a crime to burn the American flag. . . . The Supreme Court rejects two appeals by death-row inmates to reopen their cases in light of legal rulings since their trials. . . . The Supreme Court overturns a provision of North Carolina’s death penalty law that requires unanimous consent for a jury to consider mitigating circumstances. . . . The Supreme Court condones use of evidence obtained in violation of the Sixth Amendment right to counsel to impeach a defendant’s “false or inconsistent testimony” in court.
Kaifu Palm trade coun-
A nationwide strike against Greyhound Lines Inc. begins by the Amalgamated Transit Union. . . . Exxon suspends its tanker and barge traffic at the Bayway refinery and Bayonne terminal, pending investigations of recent spills. . . . Securities and Exchange Commission chairman Richard Breeden testifies before a subcommittee of the House Judiciary Committee on the implications of the collapse of Drexel Burnham Lambert Group Inc.
Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle
Feb. 28
The continuing failure of longterm negotiations between Major League Baseball team owners and the players’ union postpones the formal opening of spring training.
The National Research Council warns that Pres. Bush’s proposal for a base on the Moon and a manned mission to Mars is “comprehensive and robust” but under current technology such missions pose “unacceptable risks to the crew.”
March 1
March 2
An international team completes the longest unmechanized crossing of the Antarctic continent. The team, which set out on July 28, 1989, used only skis and dog sleds on its 3,800-mile trek. The group is led by Jean-Louis Étienne of France and Will Steger of the U.S.
U.S. space shuttle Atlantis reportedly deploys a $500 million defense spy satellite capable of producing high-resolution pictures of the Soviet Union as well as communications intercepts. Reports of the mission emerge after a touchdown at Edwards Air Force Base since a news blackout had been imposed earlier.
Greyhound chairman Fred G. Currey reveals that the company put aside millions of dollars in a special strike fund to hire and train replacement workers. . . . American Express reverses an effort to loosen ties with its struggling Shearson Lehman Hutton Inc. subsidiary and states it will buy up the remaining 31% of public shares.
New York City’s Roman Catholic archbishop, Cardinal John O’Connor, reveals that priests performed two exorcisms within the past year.
After a delay, the trial of former national security adviser John Poindexter opens in Washington, D.C. . . . The U.S. agrees to remove thousands of nerve-gas artillery shells from a base in Clausen in southern West Germany, where they had been stored since 1967 . . . . A Nicaraguan economic adviser, Francisco Mayorga Balladares, meets in Washington, D.C., with Secretary of State James Baker and asks for U.S. aid.
IBM announces it will not exclusively supply its computers with software made by Microsoft Corp. . . . General Motors announces it will merge two engine manufacturing units into one.
A commercially sponsored television news program, “Channel One,” designed for classrooms debuts in 400 schools. . . . Gary Merrill, 74, actor, dies of lung cancer in Portland, Maine. . . . Hank Gathers, center of the Loyola Marymount college basketball team, collapses during a game and dies less than two hours later.
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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)
Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.
Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.
Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.
March 3
March 4
March 5
32—March 6–11, 1990
March 6
March 7
March 8
World Affairs
Europe
The UN Commission on Human Rights pass a resolution that expresses concern about human rights violations in Cuba. . . . East German premier Hans Modrow meets with Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev, who does not agree to NATO membership for a unified Germany.
In France, a handcuffed and unarmed Algerian suspect is killed by police. . . . Protests against the British government’s new poll tax turn violent and last four days. . . . Election returns in the Soviet Slavic republics of Russia, Byelorussia, and the Ukraine show that radical reformists and nationalists score notable gains. However, as many as 70% of the races are undecided and therefore subject to run-offs.
The UN Human Rights Commission agrees to begin a special investigation into human rights abuses in Haiti.
In an interview, First Secretary Algirdas Brazauskas discloses that Pres. Gorbachev told him Lithuania will have to compensate the Soviet Union with money and territory if it wishes to secede. . . . Swiss president and justice minister Arnold Koller pledges a new law to put security police under the control of parliament. . . . Jay Lovestone, 91, Lithuanian-born former head of the American Communist Party who later became a staunch anticommunist, dies in NYC.
West German chancellor Helmut Kohl flies to Brussels, where he addresses representatives of NATO. . . . Eight nations bordering on the North Sea agree on a pact to cut water pollution.
March 9
March 10
March 11
Africa & the Middle East
The Americas
Asia & the Pacific
Brig. Joshua Oupa Gqozo’s government declares a state of emergency in an effort to halt looting and rioting. . . . The U.S. charges that Libya is producing poison gas at Rabta. . . . Sudanese leader Omar Hassan Ahmed al-Bashir and Libyan leader Muammar Gadhafi sign a pact paving the way for a merger between Sudan and Libya in four years.
In Nicaragua, Pres. Daniel Ortega announces a repeal of the decadeold law that restrains freedom of expression.
An Afghan air force jet bombs the presidential palace in Kabul in a coup attempt led by Defense Minister Shahnawaz Tanai.
In Bophuthatswana, a crowd of 50,000 ask for the resignation of Pres. Lucas Mangope and reincorporation into South Africa. Local police open fire, and at least seven people are reported killed and 450 injured. . . . In Ethopia, thousands of students march to demonstrate their support for the planned reforms.
In Colombia, the National Liberation Army rebel group issues a statement claiming it abducted 15 public officials.
Ten prodemocracy activists begin a hunger strike in Mongolia. . . . Fighting between the rival military factions continue in Afghanistan.
In Britain, violent protests of the poll tax continue. The worst violence occurs in the London borough of Hackney, where 60 people are arrested and 29 police officers are hurt after some protesters in a crowd of about 4,000 turn violent.
In Haiti, some 10,00 people attend the burial of Roseline Vaval, slain Mar. 5. in Petit Goave. A soldier and civilian are killed near the town during protests. At least one other person is killed in protests by thousands of demonstrators who burn cars and set up flaming barricades in towns and cities around the country. Several businesses shut down and remain closed for a week. In Port-au-Prince, 3,000 people converge to demand Gen. Prosper Avril’s ouster. . . . In Cuba, mobs riot outside Human Rights Committee director Gustavo Arcos’s home.
Afghan military forces led by Defense Minister Shahnawaz Tanai fail to oust the government of Pres. Najibullah. Afghan radio reports at least 56 people were killed in the revolt.
Western sources claim East German Stasi files and technical equipment are being turned over to the Soviet Union. . . . The Georgian Supreme Soviet condemns the republic’s 1921 forced incorporation into the USSR and demands talks with the Kremlin over independence. . . . In Paris, a cafe owner shoots two Arab youths, killing one.
Opposition leaders keep up their demand for Prosper Avril to resign and call on Haitians to stage a strike if the president does not step down in the next three days. . . . In Colombia, the M-19 rebel group leader Carlos Pizarro signs a peace pact with Pres. Virgilio Barco, ending 16 years of armed struggle.
In Mongolia, 29 people who went on hunger strikes call off their protest after hearing reports of Pres. Jambyn Batmonh’s intention to resign.
In France, a driver deliberately runs down and kills a Moroccan student, according to witnesses. . . . (Robert) Michael Maitland Stewart, 83, retired British foreign secretary, dies in London.
An Iraqi revolutionary court convicts a freelance correspondent for a British newspaper, Farzad Bazoft, of espionage and sentences him to death, ignoring international pleas for clemency. Daphne Parish, 53, a British nurse who drove Bazoft, is sentenced to 15 years in jail. . . . Lesotho’s military ruler, Maj. Gen. Justin Lekhanya, sends King Moshoeshoe II into temporary exile in Britain after a bitter power struggle.
In Haiti, violent protests continue, and soldiers kill eight youths. Pres. Prosper Avril resigns. . . . Cuban security police arrest eight human rights activists, accusing them of holding illegal meetings and claiming they are paving the way for a U.S. invasion. . . . In Nicaragua, the General Amnesty and National Reconciliation Law passes, which grants amnesty to public officials for all economic crimes and to contras and Sandinista soldiers for crimes committed during the contra war.
The Supreme Soviet of Lithuania declares the republic’s independence from the Soviet Union. It is the first Soviet republic to attempt to secede . . . British prime minister Thatcher sends an immediate appeal for clemency to Iraqi Pres. Hussein after hearing of the Mar. 10 convictions of British citizens. . . . Philippe Soupault, 92, French writer and poet who was one of the founders of the Surrealism movement in the 1920s, dies in Paris.
Reports confirm that Libyan leader Colonel Muammar Gadhafi has released Abu Nidal (Sabry alBanna), the notorious Palestinian terrorist, from house arrest in Tripoli. . . . In Israel, Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir again refuses to put a new peace plan matter to a vote, prompting the Labor ministers to storm out of the cabinet.
Political leaders describe Haiti as on the brink of chaos, with some 20 people having been killed in the preceding 24 hours. Supreme Court justice Ertha Pascal-Trouillot is chosen by a coalition of opposition leaders to lead the government. . . . Patricio Aylwin is sworn in as president of Chile, returning the nation to a democratic tradition that ended in 1973.
Around 5,000 Mongolian Communists gather in front of Ulan Bator’s Lenin Museum to assail the opposition movement.
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Includes developments that affect more than one world region, international organizations, and important meetings of major world leaders.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.
March 6–11, 1990—33
U.S. Politics & Social Issues
U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense
The Senate confirms Clarence Thomas, chairman of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, as a judge on the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.
Wealthy Saudi Arabians donate a total of $2 million to former first lady Nancy Reagan’s antidrug campaign.
William Francis Raborn Jr., 84, one-time head of the CIA, dies of cardiac arrest in MacLean, Va.
Three crew members of Northwest Airlines are arrested upon landing in Minneapolis–St. Paul after FAA officials receive information that they are flying while under the influence of alcohol. . . . A doctor who worked for a city-owned hospital in NYC reaches a settlement in a lawsuit which claims she contracted AIDS after pricking herself on a contaminated needle. . . . A national transportation plan is unveiled at the White House and runs into heavy flak from Capitol Hill and state and local officials.
Following a CBS News report, the White House admits Pres. Bush had been duped into taking a telephone call from someone purporting to be Iranian president Ali Rafsanjani. . . . Former president Richard Nixon gives a foreign-policy speech to the House Republican Conference and holds his first Washington news conference since his 1974 resignation.
The Senate votes to confirm John R. Dunne as assistant attorney general for civil rights. . . . Three Northwest crew members have their licenses revoked by the FAA after blood alcohol tests show they exceeded drinking limits.
The Pentagon unveils a two-year, $2 billion program to combat the smuggling of illegal drugs into the U.S. . . . Oliver North testifies he never hid his contra-related activities from John Poindexter and operated under Poindexter’s instructions.
U.S. Economy & Environment
Science, Technology, & Nature
Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle
The U.S. Postal Service proposes a record rate increase that would raise the price of a first-class stamp by 19%, to 30 cents from the current 25 cents. . . . A barge explosion dumps up to 200,000 gallons of heating oil into the Arthur Kill waterway in New York Harbor.
An Air Force SR-71 Blackbird supersonic spy plane, crewed by Lt. Col. Raymond E. Yeilding and Lt. Col. Joseph T. Vida, sets a transcontinental speed record before being retired from service by congressional mandate.
Joe Sewell, 91, baseball player in the 1920s and 1930s, dies in Mobile, Ala.
Teachers in W.Va. leave their jobs to demand better pay and an upgrade of the state’s education system in the first statewide teachers’ walkout. . . . The Labor Department charges Burger King Corp. with violating child-labor laws.
Three people are killed and 162 are injured in Philadelphia when a subway train derails and crashes into tunnel support beams.
A study in the New England Journal of Medicine shows that babies of older mothers are just as healthy as those born to younger mothers and are no more likely to be born prematurely or to die in infancy. . . . The first large-scale study of RU-486 finds the abortion pill to be as safe and effective as surgical abortion.
March 7
Kurt Browning of Canada repeats as men’s titlist at the World Figure Skating Championships.
Sporadic violence begins during the Greyhound strike.
A bullet shot from an overpass pierces a Greyhound bus roof and injured seven people during protests near Jacksonville, Fla.
March 6
March 8
March 9
Studies show that an unexpectedly high percentage of AIDS patients who took the experimental drug DDI through an unusual free distribution system died.
The Houston Post ends a more than month-long series of reports that allege at least 22 now-insolvent thrifts made loans to individuals who have links to the CIA, organized crime, or both.
Martial Jean-Paul Singher, 85, baritone and opera singer, dies of heart disease at in Santa Barbara, Calif. . . . Jill Trenary narrowly wins the women’s title in the World Figure Skating Championships.
The Roman Catholic archbishop of Los Angeles, Roger Mahony, sends a letter to 3,500 priests and nuns in the archdiocese, asking for 10 volunteers to test an experimental AIDS vaccine developed by polio vaccine pioneer Dr. Jonas Salk.
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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)
Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.
Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.
Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.
March 10
March 11
34—March 12–17, 1990
World Affairs
March 12
March 13
March 14
The two German states, Great Britain, France, the U.S., and the USSR open talks on German reunification in Bonn. . . . Iraq rejects an offer by U.K.’s foreign secretary Douglas Hurd to talk with Pres. Saddam Hussein. . . . The International Monetary Fund approves the first installment of $206 million in standby credit for Hungary.
March 15
Europe
Africa & the Middle East
The Americas
Asia & the Pacific
In the midst of an amnesty program for 700,000 illegal aliens, Florentine police clear the city of unlicensed street vendors, mostly from Somalia and Senegal. . . . The Soviet congress holds a special session to consider a package of constitutional amendments. . . . An East German official states 4,000 foreign espionage employees of Stasi will be reduced to 250 by June.
Former U.S. president Jimmy Carter starts a visit to the Middle East. . . . Reports surface that Madagascar will permit multiparty politics, ending a ban from 1975. . . . Sudan’s news agency reports that 69 people were killed in Darfur in an ancient feud over grazing rights. Between 2,000 and 3,000 people died in the feud since 1989 alone.
President Gen. Prosper Avril leaves Haiti for Florida on a U.S. military transport jet with his wife and two children. . . . In Chile, Pres. Patricio Aylwin moves to the issue of human rights abuses committed during the Pinochet years by announcing a decree releasing “numerous” political prisoners. . . . Nicaragua’s president Daniel Ortega meets with U.S. vice president Dan Quayle in Chile.
In Ulan Bator, Mongolia, General Secretary Jambyn Batmonh paves the way for the changes at a historic Central Committee meeting when he and the entire Communist Politburo officially offer their resignations. Batmonh vows the Communists will work with opposition forces to make sweeping political changes.
The Soviet Congress repeals the Communist Party’s political monopoly, revamps and strengthens the presidency. . . . Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev calls Lithuania’s Mar. 11 declaration “illegitimate and invalid” and bars negotiations over secession with any of the Baltic republics. . . . The mayor of Florence, Giorgio Morales, resigns after a feud over the Mar. 12 action against street vendors. . . . The Irish Supreme Court refuses to extradite two convicted Provisional Irish Republican Army members who escaped from jail.
Liberian president Samuel K. Doe accuses local government officials of having helped stir the unrest in Nimba County, where the army had been battling an incursion by rebels since Dec. 1989. . . . In Israel, Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir fires Labor Party member Shimon Peres, which prompts the rest of the Labor ministers to immediately resign.
Supreme Court justice Ertha Pascal-Trouillot is sworn in as interim president of Haiti. Her appointment marks the first time since Duvalier’s overthrow that Haitian civilians choose their own leader. . . . Brazil’s central bank orders the closing of all banks pending the announcement of president-elect Collor’s economic program. . . . Reports surface that 6 people were killed when a long-standing land feud flared in Piate, an agricultural community in Haiti.
A Philippine military spokesman discloses that suspended provincial governor Rodolfo Aguinaldo is hiding with pygmy tribesmen in the far north of the Philippines. . . . The government of Papua New Guinea withdraws its troops from Bougainville.
In East Germany, Democratic Awakening leader Wolfgang Schnur resigns amid allegations that he had been an informer for the Stasi. . . . The Soviet congress votes to choose the new executive president itself, and then have the president chosen by a popular election in 1995.
Reports emerge that a Libyan factory alleged by the U.S. to be producing chemical weapons is on fire. A spokesman for Libya’s official news agency, JANA, states Libya “does not rule out Israeli or American sabotage.” Pres. Bush denies “absolutely” any American role.
Cuban leader Fidel Castro launches a visit to Brazil to attend the inauguration of Fernando Collor de Mello as Brazil’s new president and to strengthen ties with Latin America.
The Central Committee of the Mongolian People’s Revolutionary Party votes to relinquish its constitutionally guaranteed monopoly on power, and it selects a new reformist leader and an entirely new Politburo. Gombojavyn Ochirbat, a former party official, replaces General Secretary Jambyn Batmonh.
The Soviet congress elects Gorbachev to a five-year term as executive president, and it votes to invalidate Lithuania’s Mar. 11 declaration. . . . A bomb explodes at a mosque in Rennes. Police describe the attack as the latest manifestation of racial tensions in France. . . . In East Germany, Rev. Rainer Eppelmann is named to succeed Wolfgang Schnur as chairman of the Democratic Awakening Party. . . . The Roman Catholic Church and the Soviet Union re-establish diplomatic ties for the first time since 1923.
Iraq ignores international pleas for clemency and promptly hangs Iranian-born Farzad Bazoft, severely straining relations between Iraq and the United Kingdom. . . . Libyan and U.S. officials report the plant at Rabta is extensively damaged from the blaze reported Mar. 14 and will be out of operation indefinitely. . . . In Israel, P.M. Shamir grants recognition to Modai’s group as an independent party allied to Likud. . . . Despite unprecedented protests against the Ivory Coast’s austerity plan, the government announces it will cut salaries for public-sector employees.
Fernando Collor de Mello is sworn in as president of Brazil, marking the first democratically elected regime in Brazil in three decades. . . . The Supreme Court of Canada, in a unanimous landmark decision, rules that French-speaking parents in Edmonton have a right to administer their own publicly financed schools in a case begun in 1982.
Batmonh remains Mongolia’s president, but the state newspaper reports that he has offered to resign tha post as well. . . . In Taiwan, the members of the National Assembly provoke a great furor by granting itself veto power over legislation, the right to meet annually, and a 400% pay raise.
March 16
Dr. Jonathan Mann, the founder and director of the World Health Organization’s Global Program on AIDS, resigns unexpectedly.
Soviet president Gorbachev orders the Lithuanian government to rescind its Mar. 11 declaration of independence by Mar. 19. . . . Ambulance workers across Britain formally end their six-month industrial dispute.
The Israeli Knesset votes out the government of P.M. Yitzhak Shamir after he refuses to accept a U.S. plan for beginning Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.
A group calling itself the December 20 Movement after the date of the U.S. invasion of Panama claims credit for the Mar. 2 bombing of a Panamanian nightclub and the crash of two U.S. helicopters. . . . Nicholas Braithwaite is appointed prime minister in Grenada after the governor general, Sir Paul Scoon, persuades Ben Jones to step down. . . . Under the amnesty law, 73 ex-Sandinista soldiers and 11 contras are freed, leaving Nicaragua with no remaining political prisoners.
In Taiwan, demonstrations against the National Assembly’s new authority are held in Chiang Kaishek Square.
March 17
The foreign ministers of the Warsaw Pact nations meet in Prague to discuss the German issue.
The Lithuanian parliament form a noncommunist coalition government and choose economist Kazimiera Prunskiene as premier. Thousands of people stage an antiindependence rally in Vilnius after Soviet military helicopters drop leaflets encouraging ethnic Russians to attend the protest. . . . A national opera house built on the site of the former Bastille prison in Paris has its grand opening.
Tens of thousands of Iraqis march in government-sponsored demonstrations in Baghdad and other Iraqi cities, chanting anti-British slogans and expressing support for Farzad Bazoft’s execution.
Antiriot police evict striking workers from Mexico City’s Cervecería Modelo brewery. . . . A restored 19th-century opera house located in Mana´us, Brazil, reopens for the first time in more than 80 years.
South Korean president Roh Tae Woo announces a cabinet shuffle. Although these are the first changes since Roh’s conservative ruling party merged with two opposition parties, only three of 15 new ministers are from the opposition groups.
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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.
March 12–17, 1990—35
U.S. Politics & Social Issues
U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense
U.S. Economy & Environment
Science, Technology, & Nature
Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle
Oliver North admits he saw John Poindexter destroy an order, purportedly signed by Pres. Reagan, that permitted the CIA to become involved in an Israeli shipment of missiles to Iran and referred to the shipment as an arms-for-hostages deal. . . . The U.S. State Department and the White House reiterate U.S. support for Lithuanian selfdetermination but decline to recognize Lithuanian sovereignty.
Nynex Corp. formally disputes charges by the FCC that it overcharged customers for a number of years.
Walter Orr Roberts, 74, climatologist who was one of the first scientists to warn that human technology is changing the Earth’s climate and founded the National Center for Atmospheric Research, dies of cancer in Boulder, Colo.
Swimmer Janet Evans is named the winner of the Sullivan Award as the nation’s top amateur athlete for 1989. . . . Gene Klein, 69, former owner of the National Football League’s San Diego Chargers, dies in La Jolla, Calif., after a heart attack.
Oliver North testifies the secret Iranian arms sales were known throughout the government. North confirms that officials of the National Security Council considered sending then-Vice President George Bush as an emissary to Iran in early 1986. . . . Pres. Bush lifts all economic sanctions against Nicaragua and sends to Congress an emergency request for $300 million in aid to help rebuild that nation’s war-torn economy. . . . Graham Anderson Martin, 77, last U.S. ambassador to South Vietnam, dies of a heart ailment in WinstonSalem, North Carolina.
A House committee unanimously votes in favor of a bill that will give increased authority to the Securities and Exchange Commission to curb program trading. . . . An empty bus is set on fire by a flare in a bus yard in Fresno, Calif., during the Greyhound strike.
The National Academy of Sciences finds that the U.S.’s child-care system is inadequate and requires a major increase in federal spending to meet the needs of American families.
A court challenge to the Seabrook, N.H., nuclear plant is rejected by the U.S. Court of Appeals. . . . California’s Columbia Savings and Loan Association announces a plan to sell off its entire junk-bond portfolio, which was the largest junkbond portfolio ever put up for sale.
Ellen Glasser, a FBI agent, testifies that John Poindexter deleted more than 5,000 messages from his computer as investigations started in Nov. 1986. . . . Talks on opening up Japan’s markets to foreign satellites break off and are not likely to resume. . . . A number of observances are held to mark the fifth anniversary of the kidnapping of Terry A. Anderson, the AP correspondent who is the longest-held Western hostage in Lebanon.
March 13
A $150 million communications satellite fails when it cannot properly clear from its Titan-3 rocket launcher. The International Telecommunications Satellite Organization, or Intelsat, satellite settles into a lopsided orbit ranging from 90 to 130 miles from Earth.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission signs a full-power operating license for Seabrook nuclear power plant. . . . The Labor Department reports that a 530-person “strike force” found alleged child-labor violations involving 7,000 youngsters at Burger King franchises.
MCA Inc. buys Geffen Records from its founder and owner, David Geffen, for a reported $545 million in stock, which makes MCA one of the largest record companies in the U.S.
A record-store clerk in Sarasota, Fla., is charged with selling harmful materials to a minor after he sold the album As Nasty as They Wanna Be by 2 Live Crew to an 11-year-old girl. A judge in Broward County, Fla., rules that same album obscene and bans its sale in the county. . . . Thomas Dudley (Tom) Harmon, 70, football hero and sports broadcaster, dies in Los Angeles after a heart attack.
An International Telecommunications Satellite Organization, or Intelsat, satellite is nudged into a slightly higher orbit by engineers at ground control at Cape Canaveral, Florida, which stretches the life expectancy of the satellite from weeks to months. Martin Marietta Corp., blames the mishap on faulty wiring in its Titan-3 booster rocket.
A firebomb destroys a building that housed a local DEA office in Fort Myers, Florida. No injuries are reported, but officials say that files are destroyed and more than $4 million in damage has been done to the building and its contents.
March 12
Pope John Paul II and a delegation of American Jewish leaders meet at the Vatican for the first time in two years.
The $500 million spy satellite launched by the U.S. in February suffers a “disabling malfunction,” according to U.S. and Soviet officials. The satellite is expected to fall from orbit and reenter the Earth’s atmosphere within four weeks.
March 14
March 15
March 16
March 17
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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)
Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.
Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.
Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.
36—March 18–23, 1990
World Affairs
March 20
March 21
Africa & the Middle East
An alliance of conservative parties backed by West German chancellor Helmut Kohl scores a surprising triumph in East German general elections. It is the first free election in that part of Germany since 1932 and is also the first national election in a Warsaw Pact nation since reforms in the Eastern bloc in 1989. . . . Soviet forces in Lithuania begin large-scale maneuvers that include almost daily flyovers of Vilnius by military jets.
March 18
March 19
Europe
French foreign minister Roland Dumas states the German moves toward unity should not hinder the attempts by the 12-nation European Community to establish an open internal market by the end of 1992.
Romanians and ethnic Hungarians clash in Tirgu Mures, leaving at least three people dead and hundreds injured in the worst inter-ethnic conflict in Romania since World War II. . . . Although the Mar. 19 deadline is disregarded by Lithuania, Pres. Mikhail Gorbachev meets with Lithuanian deputies and issues a warning against the republic’s printing its own currency, opening its own customs posts, or taking over state-owned enterprises.
Hungarian premier Miklos Nemeth calls for UN intervention in Transylvania. . . . U.S. secretary of state James Baker meets with Soviet foreign minister Eduard Shevardnadze in Windhoek, the capital of Namibia, to attend Namibian independence ceremonies. Canada says it will lift its sanctions against Namibia and provide over $4 million in aid.
An estimated 70,000 Hungarians hold an anti-Romania rally in Budapest. . . . Lithuania forms a paramilitary security force, the Volunteer Society for Cooperation with the Army and Navy. . . . Lord (Nathaniel Mayer Victor) Rothschild, 79, third baron of Rothschild, zoologist, business executive, and a member of the famous European banking family, dies of unreported causes.
Namibia, formerly known as SouthWest Africa, becomes the world’s newest independent nation, ending 75 years of South African control. U.S. president George Bush lifts economic sanctions imposed on Namibia while it was controlled by South Africa.
Romania’s National Salvation Front declares a state of emergency in Tirgu Mures and sends in 500 troops. . . . British home secretary David Waddington announces a new police inquiry of the Birmingham Six, who were serving life sentences for two 1974 bombings that killed 21 people. The six prisoners claim confessions had been coerced. . . . Soviet president Gorbachev bans the sale or ownership of firearms in Lithuania.
In Sudan, reports emerge that fighting between rebels and government groups prevented emergency food shipments from reaching the war zone, threatening hundreds of thousands of people with famine.
Pres. F. W. de Klerk meets with Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze in the first meeting between a ranking Soviet minister and a South African head of state. . . . ANC leader Nelson Mandela meets with U.S. secretary of state Baker in the firstever senior-level contact between the U.S. and Mandela.
A Soviet military convoy rolls through Vilniusto, pressuring Lithuania to back down from its declaration of independence. Lithuania’s head of volunteer security, Gen. Taruiskis, reveals he began to comply with the Soviet order to disarm the force. . . . Ethnic Albanians attack Serbs and Montenegrins in Kosovo in response to rumors that the Slavic minority poisoned Albanian children.
March 22
The Soviet government curbs movements of foreign journalists in Lithuania, gives Western diplomats 12 hours to leave the republic, and restricts entry into Lithuania by foreigners. . . . In Bulgaria, reports emerge that concentration camps during the regime of ousted Communist leader Todor Zhivkov killed or tortured hundreds of prisoners in the 1950s and 1960s. . . . Britain’s Duchess of York (Sarah Ferguson), wife of Prince Andrew, gives birth to her second child in London.
March 23
Reports indicate that the Palestine Liberation Organization has been lobbying the Soviet Union to curb Russian-Jewish immigration to Israel for the past two months.
The Americas
Asia & the Pacific
Violent riots erupt in Haiti and continue for five days.
In Taiwan, protests reach a peak when 20,000 people rally in the park to demand democratic changes and the removal of the aging assembly members.
In a major initiative, Prime Minister Brian Mulroney states that Canada will forgive C$182 million (US$154 million) in debt owed by Caribbean countries. . . . Brazil’s financial markets are at a virtual standstill as they feel the effects of the liquidity squeeze resulting from President Fernando Collor de Mello’s program.
Governor Joseph F. Ada (R) of the U.S. Pacific island territory of Guam signs into law a measure that contains the most restrictive abortion curbs in the U.S.
Thirteen people, including 11 members of a neighborhood defense group, are killed in Petite Goave, Haiti. . . . Nicaragua’s National Assembly grants lifelong immunity to presidents and other officials elected since 1984 and to future ones during their terms of office. . . . Venezuela reaches an agreement to reduce its $20 billion commercial bank debt, becoming the fourth country to do so under the developing-country debt strategy launched by U.S. treasury secretary James Brady in March 1989.
Guam’s attorney general, Elizabeth Barrett-Anderson, files charges against an anti-abortion law to force a constitutional review. . . . The National People’s Congress, China’s parliament, opens, and Chinese premier Li Peng vows that socialism would “stand rock firm” in his country.
Gen. Gustavo Leigh Guzmán, a one-time member of the military junta that ruled Chile for 16 years, is shot 5 times and critically wounded. A leftist guerrilla group claims responsibility for the shooting. . . . Gen. Isidro Caceres, the Argentine chief of staff, dies after a heart attack left him in a coma earlier. . . . Argentina’s Peronist labor leaders orchestrate a national strike that shuts down schools, the state airline, and government offices.
Mongolia’s People’s Great Hural (parliament) chooses Punsalmaagiyn Ochirbat as the new president of Mongolia and Sharavyn Gunjaadorj as the country’s new premier. . . . Taiwan’s National Assembly reelects President Lee Teng-hui to a six-year term. Lee is the only official candidate, and the vote comes amid growing prodemocracy protests in the capital city, Taipei.
Bernardo Jaramillo Ossa, presidential candidate of the leftist Patriotic Union, is shot and killed at the El Dorado airport in Bogotá, the second Colombian presidential candidate to be slain in seven months. . . . Argentine president Carlos Menem appoints Antonio Ermán Gonzalez, his finance minister, to assume control of the central bank.
Taiwan’s president Lee Teng-hui meets with representatives of 4,000 prodemocracy student protesters. He makes promises of democratic reforms but insists that changes will take time. Although protest leaders are not entirely satisfied, students withdraw from the square.
In Haiti, reports suggest that at least 40 people have been killed in riots that started Mar. 18. . . . In Nicaragua, 12 soldiers are killed and 10 people, including 2 civilians, are wounded in a contra ambush of an army truck. Separately, the Nicaraguan contras agree to dismantle their camps in Honduras.
A federal judge in Guam issues a restraining order barring enforcement of a law that calls for the strictest curbs on abortion in the U.S.
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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.
March 18–23, 1990—37
U.S. Politics & Social Issues
U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense
U.S. Economy & Environment
Science, Technology, & Nature
Walter Staunton Mack, 94, former president of Pepsi-Cola Co., dies of heart disease at his home in NYC.
Teachers in West Virginia return to classes in exchange for a promise by state legislative leaders to work toward increasing teachers’ pay and improving education programs. . . . The Bush administration proposes a five-year, $22 billion program for aviation facilities and equipment, airport improvements, and research and development.
The Defense Department pledges to take steps to aid the press in covering U.S. military operations after complaints that the military obstructed coverage of the 1989 invasion of Panama. . . . The trial of former Philippine first lady Imelda Marcos begins in NYC. Marcos is charged with 4 counts of racketeering, fraud, and obstruction of justice.
The Seabrook, N.H., nuclear power plant is turned on, 14 years after construction began. . . . A brief “site area emergency” is declared at the Plant Vogtle nuclear power plant near Augusta, Ga., when the plant suddenly loses electrical power.
The Supreme Court lifts a permanent gag on disclosure by grand jury witnesses.
A district judge rules former president Reagan does not have to provide John Poindexter’s defense team with his diaries since that information is duplicated in Reagan’s taped testimony, which is shown to the jury. . . . Polish premier Tadeusz Mazowiecki and Pres. Bush sign a treaty that will further open Poland to U.S. investment.
The Supreme Court rules migrant farm workers who are injured on the job are entitled to sue employers under the Migrant and Seasonal Agricultural Workers Protection Act.
The Idaho Senate approves legislation that bans most abortions in the state. The law is designed to give the Supreme Court an opportunity to reconsider its 1973 Roe v. Wade decision.
Former attorney general Meese testifies John Poindexter did not try to hide details of the Iran-contra arms scandal from Congress.
A state jury in Anchorage, Alaska, convicts Joseph J. Hazelwood, captain of the oil tanker Exxon Valdez, of negligence, a misdemeanor, in the trial involving the worst oil spill in U.S. history. . . . Pres. Bush nominates T. Timothy Ryan Jr. to succeed M. Danny Wall as head of the Office of Thrift Supervision.
New Hampshire’s transportation commissioner, Wallace Stickney, is selected as the new head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
Trade negotiators announce a new pact that will make Japanese markets more open to U.S.-made supercomputers.
The Energy Department discloses it is monitoring a hydrogen buildup in nuclear-waste storage tanks at the Hanford nuclear reservation in Washington State.
Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle Two thieves disguised as policemen break into the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston and steal 13 priceless artworks. The paintings are estimated to worth $100 million, making the robbery the largest art theft in the world.
The New York Times reports that a team of experts has found a major flaw in the $30 billion space station being developed by NASA. A NASA statement minimizes the problem as remediable without disruption of the schedule, cost, or “overall architecture of the program.”
After four months of negotiations, representatives of Major League Baseball owners and players reach an agreement in NYC on a new fouryear collective bargaining contract.
Cuban-American pop singer Gloria Estefan is injured in Pennsylvania when a truck runs into her tour bus. . . . Christie’s and Sotheby’s announce they will underwrite a $1 million reward for information leading to the recovery of the art works stolen on Mar. 18.
March 18
March 19
March 20
March 21
Daily doses of aspirin can prevent tens of thousands of strokes a year, according to a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine.
Pres. Bush declares he does not like broccoli, causing a reaction among farmers. . . . Van Gogh’s Irises is sold for an undisclosed sum to the J. Paul Getty Museum in Malibu, Calif.
Pres. Bush states he is opposed to legislation that would bar the NEA from supporting “obscene” artwork. . . . Rene Enriquez, 58, actor from Hill Street Blues, dies of pancreatic cancer in Tarzana, Calif.
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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)
Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.
Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.
Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.
March 22
March 23
38—March 24–29, 1990
World Affairs
The Americas
Asia & the Pacific
In Zimbabwe, Patrick Kombayi, who is running against Vice President Simon Muzenda for a parliament seat, is shot and seriously wounded in Gweru by Muzenda’s bodyguards. Debate over whether the shots were in self-defense ensues.
Some 10,000 people march in San Salvador to mark the 10th anniversary of the slaying of Archbishop Oscar Arnulfo Romero. . . . Brazilian president Fernando Collor de Mello orders the destruction of illegal airstrips built by gold miners in the Amazon to protect the stoneage Yanomami Indian population.
Chai Ling, one of the leaders of the Tiananmen Square prodemocracy protest, escapes from China, where she had been in hiding for 10 months. . . . India withdraws the last 2,000 soldiers from Sri Lanka and ends a 30-month peacekeeping effort, during which 1,200 Indian troops died. . . . Australian voters return the governing Labor Party to power and give P.M. Bob Hawke a fourth term in office.
Soviet paratroopers seize the Vilnius headquarters of the renegade Lithuanian Communist Party. . . . Kosovo interior minister Jusuf Karakusi, an ethnic Albanian, resigns. . . . The Vatican unveils a decade-long, $3 million restoration of the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. . . . Hungary holds its first free multiparty national election since 1945.
Libyan-backed Chadian rebels based in Sudan launch an attack against army positions in eastern Chad. Both Chad and the rebels claim to have killed or captured more than 1,000 of the other side’s men.
Contra leaders state most fighters already in Nicaragua will not disband but will remain armed for a period of months. Only contras demobilizing in Honduras are to give up their weapons under the agreement. . . . Colombian interior minister Carlos Lemos Simmonds resigns, claiming the government’s war on drug traffickers has weakened. Pres. Virgilio Barco names Senator Horacio Serpa Uribe to replace Lemos.
Foreign observers report that country-wide balloting in Bangladesh was marred by widespread fraud and violence that killed at least 26 people. . . . Approximately 13,000 protesters gather in Ulan Bator to demand the resignation of the entire parliament. Sanjaasuren Zorig, de facto leader of the Mongolian Democratic Party, says the protest is prompted by assertions that only socialist parties will be permitted to participate in elections.
Social Democratic Party cofounder and leader Ibranim Boehme steps aside, despite maintaining he never cooperated with Stasi. . . . Student protest leader Chai Ling arrives in Paris with her husband Feng Congde. Both are on a list of “most wanted students” circulated by Chinese police.
In South Africa, police open fire on antiapartheid protesters in the black township of Sebokeng. Hundreds are wounded, and at least 11 die. . . . In the Ivory Coast, 126 teachers are arrested for violating a ban on demonstrations. Doctors launch a 48-hour strike over pay cuts and threaten a walkout to protest the mass arrest.. . . . The foreign ministers of Chad and Libya meet in Libreville to discuss the Azouzou Strip, a territory claimed by Chad but occupied by Libyan troops.
Brazilian president Fernando Collor de Mello drops two provisions of his economic program that ran into staunch opposition from civil libertarians, businesses, and politicians.
Communist Party officials from Tibet, Inner Mongolia, and Xinjiang call on China’s central government to provide more relief funds for their poverty-stricken regions.
The UN approves the deployment of 800 Venezuelan troops to aid the demobilization of contras.
Soviet paratroopers raid a psychiatric hospital in Vilnius that gives sanctuary to ethnic Lithuanian military deserters and arrest 23 young men. Lithuanian president Vytantas Landsbergis sends a telegram demanding a return of the “kidnapped” deserters to Pres. Gorbachev. . . . Czech and Slovak deputies reach an impasse over changing the official name of the nation.
In South Africa, the high level of inter-black violence in eastern Natal province grows even worse as at least 25 people are killed and scores wounded in fighting that lasts two days.
In Nicaragua, after weeks of negotiation, the Sandinista government recognizes the right of presidentelect Violeta Barrios de Chamorro to exercise full authority over the army and security forces after her inauguration. . . . In Peru, weeks of election-related violence begin when two people die in a car bombing in Lima. . . . A delegation from the Guatemalan government holds talks with leftist rebels in Oslo on ways to end three decades of civil war.
The Vietnamese Communist Party adjourns a two-and-one-half week session of its Central Committee. . . . Reports emerge that the Portuguese colony of Macao will grant resident status to a few thousand illegal aliens whose children were already legal residents.
An attempt by Iraq to obtain restricted U.S.-made electronic devices used to trigger nuclear weapons is thwarted in London by U.S. and British customs agents at the conclusion of an 18-month undercover “sting” operation.
In a conciliatory gesture, Lithuania indicates a willingness to discuss independence with the Soviets. . . . Ethnic Albanians in Kosovo mark the first anniversary of the Serbian political takeover with silent protests.
In Haiti, Ertha Pascal-Trouillot’s government restores most of the articles from the 1987 constitution. . . . Colombian president Barco resumes extraditions of drug suspects to the U.S. . . . In Nicaragua, weeks before leaving office, the Sandinistas vote to award property titles to all those living in state-owned houses prior to the Feb. 25 election.
The Philippine army reports the destruction of a large communist rebel base in Lianga, 540 miles southeast of Manila. Fifty-nine rebel troops are reported killed in the two-day assault. . . . The Vietnamese Communist Party expels a senior party official who advocated reform, Tran Xuan Bach, from the ruling Politburo.
Police arrest a retired deputy interior minister, Col. Gen. Mircho Spasov, in response to reports that Bulgaria operated concentration camps during the regime of ousted communist leader Todor Zhivkov. . . . Chancellor Helmut Kohl holds two days of talks with Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in London.
In Colombia, the Extraditables, the name adopted by the Medellin drug cartel, threaten to retaliate for Pres. Barco’s decision to reinstate extradition and accuse the government of betrayal.. . . . Mexico announces it will resume a program of swapping debt for equity suspended in 1987.
In Kashmir, 11 people are reported killed in gun battles between separatist rebels and Indian paramilitary units.. . . . Congress (I), the political party of former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi, loses control of the Rajya Sabha, India’s upper house of Parliament. . . . Andrew Peacock steps down as opposition leader in Australia. . . . About 50,000 illegal Chinese immigrants seeking permanent residency gather in the center of the Portuguese colony of Macao, and more than 100 people are injured in the crush.
March 25
March 26
March 28
Africa & the Middle East
The Serbian government assumes control of Kosovo police after unrest triggered by a rumor that children had been poisoned. . . . Pres. Mikhail Gorbachev appoints a Presidential Council, a 16-member committee of top advisers. . . . Allegations appear in newspapers that link Social Democratic Party leader Ibrahim Boehme to the Stasi secret police.
March 24
March 27
Europe
March 29
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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.
March 24–29, 1990—39
U.S. Politics & Social Issues
U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense
U.S. Economy & Environment
Science, Technology, & Nature
Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle
An Wang, 70, Chinese-born engineer who founded one of the world’s major computer manufacturers, Wang Laboratories, dies in Boston of cancer.
Ray Goulding, 68, half of the Bob & Ray comedy team with Bob Elliott, dies in Manhasset, N.Y., of kidney failure.
Eighty-seven people are killed in a fire at an illegal social club in the Bronx borough of NYC Police arrest a Cuban immigrant, Julio González, and charge him with arson and murder. The fire is the deadliest in the U.S. since a 1986 hotel fire in Puerto Rico killed 97 people and a 1977 blaze at a Kentucky nightclub killed 165 people.
Pat Bradley becomes the first woman golfer to surpass $3 million in career earnings when she wins the Turquoise Classic in Phoenix.
Attorney General Richard L. Thornburgh announces that 21 reputed Mafia leaders from New England were indicted by grand juries in Boston and Hartford, Conn. Fifteen men were arrested, including Raymond J. Patriarca Jr., the reputed head of the region’s top crime family.
U.S. Defense Department officials revise downward its tally of the number of Panamanian military casualties in the December 1989 invasion, to some 50 deaths from the 314 initially reported by the U.S. Southern Command based in Panama. This means that the civilian death toll in the invasion, placed at 202 by the Southern Command, is four times that of the Panamanian military death toll.
The Office of Thrift Supervision reports that U.S. thrift industry losses surged to a record $19.17 billion in 1989.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences presents its 62nd annual Oscar Awards in Los Angeles. Driving Miss Daisy is voted Best Picture. . . . Halston (Roy Halston Frowick), 57, top American fashion designer, dies in San Francisco of complications from AIDS.
The Supreme Court upholds federal or state restrictions on corporate political spending. . . . Testimony before the House Small Business subcommittee reveals U.S. consumers spend billions of dollars a year on ineffective and potentially dangerous diet plans.
Press Secretary Marlin Fitzwater admits the Bush administration is taking a deliberately low-key approach to the events in Lithuania. . . . The U.S. and Mexico agree to consider talks on a free-trade pact between the two nations. . . . A U.S.-financed television station begins testing broadcasts to Cuba, but the Cuban government jams its signal, as promised.
Energy Secretary James Watkins announces the Health and Human Services Department will take over research on the effects of radiation on atomic plant workers while the Energy Department will continue to oversee health and safety programs operated by private contractors at the nation’s nuclear weapons plants. . . . Eastern announces it cannot meet the terms of an earlier settlement, which angers its creditors.
George Lucas’s Lucasfilm Ltd. files a $300 million trademark infringement lawsuit against Luther Campbell, the leader of the rap group 2 Live Crew, for use of the name Luke Skywalker.
The Supreme Court rules that a state appeals court can weigh the factors of a crime and decide whether to impose the death penalty if the jury has considered improper factors.
Congress appears to be divided on Pres. Bush’s low-key response to Lithuania’s political situation. . . . William M. Galvin, one of the key targets in the Pentagon procurement scandal, pleads guilty to bribery, conspiracy and tax evasion in Alexandria, Virginia.
The House approves a bill to create a new cabinet post for environmental protection. . . . The Energy Department discloses that the escape of plutonium into air ducts at the Rocky Flats, Colo., weapons plant over the past 38 years amounts to 62 pounds, enough to make seven nuclear bombs.
The General Accounting Office finds “widespread discrimination” against Hispanics and Asian Americans as a result of the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986. . . . The Education Department reports enrollment of black students at private colleges rose by 7.1% between 1986 and 1988. Black enrollment at public universities, though, rose by only 0.2%.
The Centers for Disease Control release a study that links cancer to Vietnam service. . . . Veterans Affairs Secretary Edward Derwinski authorizes compensation to Vietnam veterans suffering from non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.
A U.S. District Court judge rules that Motorola Inc. and Hitachi Ltd. of Japan are both guilty of the patent infringement charges they leveled at one another. . . . The International Tin Council finalizes an agreement with its creditors after a dispute that had lasted five years.
March 24
March 25
March 26
March 27
March 28
A study of women’s health is published in the New England Journal of Medicine and finds that being overweight by any amount increases the risk of heart disease.
The Recording Industry Association of America, a trade group that represents major record companies in the U.S., agrees to place uniform new warning labels on records, tapes and compact discs that contain potentially offensive lyrics.
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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)
Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.
Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.
Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.
March 29
40—March 30–April 4, 1990
World Affairs
April 1
April 2
April 3
Africa & the Middle East
The Americas
Asia & the Pacific Ashfaq Majid, a leader of the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front, is killed by police. According to Indian officials, Majid was shot as he led an attack on a security patrol. That same day, about 50,000 people in Srinagar defy a curfew to march in a funeral procession for Majid. . . . South Korean president Roh Tae Woo and Soviet president Gorbachev agree to make efforts to normalize relations between their countries.
British customs officers uncover evidence of a second Iraqi smuggling operation. . . . Soviet troops in Vilnius seize the state prosecutor’s office and a printing plant that publishes the pro-independence newspaper. The Kremlin ousts Arturas Palauskas, the state prosecutor appointed by the Lithuanian parliament. . . . Estonia’s parliament adopts a resolution characterizing the republic as an “occupied” territory and states that Estonia will enter a “transitional period” that will result in independence.
In the Ivory Coast, Pres. Félix Houphouët-Boigny orders the release of teachers imprisoned for demonstrations. . . . Two Polish diplomats are shot and wounded in Muslim west Beirut.
After two weeks of violent protests and more than 200 arrests, 1,500 students storm the steps of the National Assembly in Quebec City to protest a planned tuition increase at universities. . . . The town of Envigado, Colombia, headquarters of Medellín cartel leader Pablo Escobar Gaviria, is placed under martial law. Police officials state Escobar is offering large cash bounties for dead policemen.
The Arab Cooperation Council, made up of Iraq, Egypt, Jordan, and North Yemen, issues a statement calling Western criticism of Baghdad “flagrant interference in Iraq’s internal affairs.”
A protest in London against new local taxes turns into a riot that injures more than 400 people, including 331 police officers. . . . Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev, in a radio and television message to Lithuania, warns the breakaway republic to “immediately annul” its declaration of independence or face “grave consequences.”
A previously unknown group claims responsibility for the Mar. 30 attack on Polish diplomats and states it is a warning to Poland not to fly Jews “to our sacred Palestinian land.”
In Colombia, the Extraditables confirm their return to terrorism and say they will execute judges, government officials, and members of the Cano family, which owns the El Espectador newspaper. . . . Canada reaches an agreement in principle with the Yukon Indians that gives them 16,000 square miles of land in the western high Arctic region and C$248 million.
The International Monetary Fund reports that the U.S. regained the lead as the world’s largest exporter from West Germany in 1989.
The Soviet military bolsters its garrison in Vilnius, Lithuania. . . . A series of prison riots begins at Strangeways Prison in Manchester, England, which was constructed in 1868. The riots spread from prison to prison and last several weeks.
Zimbabwe president Robert Mugabe and his ruling party win a landslide victory. . . . Pres. Omar Bashir signs a nonaggression treaty with Pres. Yoweri Museveni between Sudan and Uganda.
In Brazil, a restored opera house in the Amazon jungle is forced to close less than a month after opening because of economic measures imposed by Pres. Fernando Collor de Mello.
The Chinese government seals off most of Beijing’s Tiananmen Square and deploys thousands of extra police to prevent a planned silent protest to commemorate the first anniversary of the crackdown on the 1989’s prodemocracy movement.
The Iraqi foreign ministry issues a denial of recent “sting” operations, accusing the U.S. and U.K. of twisting a “small and normal deal” for capacitors into “a suspicious intelligence matter.”. . . Czechoslovak foreign minister Jiri Dienstbier proposes a new European security structure that will include the member nations of NATO and the Warsaw Pact.
A delegation from Lithuania, led by Deputy Premier Romualdas Ozolas, meets with Politburo member Aleksandr Yakovlev for informal discussions. . . . The Estonian parliament passes a resolution stating that the USSR’s latest secession law does not apply to Estonia. . . . Social Democratic Party leader Ibrahim Boehme officially resigns amid allegations that he collaborated with the Stasi secret police.
South African president F. W. de Klerk tells a special joint session of Parliament in Cape Town that he is ordering a nationwide crackdown on violence, in particular sending more army troops into Natal. . . . Iraq’s president Saddam Hussein threatens to use advanced chemical weapons to destroy half of Israel if it launches a preemptive attack on Iraqi facilities.
An armed Haitian soldier seizes control of an empty American Airlines jet in Port-au-Prince and demands to be flown to the U.S.
After a month of scattered prodemocracy protests in Nepal, police open fire on 4,000 demonstrators in Katmandu. Five people are killed. . . . The government of New South Wales decides to scrap plans for a poll tax in the wake of the riots in London.
The UN Children’s Fund reports that the level of child malnutrition in Malawi is second only to that in Ethiopia.
Bulgaria’s parliament passes legislation that permits free, multiparty national elections, adopts constitutional amendments that create an executive presidency, and elects former Communist Party general secretary Petar Mladenov as executive president.
In Colombia, gunmen suspected of belonging to the Medellín cartel kill 16 policemen and kidnap a Liberal Party senator, Federico Estrada. . . . The U.S. arrests a Mexican suspect, Dr. Humberto Alvarez Machaín, in the 1985 torture and slaying of a U.S. drug agent, Enrique Camarena Salazar. The arrest and arraignment cause controversy in Mexican-U.S. relations. . . . Five Central American presidents meet in Montelimar, Nicaragua, and set a deadline for the full demobilization of the Nicaraguan contra rebels.
Thirty-five people are killed when a bomb explodes at a Hindu religious procession in Batala, India. The bombing sets off dozens of Hindu-Sikh clashes that result in 16 more deaths. . . . Australia’s prime minister, Bob Hawke, announces sweeping changes in his 17-member cabinet.
March 30
March 31
Europe
Belgium legalizes abortion, leaving Ireland as the only European nation still banning the procedure. . . . The Soviet Union opens an investigation into mass graves uncovered in East Germany believed to contain bodies of Germans who died in Soviet camps after World War II. . . . Estonian president Arnold Ruutel reveals that Gorbachev warned him against emulating Lithuania’s independence move.
April 4
Reports surface that in the Rwandan capital of Kigali, up to 30% of the people between the ages of 18 and 45 are infected with the AIDS virus. . . . The official Libyan news agency reports that leader Muammar Gadhafi appealed for the release of all hostages to mark the Islamic holy month of Ramadan.
Salvadoran president Alfredo Cristiani and leftist rebels agree to renew talks on ending the nation’s civil war. . . . Pres. Rafael Callejas of Honduras states that once the contras inside Honduras are demobilized, none will be allowed refugee status. . . . Pres. Virgilio Barco says that if Medellin cartel leader Pablo Escobar Gaviria surrenders he will not be extradited but will receive an impartial trial in Colombia.
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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.
March 30–April 4, 1990—41
U.S. Politics & Social Issues
U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense
U.S. Economy & Environment
Science, Technology, & Nature
Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle
Idaho governor Cecil D. Andrus (D) vetoes a law that bans most abortions within the state. . . . Alfred Renton Bryant (Harry) Bridges, 88, Australian-born U.S. labor leader, dies of emphysema in San Francisco; the city’s mayor, Art Agnos (D), orders flags to be flown at halfmast in his honor.
The Bush administration releases a 216-page annual report of foreign trade barriers to U.S. exports, taking the first step toward retaliation under the so-called Super 301 provision of the 1988 Omnibus Trade Act. . . . Frederick J. Carville, a former Unisys Corp. executive, pleads guilty in Alexandria, Va., to participating in a scheme that involved bribing Pentagon procurement officials.
A pipeline breaks near Freeport, Penn., and spills a mixture of gasoline, diesel fuel and home heating oil in Knapp Run Creek, which flows into the Allegheny.
A study in Science reports the first decade’s worth of microwave temperature data collected by U.S. weather satellites shows no evidence of a global warming from the greenhouse effect. . . . Researchers at the National Institutes of Health say large doses of a steroid hormone given soon after a spinal injury can reduce the chance of paralysis and other disability from the injury.
The Bourne Ultimatum by Robert Ludlum tops the bestseller list.
Outside Nashville, Tenn., a driver operating a Greyhound run is shot in the left arm from a passing pickup truck in reaction to the continuing Greyhound strike.
At least 100,000 people attend a rally near UN headquarters in NYC to urge the USSR to allow direct flights to Israel.
The Federal Courts Study Committee warns the U.S. court system is inundated by a wave of prosecutions under antidrug and anticrime legislation enacted by Congress in the 1980s. . . . The National Assessment of Educational Progress reports that U.S. students have a limited grasp of history and civics.
The Ku Klux Klan broadcasts its first television program on a cableTV channel serving Kansas City.
March 31
Columbia Savings and Loan Association, once one of the thrift industry’s most profitable institutions, announces it is insolvent. . . . Buffalo’s subway and bus system shuts down from lack of funds, the first time this has happened to a federally subsidized mass transit operation in the U.S.
Michigan State center Kip Miller wins the Hobey Baker Memorial Award as the top college hockey player in the U.S.
A strike by the Service Workers International Union against the Kaiser Permanente health maintenance organization begins in seven hospitals and more than 40 clinics in Southern California.
The University of Nevada at Las Vegas (UNLV) wins the finals of the National Collegiate Athletic Association basketball tournament with a 103-73 rout of Duke University. The margin of victory is the largest in the history of the NCAA finals, and UNLV is the first team to score more than 100 points in the NCAA finals. . . . Real estate developer Donald J. Trump opens the Taj Mahal casino in Atlantic City, New Jersey.
The House approves a $2.4 billion supplemental spending bill for fiscal 1990 that includes $720 million in aid to Panama and Nicaragua. . . . The Pentagon reveals previously classified details about the F-117A Stealth fighter.
The Labor Department, revising its March figures, reports 11,000 child-labor violations, and 1,750 businesses are found in violation, including well-known fast-food and pizza chains. . . . The Senate passes comprehensive clean-air legislation, setting tough controls on industry. . . . Eastern Airlines’ unsecured creditors vote to seek a bankruptcy court trustee to run the carrier. . . . . . . Buffalo’s subway and bus system resumes operations. . . Reports emerge that the oil leak in the Allegheny River of Mar. 30 did not cause serious problems.
White House press secretary Marlin Fitzwater confirms that Pres. Bush did not issue an executive order to protect Chinese students studying in the U.S. . . . Soviet foreign minister Eduard Shevardnadze holds talks with Secretary of State James Baker in Washington, D.C., to discuss the Lithuania crisis and arms control.
The Senate confirms Pres. Bush’s choice, Timothy C. Ryan, for chief regulator of the nation’s savings and loan industry. . . . White House budget director Richard G. Darman asks the House Appropriations subcommittee on treasury, postal service and general government for $626,000 to renovate the vice presidential mansion.
March 30
Israel launches its second satellite into orbit.
April 1
April 2
Sarah Lois Vaughan, 66, jazz singer, dies of lung cancer in a Los Angeles suburb.
April 3
Senior Lionel Simmons of LaSalle wins the John Wooden Award as college basketball’s top player.
April 4
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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)
Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.
Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.
Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.
42—April 5–10, 1990
World Affairs
April 5
April 6
April 7
Economic ministers of the Group of Seven nations express concern over the recent decline in the value of the Japanese yen.
April 10
Africa & the Middle East
Soviet troops evict pro-independence workers from the state prosecutor’s office in Vilnius. The Lithuanian parliament acknowledges for the first time that provisions of the Soviet constitution may apply to Lithuania’s independence bid. . . . In East Germany, the freely elected Volkskammer holds its first session and elects Sabine Bergmann-Pohl as president of the parliament; she also serves as the nation’s acting interim president.
A Cameroonian lawyer and two others are sentenced to three to five years for subversion. Amnesty International classifies the defendants as prisoners of conscience who were arrested for trying to start a new political party in Cameroon, which is legal under the country’s constitution. . . . Pres. Frank Ravele is ousted as leader of the nominally independent tribal homeland of Venda in a military coup led by Col. Gabriel Ramushwana.
The Irish Supreme Court refuses to extradite to Britain a fugitive, Owen Carron, a former British member of Parliament and a member of the Provisional Irish Republican Army, who is wanted on weapons charges. . . . Soviet border guards bar U.S. senator Alfonse M. D’Amato (R, N.Y.) from crossing into Lithuania from Ogrodniki, Poland. D’Amato, carrying a visa issued by the “Republic of Lithuania,” announced before leaving the U.S. his intention to test the Soviets’ willingness to accept the visa as valid.
Because of its open-door policy toward refugees fleeing the civil war in neighboring Mozambique, one in 10 people in Malawi’s population of 8 million is now a Mozambican, according to The New York Times.
At least 166 people are killed when a fire breaks out aboard a Danish ferry in the North Sea. Although officials state that about 360 people escaped in lifeboats, it is the worst disaster in the North Sea since a British ferry capsized March 1987. It takes two days to extinguish the blaze. . . . As many as 300,000 Lithuanians hold a proindependence rally.
A crowd of 150,000 gathers in Tel Aviv to protest political scheming in the cabinet and to call for electoral reforms to end the country’s chronic political instability. It is the largest demonstration in Israel since a protest during the 1982 invasion of Lebanon.
Members of Lithuania’s unarmed volunteer security force, bolstered by a crowd of civilians, prevent Soviet troops from entering a proindependence newspaper printing plant. . . . Demos, a separatist opposition coalition, wins a majority in parliamentary elections in Slovenia in the first free, multiparty voting in Yugoslavia since World War II. . . . The center-right Hungarian Democratic Forum and its allies hold nearly 60% of the seats in parliament after run-off national elections.
April 8
April 9
Europe
The Americas
Asia & the Pacific
In Bolivia, construction begins on a U.S.-financed $500,000 base for the nation’s combined antidrug forces. . . . In Mexico, soldiers and police in Michoacán oust opposition supporters from city halls occupied in protest of alleged fraud in municipal elections in Dec. 1989. . . . The Haitian solider who seized control of an empty American Airlines jet on Apr. 2 jumps from the plane and escapes.
In Nepal, Premier Marich Man Singh Shrestha resigns from office, under pressure by King Birendra, who faults the premier’s failure to control protests. . . . Twenty-two people are killed during two days of rioting in the remote town of Kashgar in the predominantly Muslim province of Xinjiang. . . . Elderly members of Taiwan’s parliament pledge to begin stepping down.
Nepal’s king Birendra, appoints a new premier, Lokendra Bahadur Chand, who is instructed to negotiate with leaders of the prodemocracy movement. Later that day, however, police and soldiers fire on 200,000 protestors in Katmandu, killing 50. . . . More than 200 people are killed when a ferry in Myanmar overturns and sinks. . . . Rebels at an Afghan peace ceremony suddenly open fire, killing at least 12 people. . . . The vice chancellor of Kashmir University, his aide, and a businessman are kidnapped by Muslim militants. In Peru, Sendero Luminoso guerrillas attack the U.S.-financed Santa Lucía anti-drug outpost and engage in a pitched battle with helicopters piloted by U.S. civilians and defended by Peruvians manning machine guns.
Nepal’s king Birendra imposes a virtual 24-hour curfew on Katmandu and orders police and soldiers to shoot violators on sight. Opposition leaders ignore conciliatory gestures by Premier Chand, including the release of Singh and other prisoners.
In Peru, Alberto Fujimori, a virtual unknown, receives enough votes in the presidential election to force a run-off contest with the candidate novelist Mario Vargas Llosa. . . . Colombian police capture Jairo Rodrigo Rodríguez, an alleged regional paramilitary leader for the Medellín cartel. Separately, gunmen in Bogotá kill José Humberto Hernández Rodríguez, a member of the party that opposes negotiations with drug traffickers.
After two months of sporadic demonstrations in Nepal, King Birendra legalizes political parties. Birendra also proposes that a limited number of opposition figures be added to the existing cabinet. . . . About 800 people from Mongolia meet for the first national congress of the MDP. In anticipation, Pres. Ponsalmaagiyn Ochirbat bans unauthorized public demonstrations.. . . . About 15 masked rebel soldiers raid a jail in Manila and free Lt. Col. Billy Bibit, ret., who was imprisoned under suspicion of aiding a Dec. 1989 coup attempt.
The first international World Ministerial Summit to Reduce Demand for Drugs and to Combat the Cocaine Threat meets in London. The summit, cosponsored by Britain and the UN, is attended by more than 500 representatives from 112 nations. . . . Forty-two industrial nations agree to create a special bank to aid the economies of Eastern Europe.
In a two-day protest, tens of thousands of people in Georgia mark the first anniversary of the slayings of 20 pro-independence activists. They march to the headquarters of the Soviet Transcaucasian military command and demand the withdrawal of Soviet troops. . . . Four members of the Ulster Defense Regiment are killed by an IRA car bomb. . . . The Soviet Union announces its first trade deficit in 14 years.
In Ethiopia, reports suggest that Pres. Mengistu’s army lost as many as 30,000 who were killed, wounded, or captured in three unsuccessful attempts to retake Massawa.
The Canadian government reaches an agreement in principle with the Dene and Metis peoples that gives them 70,000 square miles and C$500 million in compensation.
In Nepal, an estimated 250,000 people gather at Katmandu to celebrate the king’s Apr. 8 decision.
Contradicting earlier reports, data shows that the 1981 plans made by the World Bank in the IMF for Malawi are not as successful as initially believed. This report is especially problematic, since those economic policies in Malawi were heralded was a model for the rest of Africa. . . . Venezuelan troops under UN command arrive in Honduras to oversee the demobilization of the contras.
Soviet president Gorbachev warns Lithuania that he has not ruled out the possibility of placing the republic under direct presidential rule.
A Libyan-backed Palestinian terrorist group frees three hostages in Beirut, leaving no more French captives in the Middle East.
In Colombia, Gustavo Mesa Meneses, a known assassin for the Medellin cartel, is arrested.
Indian prime minister Vishwanath Pratap Singh charges that Pakistan is aiding Kashmiri insurgents and warns that India will consider a military reprisal. Separately, the bodies of the kidnapped vice chancellor of Kashmir University, his aide, and a businessman are found in Srinagar. . . . In Nepal, opposition forces reject King Birendra’s offer and insist on complete control of any interim cabinet. . . . Tim Fischer is chosen as the new leader of Australia’s National Party.
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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.
April 5–10, 1990—43
U.S. Politics & Social Issues
U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense
U.S. Economy & Environment
Science, Technology, & Nature
Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle
The National Conference of Catholic Bishops hire the public relations firm of Hill & Knowlton and a polling firm, the Wirthlin Group, as part of a campaign to influence public opinion against abortion. . . . The AT&T Foundation withdraws its support of Planned Parenthood because of Planned Parenthood’s support for abortion rights.
Pres. Bush signs an executive order officially ending all U.S. sanctions imposed against Panama in 1988. . . . The U.S. and Japan pledge to eliminate some major structural barriers to free trade.
The House Energy and Commerce Committee approves new clean-air legislation. . . . Woody F. Lemons, the former chairman and CEO of Vernon Savings and Loan Association, is sentenced to 30 years in prison for defrauding the thrift’s depositors.
A privately developed Pegasus rocket is launched from a B-52 aircraft over the Pacific Ocean. The rocket, set free at an altitude of 40,000 feet, falls for five seconds before igniting and flying like a plane during a first-stage burn, then ascending like a missile in second- and third-stage burns, accelerating to eight times the speed of sound. Before tumbling into the ocean, Pegasus releases other satellites for the navy and NASA.
Actor Paul Newman wins a lawsuit filed against him by Julius Gold, a delicatessen owner who claimed that Newman promised him a share of the profits from sales of Newman’s brand of salad dressing.
A federal scientific study recommends a partial logging ban in the Pacific Northwest to save the northern spotted owl.
The board of UAL Corp. agrees to a $4.38 billion buyout led by the company’s employees.
E. L. Doctorow wins the 10th annual PEN/Faulkner Award, for the best work of fiction published in 1989, Billy Bathgate. . . . A jury in NYC orders Vantage Press, the largest ‘vanity’ press in the U.S., to pay a total of $3.5 million to 2,200 authors who filed a class-action fraud suit.
A Chinese Long March-3 rocket launches a U.S.-made telecommunications satellite into orbit, which marks China’s debut in the international launching business. . . . Ronald Ellwin Evans, 56, U.S. astronaut who piloted the command module during the Apollo 17 flight in 1972, dies of a heart attack in Scottsdale, Ariz.
Cincinnati’s Contemporary Arts Center and its director, Dennis Barrie, are indicted by a grand jury on obscenity charges for displaying an exhibit of photographs by the late Robert Mapplethorpe.
A U.S. District Court jury in Delaware rules that patents on a Genentech Inc. heart drug are valid. . . . Studies indicate legal abortions performed in the first trimester of pregnancy cause little long-term mental distress.
A federal jury convicts former national security adviser John Poindexter on all five felony charges facing him. Poindexter becomes the highest-ranking official convicted of criminal charges in connection with the Iran-contra arms scandal.
The FBI reports that overall crime in the U.S. increased 3% in 1989. Violent crime rose by 5% and major property crimes rose 2%. . . . Ryan White, 18, hemophiliac Indiana teenager who became a national symbol of the difficulties faced by children with AIDS, dies of complications from AIDS in Indianapolis.
Senate Minority Leader Robert Dole (R, Kans.) leads a delegation of senators on a week-long tour of the Middle East.
PepsiCo and the Soviet Union sign a 10-year agreement under which the Pepsi-Cola soft drink will be bartered for Soviet ships and vodka. The accord, valued at more than $3 billion, is believed to be the largest trade pact ever between a U.S. company and the USSR.
New Hampshire governor Judd Gregg (R) vetoes a bill that would have liberalized the state’s abortion laws. . . . . Judge Buckingham of Montgomery County Court sentences eight peace activists for a 1980 protest in which they poured blood over blueprints at a nuclear weapons plant in Pennsylvania. . . . California kicks off a $28.6 million advertising campaign against cigarette smoking, the most extensive of its kind ever launched by a state.
England’s Nick Faldo wins the Masters golf championship in Augusta, Ga. . . . U.S. district judge Carl B. Rubin bars local law enforcement officials from shutting down the Mapplethorpe exhibit in Cincinnati’s Contemporary Art Center.
A strike by the Service Workers International Union in Southern California, started Apr. 2, ends. . . . Greyhound Lines Inc. files a $30 million federal racketeering suit against the striking Amalgamated Transit Union. Since the strike began, buses operated by newly hired replacement drivers have been fired upon more than 25 times.
Playboy magazine founder Hugh M. Hefner, 64, has a son with his wife, Kimberley Conrad, 27. . . . John Henry Faulk, 76, radio host who won a celebrated libel suit in 1962 that helped break the McCarthy-era blacklist, dies of cancer in Austin, Tex.
Defense Secretary Dick Cheney orders an inquiry into why he was not told the truth about the performance of one of the Stealth planes used in the 1989 U.S. invasion of Panama. . . . Pres. Bush appoints Richard Armitage to lead the U.S. delegation for talks between the U.S. and the Philippines over the future of military bases.
Eight National Football League players file federal antitrust suits in Newark, N. J. against the league.
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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)
Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.
Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.
Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.
April 5
April 6
April 7
April 8
April 9
April 10
44—April 11–16, 1990
April 11
World Affairs
Europe
The U.S. rejects the idea of a reunified Germany belonging to both NATO and the Warsaw Pact.
Constantine Mitsotakis is sworn in as the new premier of Greece. . . . P.M. Charles Haughey tours Belfast in the city’s first official visit by an Irish prime minister in 25 years. . . . All ethnic Albanian ministers in the Kosovo provincial government resign, citing pressure from Serbia. . . . The Estonian parliament abolishes the conscription of Estonians into the Soviet military, particularly rejecting mandatory military service.
April 12
April 13
The Americas
Asia & the Pacific
Reports emerge that the Apr. 10 release of French hostages is part of a deal in which France returns three Mirage jet fighters to Libya. Other elements of the deal allegedly involve the resumption of French sales to Libya and a reduction of the French military presence in Chad. . . . An effort by Israeli Labor Party leader Shimon Peres to form a center-left coalition government collapses. . . . Pres. F. W. de Klerk meets with Anglican archbishop Desmond Tutu and other leaders of the South African Council of Churches to discuss how to end the warfare in Natal.
In Colombia, eight policemen and at least 13 other people are killed when a truck bomb explodes on a highway near Medellín. Eleven vehicles are destroyed in the blast, and more than 100 people are injured.
General Mirza Aslam Beg, chief of staff of the Pakistani army, claims that Indian troops have gathered just 50 miles from the Pakistani border.
East Germany installs its first democratically elected government, and Lothar de Maiziere becomes the nation’s premier. . . . The National Salvation Front, Romania’s interim government, bars a return to the country by exiled king Michael. . . . The U.S. and Czechoslovakia sign a trade agreement to reduce U.S. tariffs on Czechoslovak exports, increase business ties, and facilitate tourism.
An attempt by right-wing Jewish settlers to move into the Christian quarter of Jerusalem’s Old City sparks debate in Israel that lasts for the next two weeks.
The Brazilian National Congress approves the most controversial part of President Fernando Collor de Mello’s economic plan.
In South Korea, Pres. Roh Tae Woo pardons convicted North Korean terrorist Kim Hyon Hui, who faced execution for planting a bomb that destroyed a Korean Air Lines passenger jet in 1987. . . . Separately, workers at the state-run Korean Broadcasting System strike to protest of the appointment of Suh Ki Won as president of the network.
Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev threatens an economic embargo of Lithuania unless it rescinds its bid for independence. . . . The Soviet government admits for the first time the Soviet secret police were responsible for the 1940 Katyn Forest massacre of 4,000 Polish military officers. The apology coincides with the arrival of Polish president Wojciech Jaruzelski for a visit.
Nelson Mandela speaks to the annual convention of the South African Youth Congress, the country’s largest youth organization.
In El Salvador, a state of siege put in place during the rebel offensive of Nov. 1989 is suspended due to demands by the Farabundo Martí Liberation Front.
Mandela admits that the African National Congress has in the past tortured some of its dissident members. However, he states the ANC officials responsible have been disciplined and steps have been taken to insure that it never happens again.
Marco Aurelio Robles, 84, Panamanian president, 1964–68, dies of unreported causes in Miami.
April 14
April 15
A team of scientists assembled by the UN concludes it is a “virtual certainty” that the Earth’s temperature will rise substantially in the 21st century.
In Armenia, 1,000 people attack KGB headquarters in Yerevan, provoked by the arrest of four Armenians on charges of stealing military weapons. The rioters besiege the headquarters for two hours before being dispersed by military reinforcements. One man is reported dead when a homemade explosive device detonates in his hands. . . . At the Vatican Easter Sunday, Pope John Paul II says a prayer for Lithuanian independence through negotiation. Supporters and opponents of the National Salvation Front brawl outside government’s headquarters in Bucharest, prompted by a demonstration in support of the government’s decision to bar King Michael’s return. . . . Lithuanian officials draw up emergency plans on fuel rationing in case the Soviet Union carries out its embargo threat.
April 16
Africa & the Middle East
In Nepal, 15,000 demonstrators gather in Katmandu, where Premier Lokendra Bahadur Chand and other representatives of the government are meeting with opposition leaders. The protesters call for Chand’s resignation and the king’s immediate acceptance of opposition demands for political power. . . . Pakistan denies claims by India that Pakistani soldiers are marching toward the border.
Reports indicate that one of the reasons that mass starvation has been prevented so far during the fighting in Ethiopia is the semicovert delivery of Western-donated food through Sudan to the worst affected areas of Eritrea and Tigre.
Approximately 260 Miskito Indians of the Yatama group surrender their weapons to Venezuelan troops in Honduras, the first rebels to do so. . . . Reports state that the bodies of nine people were found in graves on two farms owned by Fidel Castaño, who is believed to be the military leader of the Medellín cartel in Colombia.
Nepal’s King Birendra announces the resignation of Premier Chand’s 10-day-old cabinet, dissolves the national parliament, and invites opposition leaders to form an interim government. . . . India bans eight militant Muslim organizations in Kashmir and shuts down two Srinagar newspapers. . . . Separately, The New York Times reports that 570 people were killed by Sikh separatists in the Indian state of Punjab since the beginning of 1990.
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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.
April 11–16, 1990—45
U.S. Politics & Social Issues
U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense
Federal officials report that the return of completed census forms is running significantly behind expectations. . . . The funeral for Ryan White, who died Apr. 8, is attended by more than 1,500 people, including First Lady Barbara Bush and singers Michael Jackson and Elton John.
A U.S. soldier, Roberto Enrique Bryan, who participated in the 1989 invasion of Panama is charged with murder and assault on Panamanians. . . . The FBI arrests Jose Dionisio Suarez Esquivel, an alleged member of a Cuban-American terrorist group for involvement in the 1976 killing of a former Chilean ambassador. . . . Pres. Bush issues an executive order protecting Chinese students in the U.S. from deportation.
U.S. Economy & Environment
Science, Technology, & Nature
Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle
The Journal of the American Medical Association publishes a study reporting that work environments with high stress and little control over decisions are linked with chronic high blood pressure.
East German conductor Kurt Masur is appointed music director of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra.
The three companies that produce 70% of the canned tuna sold in the U.S. announce they will stop buying tuna caught in nets that also trap and kill dolphins.
The FDA, contradicting an earlier statement it released, admits that over 80% of milk samples tested by the agency are contaminated with small amounts of antibiotics. . . . Pres. Bush’s approval rating among black Americans is at the highest sustained level for a Republican president in 30 years, according to a New York Times/CBS News survey.
The INS creates a special visa for visitors to the U.S. who plan to attend scientific or professional conferences. Individuals who apply for that visa will no longer have to declare on an immigration form whether they are infected with HIV. . . . U.S. president Bush meets in Hamilton, Bermuda with British prime minister Margaret Thatcher.
A rally in Portland, Oregon, draws 2,500–3,000 demonstrators protesting the proposed logging ban.
August Wilson wins his second Pulitzer Prize for his play The Piano Lesson. For the Pulitzer Prize in literature, Oscar Hijuelos wins the fiction award for his novel The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love.
An Indonesian satellite is successfully launched from Cape Canaveral, Fla., aboard a Delta rocket. The satellite is destined for an orbit 22,300 miles above the equator and will provide an electronic link for the Indonesian islands.
Soul singer James Brown, convicted for aggravated assault and evading police, is placed in a workrelease program. Brown is expected to speak to young people about the dangers of alcohol and drugs.
Doctors successfully accomplish the first heart transplant between infant twins at Riley Hospital for Children in Indianapolis. The heart of Tyler Whisman (who was born brain dead) is transplanted into his sister, Alison Paige Whisman, who had been born with a fatal congenital heart defect. Spark Masayuki Matsunaga, 73, liberal Democratic senator from Hawaii, dies of cancer in Toronto.
Johns Hopkins University researchers find ordinary doses of the popular nonprescription pain reliever ibuprofen can cause kidney failure in people with mild kidney disease.
The Supreme Court refuses to review a ban on school dances in Purdy, Mo.
April 11
April 12
April 13
April 14
Greta Garbo (born Greta Lovisa Gustafsson), 84, legendary Swedish movie star, dies of unreported causes in NYC.
Reigning Olympic champions Gelindo Bordin of Italy and Rosa Mota of Portugal win the men’s and women’s sections of the Boston Marathon, becoming the first marathon gold medalists to win the prestigious event.
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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)
Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.
Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.
Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.
April 15
April 16
46—April 17–22, 1990
April 17
Europe
At a conference attended by 17 nations, the EC, and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, Pres. Bush’s cautious call for more research on global warming draws heated criticism since it delays taking immediate action.
The republic of Serbia lifts the emergency measures it imposed on Kosovo province in Mar. 1989. . . . Top Albanian officials indicate a desire to end a policy of strict isolationism. . . . A series of vigils are held in Britain to mark the fourth anniversary of the kidnapping of journalist John McCarthy. . . . Two Canadian air force fighter jets based in West Germany collide while on a training flight, killing a pilot and injuring three others.
Protests against Jewish settlers climax when Palestinian activists stage the first nationalist demonstration inside the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem. . . . Jafta Masemola, 58, founder of the military wing of the South African black nationalist Pan-Africanist Congress, dies after an automobile accident.
The Soviet Union shuts off the flow of crude oil into Lithuania. In response, Lithuanian foreign minister Algirdas Soudargas begins a scheduled visit to Norway and plans to ask the Norwegians for oil. . . . Estonia signs a contract with an unidentified foreign company to print its own currency.
South African president F. W. de Klerk rejects the concept of majority rule, saying it will lead to black “domination,” but he endorses power sharing between blacks and whites.
Nova Scotia premier John Buchanan suggests Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, and Newfoundland will have no other option than to join the U.S. if Quebec secedes from Canada over the Meech Lake accord.
The British House of Commons approves a bill to offer U.K. residency to 225,000 citizens of Hong Kong, which will revert to Chinese sovereignty in 1997.
Three of the four natural-gas pipelines serving Lithuania shut down, and Lithuania initiates an emergency program of energy rationing. . . . Soviet foreign ministry spokesman Vadim Perfilyev states the Kremlin is considering further economic sanctions on Lithuania.. . . . Diplomatic relations between the Vatican and Czechoslovakia resume after 40 years.
In South Africa, police open fire on demonstrators in the Orange Free State black township of Rammulotsi, killing five youths between the ages of 13 and 16.
In Nicaragua, representatives of the contras, the Sandinista army, and the incoming government sign agreements on a cease-fire. . . . Colombian police report they foiled a plot by two Spanish Basque terrorists to attack the Medellín airport.
At the end of a two-day conference, 32 nations of the Organization of American States sign a 20point agreement to speed up the war on illegal narcotics.
Both houses of the Federal Assembly approve “Czech and Slovak Federative Republic” as the new official name of Czechoslovakia.
After police fire in South Africa’s Orange Free State black township of Rammulotsi, protest riots over the deaths shake the township.
The U.S. ambassador to Peru, Thomas Quainton, approves the disbursement of a $35 million antidrug package in an agreement with Peru’s defense minister, Julio Velazquez Giaccarini. It is the first time in two decades the U.S. has a military relationship with Peru.
In Poland, Lech Walesa is reelected chair of the Solidarity Union. . . . Pope John Paul II visits Czechoslovakia in his first papal visit to a Warsaw Pact country aside from his native Poland. . . . Erte (born Romain de Tirtoff), 97, Russian-born Art Deco designer, dies in Paris.
Israeli troops raid a Hezbollah base north of Israel’s self-proclaimed security zone in southern Lebanon, killing 6 guerrillas. . . . In Gabon, a month-long national conference on democratic reforms close in Libreville, the capital.
A wave of strikes and work stoppages by Sandinista public-sector workers begins, and the job actions paralyze Nicaragua in the weeks leading up to the presidential inauguration.
Protests begin in Romania during election campaigns. . . . A poll shows a negative rating for French president François Mitterrand for the first time since 1986. . . . Milan Kucan of the Democratic Renewal Party, the incumbent president of Slovenia, wins the presidential runoff election. . . . Tudjman, who campaigned on a pro-independence, anti-Serbia platform, wins the Croatian presidency. Croatia and Slovenia are the first Yugoslav republics to hold free elections.
Lebanese kidnappers free U.S. hostage Robert Polhill after more than three years in captivity. Pres. Bush states if the Iranian government wants improved relations with the U.S., it must release all the remaining hostages being held by its Shiite allies in Lebanon. The New York Times reports that Iran gave Hezbollah increased financial and military aid to persuade Lebanese kidnappers to free U.S. hostages. . . . After 10 days of denials, the Israeli government admits it covertly gave $1.8 million to the Jewish settlers’ cause. . . . The military government of Pres. Ibrahim Babangida survives a coup attempt by junior officers protesting the domination of Nigeria’s Christian south by the Muslim north. As many as 30 people are killed in the fighting.
April 18
April 19
April 20
April 21
April 22
Africa & the Middle East
World Affairs
Millions of people throughout the world celebrate Earth Day 1990 with parades, marches, rallies, concerts, festivals, and fairs in 3,600 communities across Europe, Asia, Africa, and North and South America. Organizers claim 200 million people in 140 nations participate, which makes it the largest grass-roots demonstration in history.
The Americas
Asia & the Pacific Following King Birendra’s acceptance of a new interim cabinet, opposition leaders promise multiparty elections will be held within a year in Nepal for the first time since 1959.
In Nepal, King Birendra approves the opposition’s choice of Krishna Prasad Bhattarai as premier. . . . A Queensland court agrees to the request of a male criminal defendant that no women serve on the jury deciding his case.
The highest level of rainfall recorded in Australia in 100 years causes severe flooding in Queensland, New South Wales, and Victoria.
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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.
April 17–22, 1990—47
U.S. Politics & Social Issues
U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense
U.S. Economy & Environment
The Supreme Court rules employment discrimination suits under the Civil Rights Act can be filed in state and federal courts. . . . The Supreme Court rules the government may prohibit drugs that are part of religious rituals so a ban against peyote does not violate Native Americans’ right to free religion. . . . Rev. Ralph David Abernathy, 64, civil rights leader, dies of a heart attack in Atlanta.
The Justice Department wins a federal court order freezing 684 accounts at 173 banks across the U.S. that are believed to hold money from Colombia’s Medellín cocaine trafficking cartel.
Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette Securities Corp. is censured by the Securities and Exchange Commission for illegally profiting from unauthorized trades in customers’ stock. . . . The Supreme Court states that companies that hire replacements for striking workers cannot presume new hires who are opposed to the union.
The Supreme Court rules that states can make it a crime to possess pornographic photographs of children even in the privacy of one’s home. . . . The Supreme Court approves the authority of federal judges to order local governments to increase taxes to finance school desegregation, even if the tax hike is not permitted by state law.
Reports indicate the U.S. merchandise trade deficit shrank to a seasonally adjusted $6.49 billion in February, the smallest gap since Dec. 1983. . . . A federal bankruptcy court judge removes control of Eastern Airlines from Frank Lorenzo and appoints Martin R. Shugrue as trustee to run the carrier.
A group of congressional Democrats declares the first phase of the census a failure and urges the Commerce Department to consider using statistical methods to correct the totals. . . . Colt Firearms, which halted public sales of its AR-15 semiautomatic rifle in 1989 in the wake of complaints, introduces a new rifle similar to the AR-15.
Lebanese kidnappers call for John Kelly, the U.S. assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern and South Asian affairs, to be in Syria to “coordinate the final measures necessary for the success of the release” of a U.S. hostage. Pres. Bush states Kelly will not be dispatched from West Germany to Syria because the U.S. “does not knuckle under to demands.”. . . pres. Bush meets with French president François Mitterrand in Key Largo, Fla.
The Securities and Exchange Commission approves a securities trading system called Portal, created by NASDAQ. Trades on Portal are negotiated entirely by computer and telephone. . . . The SEC liberalizes the issuance and trading of privately placed securities.
Merck & Co., the U.S.’s largest pharmaceutical company, announces it will offer state Medicaid programs a discount on its prescription drugs.
Senator Sam Nunn (D, Ga.), the influential chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, urges a reduction in the fiscal 1991 defense budget of as much as $18 billion and a $100 billion cut over a five-year period.
Philip J. Bakes Jr. resigns as president and chief executive of Eastern Airlines.
Frank John Lausche, 94, former governor and senator of Ohio, dies in Cleveland.
The Pentagon puts two F-117A planes on public display at Nellis, Air Force Base, Nev.
Science, Technology, & Nature
Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle
April 17
Researchers discover a gene that is linked to incidence of alcoholism.
April 18
April 19
In basketball, Dale Ellis of the SuperSonics sets a single-game record with nine three-point goals in a 121-99 victory over the Los Angeles Clippers.
April 20
April 21
Bob Davies, 70, basketball star of the 1940s and 1950s, dies of cancer in Hilton Head, S.C. . . . Two professors at Claremont McKenna College in Claremont, Calif., conclude that William Shakespeare is the author of all the works attributed to him.
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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)
Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.
Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.
Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.
April 22
48—April 23–27, 1990
World Affairs
April 27
The Americas
Asia & the Pacific
Sudan’s military government foils a coup launched by junior army officers and led by retired generals. . . . In Nigeria, 14 officers and 200 lowerranking soldiers are arrested in the April 22 coup attempt.
U.S. officials put drug agents on alert after a Mexican magazine prints the names and locations of 57 agents for the DEA who are working inside Mexico.
Most office buildings and factories in Manila close as businesses observe the first of six scheduled “powerless Mondays,” ordered by the Philippine government to combat a severe energy shortage.
A court in Kosovo province acquits for lack of evidence 14 of the 15 ethnic Albanians on trial in the town of Titova Mitrovica for “counterrevolutionary activities.” The 14 include Azem Vlasi, the popular former leader of the provincial Communist Party.
Zairean president Mobutu Sese Seko ends a 20-year ban on multiparty politics. . . . After an attempted coup, Sudan reports state that 28 officers were shot after a summary court-martial. One colonel was acquitted. . . . A group calling itself Islamic Jihad issues a statement in Beirut, Lebanon threatening to attack Americans around the world unless the U.S. resolution on Jerusalem passed by Congress is rescinded.
The Chilean Supreme Court orders a military court to reopen the investigation of the Orlando Letelier killing, reversing a 1979 order. Separately, Pres. Patricio Aylwin establishes a national commission to investigate the human rights abuses of the Pinochet era and proposes compensation for the victims and their families. . . . In Nicaragua, Miriam Arguello Morales is elected president of the National Assembly.
China and the Soviet Union sign an agreement for cuts in the nearly 1 million troops stationed along the Sino-Soviet border as well as a 10-year pact that calls for increased economic and scientific cooperation between the nations.
Australian prime minister Bob Hawke, Turkish president Turgut Ozal, British prime minister Margaret Thatcher and Sir Paul Reeves, the governor general of New Zealand, observe the 75th anniversary of the Allied amphibious invasion of the Gallipoli Peninsula during World War I, which cost 300,000 Allied and Turkish lives.
The British House of Commons votes for changes in abortion laws. . . . The last five prisoners surrender at Strangeways, ending the longest siege in the history of British prisons. . . . Oskar Lafontaine, the West German Social Democratic Party’s candidate for chancellor, is stabbed in the throat at a campaign rally in Cologne. . . . Lithuania cuts off exports of meat and milk to the rest of the USSR in retaliation for the Soviet economic embargo.
In Zaire, Mobutu names a former professor and legal adviser, Lunda Bululu, as premier, replacing Kengo wa Dondo. . . . The U.S. State Department advises Americans to leave Liberia and authorizes U.S. government employees and their families to leave if they wish because of mounting violence.
In Nicaragua, Violeta Barrios de Chamorro is sworn in as president, ending more than a decade of rule by the Sandinista National Liberation Front. In his departing speech, Daniel Ortega lashes out at the U.S. for supporting the contras. . . . In Colombia, a truck bomb explodes in Medellín. At least nine people are killed and 30 others are wounded.
In South Korea, Hyundai Heavy Industry Co. workers strike to protest the continued imprisonment of four union leaders involved in a 1989 strike at the plant. . . . Japan announces it will open its markets to U.S. lumber products.
West German chancellor Helmut Kohl and French president François Mitterrand appeal to Lithuania to suspend its declaration of independence in the first attempt by Western countries to convince Lithuania to retreat.
After a two-day meeting in Paris, West German chancellor Kohl and French president Mitterrand announce their nations will harmonize policies on all European defense and security issues.
Israel declines to release Muslim prisoners as a goodwill gesture on the Islamic holiday of Id al-Fitr, as it has done in the past. . . . Israel’s Supreme Court upholds the eviction of Jewish settlers in Jerusalem. . . . Israeli Labor Party leader Shimon Peres concedes defeat in his fiveweek effort to form a center-left coalition government. . . . In Sudan, four officers are sentenced to jail terms for the April 23 coup attempt, while four others are dismissed from the armed forces and another six are acquitted.
A gunman kills Carlos Pizarro Leongómez in the third assassination of a presidential candidate in Colombia’s election campaign. . . . After months of strikes in Argentina, Pres. Carlos Saúl Menem asks for the power to curtail strikes in “essential services.”
An earthquake in central China measuring 6.9 on the Richter scale kills 115 people. The epicenter of the quake is located about 70 miles southwest of Xining, in the province of Qinghai.
The International Monetary Fund withholds the disbursement of $54 million in loans earmarked for Zaire because it does not meet IMF budgetary targets.
Britain’s Court of Appeal overturns the convictions of three people charged with plotting to kill thenSecretary of State for Northern Ireland Tom King in 1987. . . . The Soviet Union commemorates the fourth anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear-power disaster. However, a series of press reports discloses that more than 3 million people still live in contaminated areas in the Ukraine, Byelorussia, and western Russia.
The leaders of the 10 Christian denominations with a presence in Israel close all their holy sites for the day in an unprecedented protest against the Apr. 7 Palestinian demonstration in Holy Sepulcher.
In Nicaragua, the government introduces a new 1 million cordoba note, worth $7.14 at the parallel exchange rate, and a new 500,000 cordoba note, at the same time slashing in half the value of the cordoba at the parallel rate. . . . Roman Catholic Church officials in Medellin claim they foiled a plot to kill Colombia’s Catholic prelate.
April 24
April 26
Africa & the Middle East
Lithuania’s only oil refinery shuts down for lack of crude oil. . . . East Germany begins making payments to support survivors of the Holocaust. . . . Voters in the East German city of Karl-Marx-Stadt readopt the city’s previous name, Chemnitz. . . . Premier Li Peng visits Moscow in the first trip to the Soviet Union by a Chinese premier in 26 years. Several hundred Soviet citizens stage a demonstration outside the Soviet foreign ministry in Moscow while Li’s delegation is inside.
April 23
April 25
Europe
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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.
April 23–27, 1990—49
U.S. Politics & Social Issues
U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense
Pres. Bush signs into law a bill that requires the federal government to keep records on hate crimes. . . . The first black professor at Harvard Law School, Derrick Bell, requests an unpaid leave of absence until the school appoints a black woman to its tenured faculty. . . . The Supreme Court overrules a Minnesota Supreme Court decision that exempts an Amish group from complying with a highway safety law. . . . Common Cause reports that Sen. Lloyd Bentsen (D, Tex.) received the most money from PACs from 1983 to 1988 than any other current senator. . . . The Supreme Court refuses to review a ruling that allows a lawsuit for parental rights by a man who donated sperm for the artificial insemination of a woman who is not his wife.
Pres. Bush telephones Syria’s president Hafez al-Assad and thanks him for his role in Robert Polhill’s release. However, U.S. officials report that no dramatic improvement in Washington’s ties with either Syria or Iran is likely in the immediate future. . . . Clifton Reginald Wharton, 90, first black U.S. career Foreign Service officer to attain the ranks of minister and ambassador to Norway, dies of a heart attack in Phoenix, Ariz.
The Supreme Court rejects a challenge by an outsider against the death sentence of a convicted murderer, Ronald Gene Simmons, who does not seek a reprieve.
The House of Representatives approves a nonbinding resolution recognizing a united Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, a measure identical to one passed by the Senate and contrary to official U.S. policy. . . . The U.S. approves an increase in funds for the Bolivian military to combat its domestic cocaine industries. . . . Pres. Bush indefinitely delays the imposition of U.S. sanctions against the Soviet Union over the Lithuania crisis. . . . Victor Stello Jr.’s request to have his name withdrawn from nomination as assistant energy secretary in charge of the nation’s nuclear weapons production program is accepted by Pres. Bush.
The Justice Department overturns Georgia’s system for electing superior court judges as discriminatory against blacks.
Pres. Bush restores Nicaragua’s eligibility for credits and loan guarantees. . . . The U.S. and Soviet Union agree to cut their stocks of chemical weapons to a ceiling of 5,000 tons each, or about 20% of the current U.S. arsenal.
The American College of Physicians becomes the first major medical organization to call for some form of nationalized health care. . . . The Washington, D.C., Court of Appeals rules that a lower court erred in ordering a dying cancer patient to undergo a Caesarean section to save her unborn fetus without her consent.
A documentary alleges that U.S. aid to Cambodian noncommunist rebels benefited the Khmer Rouge in its quest to regain power. In response, the U.S. State Department asserts a key objective of U.S. policy is “the prevention of a return to power of the Khmer Rouge.” . . . Defense Secretary Dick Cheney proposes major cutbacks in new aircraft programs as a budget-cutting device. . . . U.S. and Soviet negotiators, meeting in Paris, reach a broad agreement on bilateral trade.
California senator Joseph Montoya is sentenced to 61⁄2 years in prison for extortion, racketeering, and money laundering. . . . The Memphis bank fraud trial of Rep. Harold E. Ford (D, Tenn.) ends in a mistrial.
Pres. Bush decides against identifying Japan and Brazil as unfair trading partners under the Super 301 provision of the 1988 U.S. Omnibus Trade Act.
U.S. Economy & Environment
Science, Technology, & Nature
Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle Albert Salmi, 62, actor from Gunsmoke and Bonanza is found dead from a gunshot wound in a murdersuicide with his wife. . . . Paulette Goddard (born Marion Levy), 78 (according to her account) or 84 (according to officials in Ronco), Hollywood film star of the 1930s and 1940s, dies of heart failure in Ronco, Switzerland.
Former Drexel Burnham Lambert Inc. “junk-bond” operations chief Michael R. Milken pleads guilty in U.S. District Court in NYC to 6 felony counts related to securities fraud. . . . Reports show new orders for durable goods rose 6.7% in March, the highest monthly increase since 1988.
The spacecraft Discovery lifts off from Cape Canaveral, Fla., without any hitches, and it attains the highest orbit ever reached by the shuttle, above any traces of friction from the upper atmosphere.
The Supreme Court rules the owners of Alfred Hitchcock’s 1954 film Rear Window infringes the copyright of the short story on which the film is based. The ruling raises questions about hundreds of classic films. . . . Joan Tower, a professor of music at Bard College in New York, wins the fifth Grawemeyer Award for original music composition. She is the first woman and the first Native American to win the award.
The U.S. space shuttle Discovery successfully deploys the Hubble Space Telescope in an orbit 381 miles above Earth. One of the telescope’s two major antennas snags on a bowed electric cable, blocking the antenna from one-quarter of its turning capability.
Dexter Gordon, 67, jazz tenor saxophonist and actor, dies of cancer in Philadelphia. . . . Media mogul John Kluge, who was named by Forbes magazine as the richest man in the U.S., files for divorce from his wife Patricia.
Ames Department Stores Inc. files for protection under Chapter 11 of the federal bankruptcy code.
A panel of scientists convened by the U.S. Public Health Service conclude that there is no persuasive evidence that the fluoridation of drinking water creates a significant risk of cancer.
Joseph Papp, director of the New York Shakespeare Festival, rejects a $50,000 grant from the NEA to protest its stance on “obscene” art. . . . The New York Court of Appeals upholds a ruling that the San Diego Yacht Club is the winner of the 1988 America’s Cup competition against a syndicate from New Zealand.
Pennsylvania governor Robert P. Casey (D) signs the nation’s most restrictive law designed to discourage hostile corporate takeovers. Two suits are filed in U.S. District Court in Philadelphia against the measure. . . . Reports assert the gross national product grew at a 2.1% annual rate in the first quarter of 1990, while inflation soared to its highest quarterly rate since 1981.
The Hubble telescope successfully opens its 10-foot- wide “lens cap.”
Bella Cohen Spewack, 91, coauthor of books to Broadway musicals Kiss Me Kate and Boy Meets Girl, dies in NYC. . . . San Antonio Spurs center David Robinson is named basketball’s rookie of the year, the first unanimous choice for the award since 1984. . . . The Bourne Ultimatum by Robert Ludlum tops the bestseller list.
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Includes elections, federal-state relations, civil rights and liberties, crime, the judiciary, education, health care, poverty, urban affairs, and population.
Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)
Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.
Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.
Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.
April 23
April 24
April 25
April 26
April 27
50—April 28–May 3, 1990
April 28
World Affairs
Europe
The Los Angeles Times reports that millions of dollars of UN relief money for Afghanistan, earmarked for repair of roads and villages, has instead been spent on salaries, offices, and housing for relief workers. . . . Leaders of the 12 EC nations agree to set an examination of proposals designed to increase political cooperation within the community.
April 29
Asia & the Pacific
Syrian president Hafez al-Assad meets with Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev in his first visit to Moscow in three years.
Slain Colombian candidate Carlos Pizarro Leongómez is buried, and 20,000 mourners accompany his coffin in a procession through the capital. His second in command, Antonio Navarro Wolff, states he will replace Pizarro as the group’s presidential candidate.
More than 10,000 riot police assault the Hyundai Heavy Industry Co. shipyard plant in an attempt to halt a 20,000-worker wildcat strike.
Men in the Swiss sub-canton of Appenzell Inner-Rhoden vote to keep the ban on women voting in local elections, the only place in the nation that withholds the right to vote in local elections from women. . . . British Satellite Broadcasting begins its satellite television service. . . . New East German premier Lothar de Maiziere pays his first visit to Moscow and meets with Soviet president Gorbachev.
Panama’s president, Guillermo Endara, embarks on a five-day visit to the U.S.
In South Korea, at least 3,000 Hyundai striking workers clash with police. Protests over the raid spread to Seoul, where more than 1,000 students block traffic and throw stones at police.
Lebanese kidnappers free hostage Frank Reed, the second American captive released in eight days. . . . In Zaire, government security forces attack a political rally in Kinshasa, killing at least two people. . . . During Israel’s independence day celebrations, Pres. Chaim Herzog receives petitions signed by half a million adults demanding reform of Israel’s electoral system to end the paralyzing influence of small parties. . . . The U.S. and South Yemen restore diplomatic relations after a break of over 20 years.
The largest native land-claim accord in Canadian history gives the Inuit over 135,000 square miles of land and a total of C$612 million in compensation over the next 14 years. It also gives the Inuit the rights to oil, gas, and mineral holdings on 14,000 square miles of the territory. In exchange, the Inuit relinquishes their claim to a 772,000-square-mile area. . . . Panama and the U.S. sign three agreements on fighting drug trafficking. . . . Pres. Bush nominates Gilberto Guardia Fabrega as the first Panamanian administrator of the Panama Canal.
In Japan, Foreign Minister Taro Nakayama announces that thirdgeneration Koreans in Japan will be granted permanent resident status and will no longer be required to be fingerprinted. . . . At least 2,000 riot policemen raid the offices of the state-run Korean Broadcasting System in Seoul to break up a strike. . . . Reports surface that China supplied Cambodian rebels with arms.
May Day celebrations and marches are held in Czechoslovakia, Romania, Poland, Bulgaria, and Hungary, and groups stage a prodemocracy rally in Leningrad, where the official celebration was canceled. . . . Soviet president Gorbachev and Kremlin leaders are jeered by thousands of protesters at the May Day parade in Red Square. . . . Hundreds of thousands of people cross between East and West Berlin while leftist youths stage antireunification rallies in both Germanies. . . . The Irish government bans smoking in theaters and buses.
The U.S. suspends the Peace Corps program, with its 130 volunteers, in Liberia because of escalating violence.
In El Salvador, Col. Roberto Mauricio Staben, who is linked to a kidnap-for-profit ring and is frequently accused of human rights abuses, is ousted from his command.
The Chinese government ends martial law in Lhasa, the capital of Tibet. Martial law has been in effect since March 1989. . . . Tens of thousands of demonstrators rally to demand the removal of U.S. military bases from the Philippines.
In Washington, D.C., more than 200 legislators from 42 countries call for a “global Marshall Plan” to help developing countries cope with environmental problems. World Bank president Barber Conable states the bank will ask its members to establish a new environmental fund.
In Hungary, Arpad Goncz becomes the parliamentary speaker, which encompasses the role of acting president. West German president Richard von Weizsaecker becomes the first West German head of state to visit Poland. . . . East and West German negotiators finalize terms for the unification of monetary systems and agree to implement the two-for-one rate as the official currency exchange rate, replacing the three-for-one rate.
The South African government and the African National Congress meet in Cape Town for their first formal talks. . . . Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak flies to Damascus, where he is warmly received by Syrian president Assad in the first visit to Syria by an Egyptian leader since 1977.
Law enforcement agents from Ontario, Quebec, and New York State seal off the St. Regis Mohawk Indian Reservation in an attempt to quell a series of gunfights in a dispute over gambling casinos on the reservation. . . . Jamaican prime minister Michael Manley visits Washington, D.C.
OPEC officials meet in Geneva and agree to scale back production to stem tumbling world oil prices.The foreign ministers of NATO adopt a package of proposals related to the reunification of Germany.
In Hungary, Pres. Arpad Goncz appoints Jozsef Antall as premier. . . . Britain’s ruling Conservative Party loses 191 seats, and the Labour Party gains 300 seats. . . . The Latvian Supreme Soviet begins a new session. . . . Bulgaria restores diplomatic relations with Israel after a 23-year break. . . . Accused Nazi war criminal Josef Schwammberger arrives in West Germany after being extradited from Argentina, where he was arrested in 1987.
Ivory Coast president Félix Houphouët-Boigny instructs the interior minister to implement multiparty politics.
In Colombia, security forces start a two-day raid and seize 18 tons of cocaine powder and semirefined cocaine in the largest drug raid in the nation’s history. . . . Separately, a bomb explodes outside a pharmacy said to be owned by Cali drug cartel leaders. Five people are killed and 36 wounded.
May 1
May 3
The Americas
In Czechoslovakia, the People’s Party sparks a furor by using secret-police files to disclose the communist pasts of two parliamentary deputies, both members of the prodemocracy Civic Forum movement.
April 30
May 2
Africa & the Middle East
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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.
April 28–May 3, 1990—51
U.S. Politics & Social Issues
U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense
U.S. Economy & Environment
Science, Technology, & Nature
Hawaii governor John D. Waihee (D) appoints Rep. Daniel K. Akaka (D, Hawaii) to fill the Senate seat of the late Spark M. Matsunaga. . . . Hundreds of thousands of people attend an antiabortion rally in Washington, D.C.
A Chorus Line, the longest-running show in the history of NYC’s Broadway theater district, gives its final performance after a run of nearly 15 years and 6,137 performances.
Margaret T. Hance, 66, Republican who was elected the first female mayor of Phoenix, Ariz., dies of cancer in Phoenix.
Connecticut governor William O’Neill (D) signs legislation intended to ensure a woman’s right to abortion even if the Supreme Court were to strike down the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision. . . . DuBois Gilliam, imprisoned for his role in the HUD scandal, describes HUD’s fraud and political favoritism. . . . The Supreme Court says the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey can be sued in federal court. . . . The Supreme Court recognizes the authority of states or private parties to challenge mergers as anticompetitive even if they receive federal approval.
Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle
The spacecraft Discovery lands safely at Edwards Air Force Base in California.
Pres. Bush for the first time thanks Iran for the release of hostages but stresses there are no deals involved in the releases. . . . The U.S. State Department releases its annual list of countries that support international terrorism. . . . A federal judge in Alexandria, Va., dismisses new charges against Thomas Muldoon, the first figure to be reindicted in the Pentagon procurement scandal.
Reverend Henry C. Gregory, 54, pastor whose sermons were broadcast over the radio each Sunday, dies of cancer in White Sulphur Springs, W.Va.
The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching finds campus life at America’s colleges and universities is undermined by crime, alcohol abuse, and growing racial and sexual intolerance.
The Senate approves a $3.4 billion supplemental spending bill for fiscal 1990 that includes $720 million in aid for Panama and Nicaragua. . . . Defense Secretary Dick Cheney extends for 45 days a freeze on domestic and foreign U.S. military construction.
The House passes a $1.2 trillion spending plan for fiscal 1991 put forth by the Democrats as “a first step in the process” of working out a budget with the Bush administration.
The FDA approves a test to screen the nation’s blood supply for the hepatitis C virus.
The Washington Post reports the Bush administration passed messages to Iran via Algerian, Japanese, and Swiss intermediaries that parallel Bush’s public statements and were meant to encourage further hostage releases.
The Senate Budget Committee approves a $1.23 trillion fiscal 1991 spending plan that will reduce the federal deficit by $43 billion by spending less on defense and domestic programs than either the House or the White House proposed.The White House reveals Pres. Bush mistakenly underpaid his 1989 federal income tax and remedied the underpayment.
David Rappaport, 38, British-born dwarf who appeared in the television series L.A. Law, dies of a selfinflicted gunshot wound in Los Angeles.
In a case that touched off civil-rights protests, an all-white jury in Houston convicts three white former police officers of murdering a black man who died after a prison beating. . . . A Pennsylvania jury awards the largest libel judgment ever against a newspaper in a suit filed against the Philadelphia Inquirer. . . . The FDA grants formal approval for use of the drug AZT in treating children with AIDS, waiving its requirement of separate testing of drugs in children.
Lithuanian premier Kazimiera Prunskiene meets with U.S. president Bush in Washington, D.C.
Pres. Bush supports William Taylor, a top Federal Reserve Board official, to succeed L. William Seidman as chairman of the government’s program to bail out failed savings and loan institutions.
The First Family responds to controversy when a group of 150 Wellesley students protest an invitation to act as commencement speaker to Mrs. Bush, who dropped out of Smith College to marry.
NASA engineers report that they found a way to correct an antenna problem on the Hubble telescope.
Reports state that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints dropped some Mormon rituals that are offensive to women and to members of other religions. . . . John F. Kennedy Jr. fails the New York State bar exam for the second time.
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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)
Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.
Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.
Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.
April 28
April 29
April 30
May 1
May 2
May 3
52—May 4–8, 1990
Africa & the Middle East
The Americas
Asia & the Pacific
The Supreme Soviet of Latvia votes in favor of a declaration of independence from the Soviet Union and calls for a period of transition to independence. . . . About 2,000 young Serbian nationalists stage a protest march through Belgrade on the 10th anniversary of the death of former Yugoslav leader Josip Broz, Marshal Tito. Police use truncheons to break up the protest. . . . The Greek parliament elects Constantine Karamanlis as the nation’s president. . . . David Hunt becomes secretary of state for Wales.
Iranian and Israeli officials and Lebanese militants begin to trade demands on the possible swap of Western hostages in Lebanon for Shiite Muslim prisoners held by pro-Israeli forces.
In Colombia, seven people are killed in a shoot-out between counterterrorist police and suspected drug traffickers. . . . In Nicaragua, disarmament talks begin between the government and contras.
U.S. Marine sergeant John S. Fredette is shot dead in Olongapo City, near the U.S. Subic Bay Naval Station in the Philippines.
Foreign ministers from East and West Germany and the victorious Allied powers of World War II meet in Bonn to discuss the reunification of Germany.
Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev condemns the Latvian measure in a phone call to the head of the Latvian Communist Party. . . . The English soccer season ends violently when police in Bournemouth clash with 2,500 fans. . . . In Romania, a presidential candidate, Rodu Campeanu, is assaulted by protesters in Braila. . . . The people of Plzen, Czechoslovakia, honor two dozen U.S. veterans, who liberated the city from Nazi German occupation.
In South Africa, the Azanian People’s Organization, a militant blackconsciousness group, accuses the ANC of forging an alliance with F. W. de Klerk’s ruling National Party at the expense of mass struggle by the black majority.
In Nicaragua, Pres. Violeta Barrios de Chamorro pledges to grant the contras a parcel of land on which they can settle as farmers with government aid. The territory will be permanently demilitarized. The accord is called the Declaration of Managua.
Afghan foreign minister Abdul Wakil urges the U.S. to agree to dialogue with his government on the possibility of internationally monitored elections in Afghanistan. . . . In response to the May 4 shooting of a marine, military authorities cancel off-base leave for all U.S. service personnel and their families in the Philippines.
Top finance officials from the Group of Seven nations meet in Washington, D.C., and agree to increase the lending resources of the International Monetary Fund by 50%.
The Soviet government opens eight border points for six hours and allows Romanians to travel freely. . . . The Croatian Democratic Union wins a parliamentary majority in run-off elections. . . . Latvian president Anatolijs Gorbunovs appeals to the Kremlin to discuss independence. . . . Italian regional elections show waning support for the Communist Party and gains for conservative regional parties. . . . In East Germany’s first free local elections, Lothar de Maiziere takes the lead.
Former president P. W. Botha resigns from the National Party to protest the government’s talks with the ANC, while Nelson Mandela, Joseph Slovo, and Alfred Nzo give a positive report on their talks with the government at a rally in Soweto.
Pope John Paul II starts a visit to Mexico.
The World Health Organization (WHO) opens its annual meeting in Geneva with renewed controversy over the PLO’s request for full membership in the UN agency. . . . Czechoslovakia signs a 10-year accord on trade and cooperation with the European Community.
Latvian deputies choose Ivars Godmanis, a noncommunist, as Latvia’s premier. A column of Soviet tanks roll through Riga, the Latvian capital. A leading Latvian trade-union organization vows a campaign of civil disobedience to protest secession. . . . U.S. vice president Dan Quayle visits London in his first European trip as vice president. The trip commemorates the 100th anniversary of the birth of Pres. Eisenhower.
The ANC invites the leaders of four of the six nominally self-governing black tribal “homelands” for a briefing on the Cape Town talks. . . . In Zaire, the cabinet is sworn in by Pres. Mobutu Sese Seko.
Canadian employment and immigration minister Barbara McDougall acknowledges that immigration officials used tranquilizing drugs on illegal immigrants who resisted deportation. . . . In Canada, Fisheries Minister Valcourt releases a federal plan to aid the ailing Atlantic Canada Fishing industry. . . . Pres. Bush’s chief of staff, John Sununu, warns Salvadoran president Alfredo Cristiani that mishandling of the Benavides investigation may jeopardize U.S. aid.
The Group of Seven (U.S., Japan, Great Britain, West Germany, France, Italy, and Canada) makes several decisions about the IMF that are endorsed at a meeting in Washington. . . . Premier Adil Carcani announces that Albania will join the 35-nation Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe.
The Albanian People’s Assembly approves a package of bills for liberal reform and becomes the last Marxist nation in Europe to effect liberalization. . . . Estonian lawmakers pass a resolution declaring the birth of the “Estonian Republic.” The deputies adopt the Estonian flag as the republic’s official symbol and pass legislation that states only laws passed in Estonia are valid on Estonian soil. . . . Cardinal Tomas O Fiaich, 66, Roman Catholic primate of all Ireland since 1977, dies from heart trouble.
About 2,000 Moroccan fundamentalists are beaten and arrested when they stage a peaceful demonstration in Rabat in support of six jailed Islamic leaders. Hours later, King Hassan orders the release of many of the demonstrators and announces the creation of a 37member consultative committee on human rights. . . . F. W. de Klerk begins a nine-nation tour of Europe.
Rafael Angel Calderón Fournier is sworn in as president of Costa Rica. . . . U.S. president George H. W. Bush pledges to seek to increase funding to help cut Bolivian cocaine production. . . . Nicaragua resumes exporting goods to the U.S.
World Affairs
May 4
May 5
May 6
May 7
May 8
Europe
Philippine police arrest two men in connection with the May 4 shooting of a U.S. marine. Police report that an investigation “discounted the possibility of political motive” for the crime. . . . In response to growing public discontent, South Korean president Roh Tae Woo makes a televised speech acknowledging that his administration made mistakes.
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Includes developments that affect more than one world region, international organizations, and important meetings of major world leaders.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.
May 4–8, 1990—53
U.S. Politics & Social Issues
U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense
U.S. Economy & Environment
Science, Technology, & Nature
Robert Tappan Morris Jr., a former Cornell University graduate student, is sentenced in U.S. District Court to three years’ probation for creating a computer virus that disrupted a nationwide network in Nov. 1988.
A federal jury in Portland, Oreg., acquits a self-proclaimed CIA contract agent of lying when he claimed that the Reagan-Bush campaign struck a deal with Iran in Oct. 1980 to hold the 52 U.S. hostages in Teheran until after the election. . . . Two U.S. soldiers who participated in the 1989 invasion of Panama, Sgt. Paul T. Finsel Jr. and Pfc. Mark McMonagle, are charged with murdering a Panamanian. . . . Seventeen Marines are injured in a Sea Knight crash at Twentynine Palms, Calif.
Reports state that the U.S. civilian unemployment rate rose to 5.4% in April from 5.2% in March, the highest increase in more than a year.
A volcano with slow-moving lava compels officials to move the historic Star-of-the-Sea Roman Catholic Church in Kalapana, Hawaii. . . . A study in Science finds that where meat consumption has risen in China, so have the socalled “diseases of affluence” such as heart attacks, cancer, and diabetes.
A bipartisan commission report concludes that U.S. voters are uninformed and apathetic about national elections.
U.S. federal prosecutors file documents in Los Angeles stating that the police chief of Mexico City, Javier García Paniagua, was present at a 1984 meeting of drug traffickers, Mexican law enforcement officials, and others in which Enrique Camarena’s abduction was planned.
In the Greyhound strike, contract talks between the union and management resume under the auspices of the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service. However, they are halted indefinitely after a nine-hour bargaining session.
A slow-moving lava flow from Kilauea Volcano on the island of Hawaii cuts off road access to Kalapana, prompting Hawaiian governor John Waihee (D) to declare the village a disaster area. The 2,000-ft-wide lava flow is the result of eruptions at Kilauea that began in Jan. 1983.
Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle
May 4
Elton Hoerl Rule, 73, president of ABC, 1972–83, dies of cancer in Beverly Hills, Calif. . . . Unbridled wins the 116th running of the Kentucky Derby.
Charles (Charlie) Farrell, 88, film actor and former mayor of Palm Springs, Calif., dies in Palm Springs after a heart attack.
A settlement is reached in a dispute over the Selma, Ala., school board’s decision not to renew the contract of school superintendent Norward Roussell, a decision that had sparked protests earlier.
Craig I. Fields becomes the deputy director of defense research and engineering. . . . Carl Russell (Spitz) Channell, 44, the first person to plead guilty to criminal charges in the Iran-contra affair, dies from complications after an earlier car accident.
According to a report published in American Psychologist, teenagers who experiment with drugs to a limited extent tend to be emotionally healthier and better adjusted than either total abstainers or drug abusers.
A previously undisclosed meeting between Oliver North and then-vice president Bush is revealed when 1,400 pages of North’s notebooks are made public.
Business Week reports that average compensation for top executives of U.S. corporations rose 3.4% in 1989, the smallest increase since 1970.
Nora Dunn, a cast member of Saturday Night Live, announces that she will not appear on an episode hosted by Andrew Dice Clay, noted for his routines directed against women and homosexuals. . . . Pistons’ forward Dennis Rodman is named basketball’s top defensive player.
The FCC grants a license to Millicom Inc. to test a new type of portable phone network that may emerge as an alternative to cellular systems currently in use.
May 5
May 6
May 7
May 8
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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)
Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.
Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.
Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.
54—May 9–14, 1990
May 9
May 10
Africa & the Middle East
World Affairs
Europe
The U.S. presents opposition to a UN plan to provide direct aid to Third World countries to reduce use of ozone-depleting chlorofluorocarbons. . . . The Lithuanian premier meets with British prime minister Margaret Thatcher, who states she “absolutely, unquestionably” supports Lithuanian independence but urges the republic to compromise with the Kremlin.
In Poland, Lech Walesa, founder of the Solidarity union movement, threatens to lead a “permanent political war” that will shake Premier Tadeusz Mazowiecki and the Solidarity-led government. . . . The minority Socialist government of French premier Michel Rocard survives a censure motion over controversial legislation to grant amnesty to politicians in cases of illegal fundraising prior to June 1989. . . . The USSR marks the 45th anniversary of the victory over Nazi Germany with a military parade in Moscow.
Nelson Mandela starts a six-nation tour of Africa.
NATO’s Nuclear Planning Group decides to decrease its arsenal of nuclear weapons in Europe. . . . In response to a U.S. threat to withdraw crucial funding to the World Health Organization, it defers the divisive PLO bid indefinitely.
The Lithuanian government takes over state television and radio outlets in the republic. . . . In Poland, 10 rail workers start a hunger strike. . . . Desecrated Jewish graves in France call attention to racism and anti-Semitism. . . . F. W. de Klerk confers with François Mitterrand, becoming the first South African leader to meet with a French president since 1947.
Tens of thousands of Algerians stage a peaceful march to show their support for democracy and their opposition to Islamic fundamentalism.
In Nicaragua, 60,000 government workers stage sit-ins and strikes to press for wage increases.
China releases 211 dissidents who were involved in the 1989 prodemocracy movement.
The presidents of Estonia, Lithuania, and Latvia meet for the first time since the start of the independence push. . . . British publisher Robert Maxwell launches The European, a weekly English-language paper available throughout Europe. . . . In Romania, three Peasants Party deputies resign from the Provisional Council of National Unity to protest the “atmosphere of terror” pervading the elections.
The Financial Times reports that the Ethopian government has lifted its 13-year-old ban on private banking.
The pope holds an unscheduled prayer in Tuxtla Gutiérrez, Mexico, for 27 people who died in a plane crash while on the way to see him.
An explosion and fire rip through a Philippine Airlines jet as it prepares to take off from Benigno Aquino International Airport in Manila on a domestic flight. The blast kills seven people and injures 82. . . . A secret Chinese government document made public in the U.S. appears to confirm that Chinese leaders considered the release of detained dissidents a “card” to play for favorable U.S. policy.
The presidents of Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia agree to coordinate political and economic strategies and sign a treaty reviving the Baltic Council, a group that existed until the 1940 Soviet annexation of the Baltic region. . . . Around 100,000 demonstrators in Prague demand that former officials be prosecuted for the alleged crimes they committed during Communist rule. . . . Andrei Pavlovich Kirilenko, 84, former member of the Soviet Politburo, dies of unreported causes in the USSR.
South Yemen president Ali Abdullah Saleh announces that the armed forces of North and South Yemen are technically dissolved. . . . In Liberia, rebels seize Yekepa, the site of an iron-ore mine that is Liberia’s biggest industrial facility. . . . The Washington Post reports that powerful old-guard members of the Popular Movement of the Revolution successfully pressured Zaire’s president Mobuto to slow down the process of liberalization.
In Colombia, at least 17 people die and more than 140 are injured when two car bombs explode in front of shopping malls in Bogota. Separately, as many as 10 people die and 40 are injured when a bomb explodes in the nightclub district of Cali. . . . Chile reaches a tentative accord under which it will pay compensation to the U.S. for the 1976 killing of Chilean exile Orlando Letelier and an aide, Ronni K. Moffitt.
P.M. Vishwanath Pratap Singh visits the Indian states of Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu after they are hit by cyclones and announces a total of $70 million in emergency relief funds.
British fears about the possibility of the transmission of mad cow disease to humans are raised when a cat dies from the disease. . . . The West German Social Democratic Party (SPD) posts key election victories in state elections in Lower Saxony and North Rhine-Westphalia.
Eleven armed dissidents seize control of a radio station in Madagascar. In clashes with security forces, three people are killed and 20 injured. . . . The U.S. and Iran sign an agreement under which Iran will pay the U.S. $105 million to settle 2,795 small financial claims arising from the 1979 Iranian revolution.
Mexico’s Chamber of Deputies approves a constitutional amendment returning control of the nation’s banks to private hands. The banks had been nationalized in 1982.
South Korean police arrest a prominent dissident, Kim Keun Tae, in connection with recent protests. . . . In the Philippines, two U.S. servicemen are shot and killed. Officials cancel all off-base leaves for U.S. military personnel.
Pres. Mikhail Gorbachev declares the efforts of Estonia and Latvia to break with the Soviet Union have no legal basis. . . . At least 200 protesters, some on a hunger strike, take up residence in a tent city erected in Bucharest, the headquarters for daily antigovernment protests. . . . In response to several desecrated Jewish graves, 80,000 march in Paris to protest racism and antiSemitism. Pres. Mitterrand joins the march, the first time a French president participates in a public protest since World War II. . . . Seven people are injured in an IRA bomb attack on the Ministry of Defense’s Directorate of Army Education in London.
In the Ivory Coast, hundreds of lowranking army conscripts, disgruntled over low pay and poor working conditions, stage unprecedented protests. . . . Around 20,000 Jordanians and Palestinians stage a march that ends in chaos when some youths charge across the Allenby Bridge, which links Jordan to the West Bank. More than 50 people are injured when police use tear gas to drive back the crowd.
Nicaraguan labor minister Francisco Rosales declares a public sector strike illegal. . . . The Mexican attorney general’s office creates a new investigative division that will handle special cases, including the 1985 torture and slaying of a U.S. drug agent and his pilot.
Bilateral talks open in Manila. Supporters and opponents of the U.S. bases demonstrate throughout the Philippines.
May 11
May 12
May 13
May 14
The Americas
Asia & the Pacific Nearly 100,000 students in 16 cities demonstrate against South Korea’s dominant Democratic Liberal Party in the largest protest in South Korea since 1987. Student protesters in Seoul attack and set fire to the U.S. Information Service building. . . . The worst cyclone in India since 1977 batters the states of Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu for two days, killing 450 people and destroying thousands of homes.
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Includes developments that affect more than one world region, international organizations, and important meetings of major world leaders.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.
May 9–14, 1990—55
U.S. Politics & Social Issues
U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense
U.S. Economy & Environment
The Senate Ethics Committee votes to broaden an investigation of Sen. David Durenberger (R, Minn.). . . . Pauline Frederick, 84, news commentator and the first woman to moderate a presidential debate, dies of a heart attack in Lake Forest, Ill.
Americas Watch, a U.S.-based human rights group, charges that before and during the 1989 invasion of Panama, the U.S. violated the Geneva Conventions on warfare. . . . Bush administration officials contend that the Bush-North meeting concerned arms sales to Iran but did not address illegal contra aid
The Animas–La Plata reservoir project in Colorado is put on “indefinite hold” after the Fish and Wildlife Service finds the project threatens the endangered Colorado squawfish. . . . The EPA concludes that secondhand smoke causes more than 3,000 cases of lung cancer in nonsmokers each year in the U.S. . . . The Treasury sells $10 billion of new 10-year notes at an average yield of 8.88%, the highest since May 1989.
Singer Tom Waits wins a lawsuit against Frito-Lay and its ad agency, which unlawfully re-created his distinctive voice with an imitator. . . . Singer Sinead O’Connor joins the boycott of Saturday Night Live announced by Nora Dunn May 7 . . . Pulitzer Prize–winning columnist Jimmy Breslin is suspended for two weeks after making racist remarks about a female Korean-American reporter.
A federal appeals court rules that begging is not a form of free speech, so NYC has the right to ban panhandlers from its subways. . . . The Senate Judiciary Committee releases a report that estimates 2.2 million Americans use cocaine at least once a week. . . . The House passes a bill to require companies to grant workers up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave to tend to newborn or adopted children or seriously ill family members.
The U.S. temporarily recalls Alan Green Jr., the U.S. ambassador to Romania, “in light of the reports of irregularities in the Romanian electoral process which raise questions about whether those elections will be free and fair.”
According to The Wall Street Journal, 207 banks needed FDIC assistance in 1989. . . . Three top U.S. bank regulators urge bankers not to curb credit in reaction to stricter government supervision of lending practices.
Walker Percy, 74, author and philosopher, dies of cancer in Covington, La.
Deputy Atty. Gen. Donald Ayer resigns after less than six months on the job. The resignation is prompted by earlier disclosures that he was forced to retract support for tough sentencing guidelines for corporations convicted of criminal activity. The White House nominates William Barr to replace him. . . . U.S. officials announce Pres. Bush’s nomination of U.S. district judge Robert C. Bonner as the head of the DEA.
Interior Secretary Manuel Lujan Jr. states the Endangered Species Act is “too tough” and should be revised to allow more weight for economic factors in deciding the fate of certain kinds of plants and animals, remarks which set off controversy. . . . News of wholesale figures help push up the Dow Jones Industrial Average by 63.07 points, which is equal to 2.3% of its total value. Volume on the NYSE is at its highest in five months.
Science, Technology, & Nature
Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle
In a commencement address at Texas A&M University, Pres. Bush envisions an American landing on Mars by the year 2020.
May 12
The Washington Post reports that U.S.-backed Afghan rebels are heavily involved in the heroin trade.
More than 30 Democrats mail letters to colleagues asking them to join the Coalition for Democratic Values, a newly formed organization of liberal legislators launched by Sen. Howard Metzenbaum (D, Ohio). . . . U.S. district judge Gerhard A. Gesell orders Price Waterhouse & Co. to award a partnership to a woman, Ann Hopkins, who was denied promotion in 1983 because of sexual bias. . . . The Supreme Court refuses a suit supported by 30 states seeking liability of asbestos companies for the cost of removing asbestos from state buildings and facilities.
May 10
May 11
In a commencement address, Pres. Bush proposes the creation of a “citizens democracy corps” for American private-sector assistance to Eastern Europe.
The Knights of Columbus, a Roman Catholic fraternal organization, announces it will contribute $3 million of the $5 million needed to fund an antiabortion publicity campaign by the National Conference of Catholic Bishops.
May 9
May 13
The Supreme Court rules that price-cutting arrangements that damage a competitor’s business do not necessarily violate federal antitrust laws.
May 14
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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)
Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.
Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.
Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.
56—May 15–20, 1990
World Affairs
May 15
May 16
An environmental conference by Western nations in Bergen, Norway, concludes with a commitment by most of the 34 nations attending to stabilize carbon dioxide emissions at current levels by the year 2000. Many world powers, including the U.S., do not agree . . . The council of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade grants the Soviet Union observer status in the organization.
May 17
May 18
Europe
Africa & the Middle East
Asia & the Pacific The New People’s Army claim responsibility for the May 13 killings of U.S. airmen, which they describe as “a warning,” and threaten more violence unless U.S. bases are removed from the Philippines.
In Yugoslavia, Borisav Jovic of Serbia succeeds Janez Drnovsek in the one-year post of federal president and warns that political differences and ethnic tensions have brought Yugoslavia to the brink of “civil war”. . . . The death count of workers constructing the Eurotunnel reaches eight. . . . Soviet loyalists, believed to be mainly ethnic Russians, storm the parliament buildings in Estonia and Latvia. . . . Pres. Hosni Mubarak meets with Pres. Mikhail Gorbachev in Moscow, formally closing more than a decade of strained Soviet-Egyptian diplomatic relations.
Pres. Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali from Tunisia meets with U.S. pres. Bush, who praises Tunisia as “an example of pragmatism, stability and progress in the Middle East.”
Nicaraguan strikers ignore the government’s ultimatum, and they are joined by workers from the telephone service, public transportation, banks, the international airport and border crossings.
The first noncommunist government in Yugoslavia since World War II takes office in Slovenia, and Lojze Peterle becomes premier. . . . A British army sergeant is killed and another injured when a bomb rocks their van in London. . . . The federal government in Bonn and the 11 West German states agree to create a 115 billion deutsche mark fund to restructure the ailing economy of East Germany.
In South Africa, a clash between black workers and white officials at an Anglo-American Corp. gold mine kills two whites and injures 18 blacks and whites. Following the deaths, members of the white separatist AWB chant “We want blood” outside the police station. . . . In the Ivory Coast, 1,000 recruits seize control of the country’s main airport and briefly occupy the national television and radio stations.
Nicaraguan president Violeta Barrios de Chamorro agrees to higher wages for state workers, and other measures, ending a week-long strike in the public sector. . . . Representatives of the Salvadoran government and the FMLN rebels hold talks in Caracas, Venezuela. . . . The Dominican Republic holds presidential elections that are so close that a recount is ordered.
Soviet president Gorbachev confers with Lithuanian premier Kazimiera Prunskiene in Moscow in the first meeting with a senior official of any of the renegade Baltic republics.
The South African government sends police and army reinforcements to an Anglo-American Corp. gold mine after the May 16 riot.
In Papua New Guinea, a rebel leader, Francis Ona, declares independence and names himself interim president of the “Republic of Bougainville.”
In Poland, Lech Walesa convinces 7,200 Gdansk shipyard workers to return to work after a four-hour stoppage. . . . A by-election in the Northern Ireland district of Upper Bann returns a representative of the Ulster Unionist Party to Parliament. . . . The finance ministers of East and West Germany sign a treaty setting conditions for merging the economies of the two countries.
In Liberia, rebel fighting escalates to the point where Pres. Samuel K. Doe calls for the entire population to “get their cutlasses and singlebarrel guns and get in the bush” to fight the rebels.
In South Korea, students in Kwangju begin three days of demonstrations to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the 1980 Kwangju prodemocracy uprising, which was violently suppressed by South Korean troops. . . . Reports suggest that riots and fighting between faction groups are occurring in Bougainville, Papua New Guinea.
In Liberia, rebels attack Buchanan, the country’s second-largest city and the chief port for the export of iron ore. . . . The Egyptian government announces that, in an effort to calm Iraqi fears, Cairo won a pledge from Israel that it will not launch a first strike against any Arab country.
May 19
The ruling National Salvation Front and its leader, Interim President Ion Iliescu, wins the Romanian national elections. Opponent Ion Ratiu charges vote fraud and vows to contest the results. . . . The Soviet government publishes a presidential decree allowing Soviet citizens to build, buy, or sell their own housing and to own the land on which their housing stood. It is the first major economic directive by Pres. Gorbachev that uses his new executive powers.
May 20
The Americas
In Colombia, gunmen kill a city councilman from the Patriotic Union. Separately, a member from the Liberal Party is shot and killed in Colombia’s Antioquia province.
An Israeli Jew, described as “deranged” by witnesses, opens fire on a group of Palestinian laborers inside Israel, killing seven of them. The massacre sparks widespread riots in the occupied Gaza Strip and West Bank that last for two days and spread to Arabs inside Israel and to Palestinians in Jordan. Five Gazans are shot to death by troops in the rioting, and hundreds are wounded by live ammunition and plastic bullets. . . . In South Africa, police open fire on protesters in the black township of Thabong, outside Welkom. Four blacks are killed.
Pres. Lee Teng-hui is inaugurated, and he proposes that Taiwan open “channels of communication” with China. Lee also pardons nine imprisoned dissidents. Around 6,500 demonstrators protest Lee’s appointment of Defense Minister Hau Pei-tsun as premier. . . . In South Korea, protests turn violent as police fire tear gas to hold back 10,000 students armed with firebombs and rocks. Fifty people are reported injured, and 200 protesters are arrested. . . . Robert Gates, the U.S. deputy national security adviser, travels to Pakistan and India to discuss tensions in Kashmir.
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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.
May 15–20, 1990—57
U.S. Politics & Social Issues
U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense
U.S. Economy & Environment
Science, Technology, & Nature
Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle
Chief Justice William Rehnquist calls for restrictions on death penalty appeals to federal courts. . . . Washington, D.C., mayor Marion Barry pleads not guilty to six new drug charges. . . . The trial of four Mexicans accused of involvement in the Enrique Camarena murder opens in Los Angeles. . . . A study reveals that married people live longer than unmarried people. The highest death rate is among divorced men.
A presidential commission investigating the Dec. 1988 terrorist bombing of Pan American World Airways Flight 103 criticizes Pan Am. The FAA calls for new steps to improve aviation security and urges U.S. military strikes against terrorist targets.
Congressional leaders and Bush administration officials meet to negotiate the fiscal 1991 budget. . . . Circle K Corp. files for protection from creditors under Chapter 11 of the U.S. bankruptcy code.
Reports surface that 13 people were killed in floods that hit parts of Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Louisiana over the last month. A total of 117 counties in the four states are declared disaster areas.
Portrait of Dr. Gachet by Vincent van Gogh becomes the most expensive painting sold at auction (for $82.5 million).
The Senate approves a bill that provides an estimated $2.9 billion in emergency funds over the next five years to help cities and states cope with the costs of the AIDS epidemic.
A privately financed rocket is launched at White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico, to conduct commercial experiments. The Starfire-1 rocket flies 189 miles into space then coasts for about seven minutes in very weak gravity crucial for the experiments. The payload is parachuted back to Earth 54 miles north of the launching site.
James Maury (Jim) Henson, 53, puppeteer who created the Muppets, dies of streptococcal pneumonia in NYC. . . . Sammy Davis Jr., 64, singer, dancer, and actor who was one of the first black performers to win widespread acclaim from white audiences, dies of throat cancer in Los Angeles.
Arizona governor Rose Mofford (D) signs a law that makes slain civil rights leader Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday a paid holiday for state employees.
The General Accounting Office reports that the Bush administration is deeply divided in its attitude toward cigarette exports. . . . Joseph Fama, 19, is found guilty of murder in the death of a black youth, Yusuf Hawkins, who was shot to death after being chased by a gang of white teens in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, in 1989.
West German chancellor Helmut Kohl holds talks with Pres. Bush in Washington.
Dalton Prejean becomes the first person executed under a 1989 ruling that permits states to impose the death penalty for crimes committed by 16- and 17-year-olds. Prejean’s case evoked national protest since he has an IQ of 71, is black, and was convicted by a white jury. . . . Keith Mondello, a member of the mob that attacked a black youth, Yusef Hawkins, is acquitted of murder and manslaughter charges and convicted on lesser counts. His acquittal on the most serious charges touches off a series of protests by blacks in Bensonhurst and Brooklyn.
Veterans Affairs Secretary Edward Derwinski announces that Vietnam war veterans with soft-tissue sarcoma, a rare form of cancer, are eligible for disability payments in a major breakthrough for veterans groups that claim there is a link between Agent Orange and cancer. . . . Another 1,200 pages of Oliver North’s personal notebooks are released to the public. . . . A new federal grand jury in Washington, D.C., begins a probe into the Irancontra arms scandal.
Jill Ireland, 54, British-born actress who appeared in many films, often with her husband, actor Charles Bronson, dies of cancer in Malibu, Calif.
Jose Rafael Abello Silva, extradited from Colombia in 1989, is found guilty of two drug conspiracy charges in Tulsa, Oklahoma. . . . Secretary of State James Baker returns from the Soviet Union and announces a tentative agreement that both sides will reduce their strategic missiles by 30%, each with a ceiling of 6,000 nuclear warheads.
Pres. Bush becomes the first sitting president to play in a Professional Golfers Association event when he plays a round of the Celebrity Classic.
Robert Reischauer, director of the Congressional Budget Office, forecasts that the federal deficit would be between $149 billion and $159 billion.
May 15
May 16
May 17
The Hubble Space Telescope relays its first photographs of the universe. The pictures returned of a nearby star cluster known as NGC 3532 reveal that what looked like an oblong blob in a recent photograph from Earth is instead two stars orbiting near each other.
Randy Barnes sets a world record in the shot put with a throw of 75 feet, 101⁄4 inches at the Jack in the Box Invitational in Los Angeles. . . . Monica Seles, 16, of Yugoslavia ends the 66-match winning streak of West German Steffi Graf, which began in June 1989 and is the second-longest streak in the modern era of women’s tennis.
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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)
Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.
Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.
Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.
May 18
May 19
May 20
58—May 21–25, 1990
World Affairs
May 23
The Americas
Asia & the Pacific
As many as six Palestinians are killed by army gunfire, and a Gazan Palestinian residing in Jordan storms aboard a bus filled with French tourists and wounds at least eight people. Arabs who are citizens of Israel stage a one-day strike as well as violent protests. . . . Riots in South Africa kill three blacks, which spark more clashes. . . . In Liberia, the mutilated bodies of 18 men from the Gio and Mano tribes are found dead. They are believed to have been killed as a warning by pro-Doe militants. . . . In Ethiopia, the government executes 12 officers convicted of taking part in a failed coup attempt in May 1989. . . . In Gabon, Pres. Omar Bongo lifts a ban on multiparty politics. . . . On the Ivory Coast, hundreds of police go on strike, blocking roads throughout Abidjan until Pres. Félix HouphouëtBoigny meets with the dissidents.
Representatives of the Salvadoran government and the FMLN reach an agreement on a “general agenda” to end the civil war. . . . In Colombia, Liberal Party senator Federico Estrada Vélez, 63, a political ally of Gaviria, is slain while driving. . . . The Progressive Conservative government of Canadian prime minister Brian Mulroney is thrown into a crisis by the resignation of Environment Minister Lucien Bouchard in response to changes to the Meech Lake constitutional accord being discussed by the government.
Maulvi Mohammed Farooq, the chief Muslim cleric in Kashmir, is shot and killed in his home in Srinagar. Indian security forces fire on a procession of 100,000 mourners in Srinagar, killing at least 60 people.
NATO’s defense ministers agree to review military strategies in light of what they perceive as a significantly lessened threat from the Warsaw Pact.
In Poland, strikes spread throughout the northern region, shutting down the port of Szczecin and disrupting the flow of coal and other goods. . . . The Soviet Presidential Council and the Federation Counsel approve a new economic program.
In South Africa, Law and Order Minister Adriaan Vlok threatens to use gun control laws to crack down on self-styled Boer commando groups. . . . In Gabon, the Gabonese Democratic Party adopts a new constitution for the transitional period. . . . After years of conflict, the Yemen Arab Republic and the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen merge into a single nation, the Republic of Yemen. . . . In Jordan, tens of thousands of Palestinians stage marches, and two people are killed when security forces open fire. . . . Police use tear gas to break up a march by hundreds of Palestinians in Jerusalem.
In Canada, Gilbert Chartrand resigns from the Progressive Conservative Party since he cannot accept any changes to the Meech Lake accord.
About 350,000 people gather in Srinagar, Kashmir, for Farooq’s funeral.
NATO’s defense ministers agree that the organization can safely reduce the state of readiness of its forces in Central Europe.
The Soviet government formally unveils its economic-reform program, which includes a plan for a national referendum.
A delegation from the ANC holds its first meeting inside South Africa with white business leaders. . . . In Gabon, Joseph Rendjambe, secretary general of the opposition Gabonese Progress Party, is found dead under suspicious circumstances. In response, riots break out in Gabon’s two largest cities in response that last for a week. . . . The Liberian government admits for the first time that a town was captured by rebels when it reports that Buchanan fell.
Premier Nikolai Ryzhkov presents the economic program to the Supreme Soviet, causing debate. . . . Mikhail Gorbachev tells Lithuanian officials in Moscow that the republic will be independent in two years if it suspends its March declaration of independence. . . . In Poland, Lech Walesa travels to Slupsk for four days of intensive private talks with strike leaders.
To reinforce the 500-strong battalion of French marines normally stationed in Gabon, France starts sending 200 more soldiers to its former colony, Gabon, after recent riots.
Haiti’s interim president, Ertha Trouillot, meets with U.S. pres. Bush in Washington, D.C. . . . In El Salvador, one soldier is convicted and two acquitted in the 1982 killing of a U.S. citizen, Michael David Kline. . . . In Colombia, at least nine people are killed and 20 injured by a car bomb that explodes in Medellín.
Emperor Akihito of Japan expresses his “deepest regret” for the 1910–45 Japanese occupation of Korea during a Tokyo banquet for South Korean president Roh Tae Woo. . . . In an emotional news conference, New South Wales, Premier Nick Greiner announces that Sir David Martin, the state governor, will resign because of ill health.
The Lithuanian government restricts the distribution of gasoline to use for food transport and emergency services and shuts off hot water for both domestic and industrial use. . . . British prime minister Margaret Thatcher breaks ranks with the U.S. and proposes that Britain “set itself the very demanding target” of a substantial reduction in carbon dioxide emissions to help ease the threat of global warming.
In the Ivory Coast, customs officers stage a walkout and obtain a meeting with Pres. Houphouët-Boigny. Firefighters also issue a list of demands. . . . In Lambarene, Gabon, protesters reportedly storm the prison and free inmates. . . . In Liberia, Pres. Samuel K. Doe show his first sign of compromise, when he states he will hold early elections under international supervision if that move will end the fighting.
Imre Finta, a Hungarian emigre, is acquitted in Toronto on charges involving the deportation of Hungarian Jews to Nazi concentration camps. He is the first person tried under a 1987 law that allows Canadian courts to try suspected war criminals for crimes committed outside Canada.
Roh becomes the first South Korean leader to address the Japanese parliament.
May 24
May 25
Africa & the Middle East
Greek premier Constantine Mitsotakis’s new conservative government announces it will establish full diplomatic relations with Israel and it upgrades the status of Greece’s relations with the PLO. . . . In Romania, an international team of 60 monitors conclude that “the (voting) process was flawed,” but not fraudulent. . . . The Supreme Soviet approves legislation making it a criminal offense to insult the nation’s president “in an indecent way” in response to the May Day crowd’s jeers.
May 21
May 22
Europe
The UN Security Council reconvenes in Geneva to hear for the first time from Palestine Liberation Organization chairman Yasser Arafat. . . . Argentina wins the renewal of a $1.44 billion loan package from the IMF and announces an agreement with commercial bankers to resume negotiations on the nation’s mediumand long-term bank debt.
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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.
May 21–25, 1990—59
U.S. Politics & Social Issues
U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense
U.S. Economy & Environment
Science, Technology, & Nature
Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle
The Supreme Court upholds North Dakota’s regulation of liquor sold at U.S. military bases. . . . The Supreme Court lets stand a federal court order that permanently bars Operation Rescue from blocking access to and from abortion clinics. . . . The Supreme Court upholds a 1984 federal law requiring persons convicted of federal misdemeanors to pay a $25 fine for each count into a Crime Victims Fund. . . . The City University of New York begins to divest its holdings in tobacco companies.
The bipartisan Arms Control and Foreign Policy Caucus headed by Representative Howard Berman (D, Calif.), issues a report showing that 14 of El Salvador’s 15 highestranking officers commanded troops that are responsible for killing civilians, torturing prisoners, causing disappearances, denying medical attention to victims, and falsifying information to conceal abuses. Eleven of the 14 officers received U.S. training. . . . According to a report in The Washington Post, U.S. government agencies supplied the names of suspected communist leaders to the Indonesian army during its brutal 1965–66 crackdown on leftists.
Kidder, Peabody & Co. Inc. announces that it will resume using computerized program trading, a controversial practice that some critics argue is responsible for volatility in the stock market.
More than 200 noted scientists from around the world, including three Nobel laureates, announce a boycott of Chinese scientific meetings until dissident physicist Fang Lizhi is allowed to leave China.
Laker guard Earvin (Magic) Johnson is named the NBA’s most valuable player. . . . The 43rd annual film festival in Cannes awards its top prize to U.S. director David Lynch’s film Wild at Heart. . . . The Supreme Court rules that Mormon parents cannot take a charitable deduction on their federal tax returns for money spent to support their children while they serve as unpaid missionaries.
The House approves legislation that prohibits discrimination against disabled Americans in employment, housing, and public accommodations and transportation.
The House rejects a foreign aid supplemental authorization bill and thereby cuts aid to El Salvador.
The FDIC announces that its insurance fund to protect bank depositors fell in 1989 for the second consecutive year.
The Senate approves legislation that imposes a three-year ban on the manufacture or sale of nine types of semiautomatic assault rifles.
Harvard University president Derek Bok discloses that the university has completed its divestment of all its stock holdings in tobacco companies. . . . Health and Human Services Secretary Louis Sullivan calls on states to adopt tough measures to curb smoking by young people.
The House passes a revised comprehensive clean-air bill to send to the Senate. . . . The House approves a pilot program in California on the feasibility of using cars that run on nongasoline fuels. . . . The House votes to enhance warranty protection on antipollution equipment on cars. . . . In congressional testimony, Neil Bush, son of Pres. Bush, denies any wrongdoing as a director of a Denver S&L that failed. . . . The Bush administration states for the first time that it greatly underestimated the cost of the S&L bailout and that new funds are necessary for the program to proceed. Pres. Bush recommends the renewal of most-favored-nation trade status for China. . . . The navy reopens its investigation of the April 1989 gun-turret explosion on the battleship Iowa that killed 47 crew members.
Rocky Graziano (born Thomas Rocco Barbella), 71, middleweight boxing champion who fought in the 1940s and 1950s, dies of cardiopulmonary failure in NYC.
The Journal of American Medicine finds that vigorous exercise for 50 minutes three or four times a week can be as effective as medication in treating moderately high blood pressure.
Charles Ernest (Charlie) Keller, 73, baseball outfielder who played for the New York Yankees and the Detroit Tigers, dies of cancer in Frederick, Md.
Two new studies are published in the New England Journal of Medicine that lend support to the idea that weight gain is genetically influenced.
The Edmonton Oilers win the National Hockey League’s Stanley Cup for the fifth time in seven years.
Congress clears and Pres. Bush signs a bill providing $4.3 billion in fiscal 1990 supplemental appropriations, including $720 million in economic assistance for Panama and Nicaragua as well as funds for Haiti. . . . The Senate confirms Pres. Bush’s choice of veteran diplomat Harry Shlaudeman as ambassador to Nicaragua.
Mark Strand is named the new poet laureate of the U.S. The Canadianborn Strand wrote seven books of poetry and is an English professor at the University of Utah. . . . Victor (Vic) Tayback, 60, actor best known for the television series Alice, dies of a heart attack in Glendale, California.
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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)
Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.
Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.
Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.
May 21
May 22
May 23
May 24
May 25
60—May 26–31, 1990
World Affairs
May 26
Europe
The Americas
Asia & the Pacific
A French airlift flies about 1,800 people out of Gabon. . . . Separately in Gabon, Pres. Omar Bongo states that multiparty systems have “always been a source of division” and the new system leads to unrest. However, he affirms that he will not renege on his promise to end oneparty rule. . . . More than 60,000 pro-apartheid white South Africans hold a rally against Pres. F. W. de Klerk’s reforms outside Pretoria.
Colombian police report they dismantled a drug traffickers’ bomb factory in a suburb of the capital. Six members of the ring who are allegedly responsible for five bomb attacks in Bogota are captured.
In Pakistan, a group of masked men in cars and on motorcycles fire at crowds. Gun battles between militant ethnic groups, as well as terrorist activity, continues for several days.
Six allegedly armed civilians are shot to death by troops at the railroad station in Yerevan. Debate over whether the civilians were armed leads to violence in Armenia. . . . Poland holds its first free local elections since World War II, and more than 100,000 candidates compete for about 50,000 seats on local councils.
Reports state that many Liberians have been fleeing for Monrovia and Sierra Leone in fear of massacres on both sides as rebels advance.
Cesar Gaviria Trujillo, a strong advocate of the government’s war against drug cartels, is elected president of Colombia.
In Pakistan, 80 people are killed when police fire on crowds protesting the arrests of suspected militants. . . . The main opposition party wins in the first free, multiparty elections in Myanmar in 30 years.
At a meeting of the UN Security Council, the U.S. bows to pressure by Israel and blocks a compromise proposal to send observers to the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip.
May 27
Africa & the Middle East
May 28
The Arab League holds a summit in Baghdad, Iraq, after weeks of negotiation.
The Provisional Irish Republican Army admits it mistakenly killed two London-based Australian lawyers in the Dutch town of Roermond who were thought to be offduty British military personnel. . . . In Poland, Lech Walesa persuades railroad workers to suspend strikes and to delay a planned national strike. . . . Yugoslav president Borislav Jovic calls for a new federal constitution. . . . In Armenia, clashes between nationalists and soldiers lead to an official death toll of 23. . . . The USSR begins dismantling the controversial radar complex near Krasnoyarsk in Siberia.
Zambia’s 600-member National Council discusses whether to allow multiparty politics. . . . In the Ivory Coast, former railroad workers who demand better unemployment pay block rail traffic and paralyze Abidjan’s port for two days. Pres. Félix Houphouët-Boigny says he will “examine” all their grievances. . . . A bomb explodes in a outdoor market in west Jerusalem, killing one and wounding nine other Israelis. Islamic Jihad, a radical Palestinian group, claims responsibility for the attack.
Chilean president Patricio Aylwin reprimands Gen. Augusto Pinochet Ugarte for attempting to undermine the authority of Chile’s new civilian government. . . . Eugenia Charles is reelected to a third consecutive term as prime minister of Dominica, although her party loses seats in the House of Assembly.
Pakistan prime minister Benazir Bhutto flies to Karachi to hold emergency talks with the chief minister of Sind, Aftab Shahban Mirani. . . . In Myanmar after election results, leaders of the ruling military junta concede and reiterate a preelection promise that the military will turn over power to a civilian government after the newly elected legislators draft a new constitution. . . . Hussein bin Dato Onn, 68, prime minister of Malaysia, 1976–81, dies in Daly City, Calif., after a heart attack. . . . Organizers of a project to broadcast prodemocracy radio programming to China from a French ship terminate the venture after meeting opposition at several ports.
May 29
In Paris, officials from 40 nations sign an accord to create the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.
France agrees to reschedule $1.5 billion in debt owed by Poland. . . . Communist Party maverick Boris Yeltsin is elected president of the Russian Federation by the republic’s parliament.
In Zambia, Pres. Kenneth Kaunda states that his nation will hold a referendum to allow the people to choose whether to introduce a multiparty system.
Canadian officials open a visit by Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev by announcing that they will extend a new C$500 million credit line to the Soviet Bank for Foreign Economic Affairs.
The U.S.-based human-rights group Asia Watch reports that widespread human rights abuses by the Chinese authorities continue in Tibet.
The Arab League threatens “political and economic measures” against nations that recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.
A powerful earthquake strikes northern Romania. It is centered about 20 miles east of the town of Sfintu Gheorghe and measures 6.7 on the Richter scale. . . . In Poland, a preliminary count shows the only political party to get more than 7% of the seats on the local councils is the Peasant Party. No other party wins more than 2%. . . . French agriculture minister Henri Nallet bans imports of British beef due to fears of mad cow disease.
Israeli security forces foil an attempted raid by Palestinian guerrillas to invade Israel after landing on beaches. The Palestine Liberation Front, a radical faction of the PLO, claims responsibility. Israeli officials call on the U.S. to end diplomatic contacts with the PLO. . . . In Liberia, masked soldiers enter a refugee camp and go on a rampage. They kill one person and abduct 40 men, women and children from the Gio and Mano tribes.
A major earthquake jolts northern Peru. The quake, centered near the town of Moyobamba, measures 6.4 on the Richter scale. . . . In Nicaragua, the government and contras sign an agreement under which the contras will have a degree of autonomy in the territory granted earlier.
Moldavia becomes the first nonBaltic Soviet republic to recognize Lithuania as a sovereign nation. . . . EC agriculture commissioner Raymond MacSharry, states that the commission made the “fullest guarantees” that beef from Britain is safe. . . . Greek finance minister Yiannis Palaiocrassas unveils the government’s budget for 1990. . . . The consortium to build the Eurotunnel secures an underwriting agreement that brings an apparent end to the group’s financing problems.
Yasser Arafat denies that the PLO is connected to the attempted attack on Israel but declines to take action against those responsible. . . . In Liberia, 15 bodies are been found where refugees abducted May 30 were believed to have been taken. Separately, Liberian rebel leader Charles Taylor says he will not be satisfied until Pres. Samuel Doe is removed from office. . . . The Ivory Coast approves of nine opposition parties. . . . In South Africa, 10,000 progressive young Afrikaners gather for a rock music festival that mocks conservatism, militarism, and apartheid.
A strong earthquake rattles Mexico. The epicenter is located about 180 miles southwest of Mexico City, and it measures 6.1 on the Richter scale. . . . The U.S. makes a $60 million payment to Nicaragua from a package of aid approved by Congress.
May 30
May 31
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Includes developments that affect more than one world region, international organizations, and important meetings of major world leaders.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.
May 26–31, 1990—61
U.S. Politics & Social Issues
U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense
U.S. Economy & Environment
Science, Technology, & Nature
Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle
May 26
Robert Baumle Meyner, 81, governor of New Jersey, 1953–62, dies in Captiva, Fla., due to ill health since suffering a stroke in 1986.
Yugoslavia wins the Association of Tennis Professionals World Team Cup in Dusseldorf, West Germany. . . . Arie Luyendyk wins the Indianapolis 500.
A series of torrential thunderstorms start in the Ohio River valley region.
The New York Times reports that rising food prices forced many states to cut back the assistance for WIC, a federally funded program to prevent malnutrition in pregnant women and infants. . . . The Supreme Court agrees to review the constitutionality of regulations that prohibit federally funded clinics from discussing abortion or providing referrals. . . . Washington, D.C., mayor Marion Barry admits he used crack cocaine in January.
The FDA approves a plan that will provide expanded distribution of the experimental anti-AIDS drug DDC.
The NBA announces it will open its 1990–91 season by playing two games in Tokyo. The contests will be the first regular-season games held outside of North America by a U.S. sports league.
The countdown for the launching of the space shuttle Columbia from Cape Canaveral, Fla., is halted when sensors detect a fuel leak while filling the craft’s external tank.
Greek and U.S. officials initial a new agreement to allow the U.S. to maintain military bases in Greece for eight more years. . . . Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev and his wife, Raisa, arrive in Washington, D.C., for a scheduled four-day visit.
The Commerce Department data shows that sales of new houses declined 1.6% in April, to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 546,000, the lowest number of new houses sold since Dec. 1982.
The U.S. Defense Department orders a six-warship amphibious task to sail to Liberia in case an evacuation of U.S. citizens becomes necessary.
Ashland Oil Inc. is ordered to pay $10.3 million to four people who claimed damages from polluting fallout from the company’s oil refinery in Catlettsburg, Kentucky.
May 27
May 28
May 29
The Journal of American Medicine reports that people who try to quit smoking on their own are twice as successful as those who enroll in programs.
May 30
Raisa Gorbachev attends the opening of an exhibit of Russian religious texts at the Library of Congress.
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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)
Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.
Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.
Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.
May 31
62—June 1–6, 1990
World Affairs
June 1
June 2
June 3
Demonstrations for Chinese democracy are held in Hong Kong, Japan, and other Asian countries on the anniversary of the 1989 crackdown. Protests in Asian countries last for two days.
June 4
June 5
The foreign ministers of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe meet in Copenhagen.
June 6
Europe
Africa & the Middle East
The Americas
Asia & the Pacific
In separate meetings, Boris Yeltsin talks with Lithuanian president Vytautas Landsbergis and Marju Lauristin, the deputy chairwoman of the Estonian parliament. . . . West Germany embargoes British beef. . . . Sir Rex Harrison (born Reginald Carey Harrison), 82, British-born film and theater actor, dies of pancreatic cancer in NYC.
Liberian president Samuel Doe appeals for the U.S. “and other friendly countries to bring to an end this six-month-old, Libyan-backed incursion in order to pave the way for a peaceful, free and fair election in 1991.” He states he will not seek reelection.
Peruvian police begin a raid of several hideouts of the Maoist Sendero Luminoso guerrilla group and arrest as many as 35 suspected members of the group.
In Czechoslovakia, a home-made bomb injures 18 people in Prague’s Old Town Square. No one claims responsibility. . . . About 65,000 people march in East Berlin to protest the East German law that authorizes the government to seize land, houses, and businesses controlled by the former Communist Party.
In Liberia, the Red Cross officially begins protecting Gio and Mano refugees in the capital.
In El Salvador, reports confirm that a central piece of evidence in the Col. Alfredo Benavides case was destroyed. Benavides is charged for alleged involvement in the murder of six Jesuit priests in 1989. . . . Forensic experts in Chile begin to excavate an unmarked grave and uncover 20 bullet-riddled corpses. The bodies—preserved because of the desert conditions of the gravesite—are those of opponents of Augusto Pinochet and were apparently executed by army troops after Pinochet took over in 1973.
The threat of protests in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square is averted as Chinese authorities seal off the square for three days.
The East German government shuts down a nuclear reactor at the Greifswald power plant because of “grave safety deficiencies.”. . . The executive committee of Britain’s Social Democratic Party votes to disband after the party’s humiliating seventh-place finish in a parliamentary by-election in Bootle. . . . In Romania, reports confirm that 14 people were killed by the May 30 quake and more than 200 injured.
According to Ethiopian radio, air force MiG warplanes, which bombed the port of Massawa after its capture, killed 200 people in nine raids. Western officials express fears of a major famine unless the Massawa relief route is reopened.
In Peru, the official death toll from the May 30 quake is 101, although other reports suggest that up to 200 people were killed. Another 1,500 people are reported to have been injured. . . . Canadian prime minister Brian Mulroney convenes a series of private meetings with Canada’s 10 provincial premiers in an attempt to resolve the crisis over the Meech Lake accord.
For two days, Chinese students mark the first anniversary of the crackdown on the prodemocracy movement with the largest display of open defiance against the government since that time. About 200 students hurl bottles from windows. One man is arrested in Tiananmen Square. Foreign journalists covering the Beijing University protests are harassed or beaten by police. . . . Over the next two days, demonstrations for Chinese democracy are held in Hong Kong, Japan, and other Asian countries.
Lithuanian president Vytautas Landsbergis, criticizes U.S. president Bush’s decision not to link Lithuania with the Soviet trade pact. . . . In the Soviet republic of of Kirghizia, thousands of Uzbeks riot in the Muslim holy city of Osh over a decision by local authorities to allocate a large plot of land for housing for Kirghiz citizens.
Nelson Mandela starts a six-week, 13-nation world tour in which the issue of sanctions is expected to figure prominently.
The Czechoslovak government interrogates five former members of the Communist Party. . . . Riots in Osh lead to a death toll of 11. The government declares a state of emergency, but the ethnic unrest spreads to Frunze, the Kirghizian capital. . . . The House of Lords rejects a bill passed in the House of Commons that allowed for trials of suspected World War II criminals living in Britain.
In Liberia, rebels attack the world’s largest rubber plantation, run by Bridgestone-Firestone Tyre & Rubber Co. and located about 30 miles southwest of Monrovia. . . . The Ethiopian government announces its willingness to allow the rebelheld port of Massawa to be used to deliver food relief to the warwracked and famine-threatened northern provinces of Eritrea and Tigre.
The Chilean Supreme Court denies a request that investigation into the 1976 slaying of Orlando Letelier be reopened after a military tribunal established that there is no new evidence in the case. . . . The Soviet Union and Cuba hold talks on future trade relations.
Soviet troops rush to Kirghizia and seal off its border with Uzbekistan. . . . Premier Tadeusz Mazowiecki declares that Poland’s transition to a free market is complete. . . . The Czechoslovak government detains Vasil Bilak, rumored to have urged military intervention in Czechoslovakia. . . . Clyde Lee Conrad, a former U.S. Army sergeant, is convicted of treason in West Germany and sentenced to life in prison. . . . Italy joins the embargo on British beef.
The ruling National Party of South African president F. W. de Klerk narrowly fends off defeat in a special parliamentary by-election in Natal, losing ground to the Conservative Party, which is dedicated to preserving apartheid. . . . In Liberia, reports indicate that rebel fighting is only 10 miles from Monrovia’s city limits. Separately, Liberian rebels acknowledge one of their top military leaders—Elmer Johnson, a Liberian citizen who served in the U.S. armed forces—was slain.
Brazilian president Fernando Collor de Mello states Brazil will consider agreeing to preserve parts of its rain forests in return for forgiveness of some of its foreign debt. . . . Separately, Brazil’s Supreme Court rules unconstitutional a presidential decree that curtails the powers of regional labor courts to award salary increases.
Protests in China continue as more than 1,000 students march across Beijing University campus. The rally lasts two hours, after which the students peacefully return to their dormitories.
The Philippine Supreme invalidates rebellion and murder charges against Juan Ponce Enrile, an opponent of Pres. Corazon Aquino. . . . The Foreign Correspondents Club of Beijing files a protest with the Chinese government. . . . Cambodian president Hun Sen and Prince Norodom Sihanouk, leader of a coalition of rebel groups, sign a conditional cease-fire agreement.
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Includes developments that affect more than one world region, international organizations, and important meetings of major world leaders.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.
June 1–6, 1990—63
U.S. Politics & Social Issues
U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense
U.S. Economy & Environment
Presidents Bush and Gorbachev sign more than a dozen bilateral agreements. The agreements call for reductions in arms and freer trade relations between the countries.
The meeting between Gorbachev and Bush ends. The two leaders admit differences over important issues, such as the reunification of Germany and the unresolved conflict over Lithuania. In spite of the differences, both presidents declare that the summit pushed U.S.-Soviet relations into a new era of cooperation. Gorbachev and his entourage fly to Minnesota and California before returning to the Soviet Union.
Dr. Jack Kevorkian admits he helped a woman commit suicide. . . . The Supreme Court rules that police can seize items in “plain view” for evidence even if they are not listed in a search warrant. . . . The Supreme Court upholds a federal law that requires public schools to give student political and religious groups the same access to facilities that other extracurricular groups receive. . . . A federal judge decides the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors violated constitutional rights of the Hispanic population when it drew voting districts in 1981.
After months of strike negotiations, Greyhound Lines Inc. files for protection from its creditors under Chapter 11 of the federal bankruptcy code.
Science, Technology, & Nature
Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle
Richard William Millar, 91, former chairman of Northrop Corp. and expresident of Bankamerica Corp., dies in Pasadena, Calif., . . . NASA launches an unmanned Delta rocket carrying an X-ray observatory from Cape Canaveral, Fla.
The Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize is awarded to Hayden Carruth. . . . Barbara Bush and Raisa Gorbachev speak at Wellesley College’s annual commencement exercises . . . Stephen King’s The Stand: The Complete and Uncut Edition tops the bestseller list.
A series of tornadoes and heavy thunderstorms begin to tear through parts of the Midwest, lasting for two days.
Frederick Mellinger, 76, founder of the Frederick’s of Hollywood lingerie chain, dies of pneumonia in Los Angeles.
Robert Norton Noyce, 62, coinventor of the silicon microchip that revolutionized the computer and electronics industries and founder of Intel Corp., dies in Austin, Tex., after a heart attack.
The 44th annual Tony Awards are presented in NYC. The award for best play goes to The Grapes of Wrath, an adaptation of the John Steinbeck novel. Grand Hotel wins five awards, and City of Angels wins six awards.
Reports suggest that the series of tornadoes and heavy thunderstorms that tore through parts of the Midwest starting June 2 killed at least 13 people and injured dozens more. Indiana officials declare a state of emergency after eight people are killed and 150 are injured by the twisters, which are the worst in the state since 1974. Other major tornado damage is reported in Illinois, Wisconsin, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Minnesota, and Ohio.
The presidents of the Big Ten Conference universities admit Penn State to the conference, which will change its name within 60 days. . . . Jack Gilford (born Jacob Gellman), 82, actor who was once nominated for an Academy Award, dies of stomach cancer in New York.
Thomas Root pleads guilty in Washington, D.C., to five federal charges of forgery and fraud involving the FCC. . . . The New Jersey Supreme Court rules that the state’s system of funding public education is unconstitutional because it benefits wealthy school districts at the expense of poor ones.
The Presbyterian Church revises its statement of faith by including environmental concerns and references to God as both mother and father. . . . Data shows NYC’s Broadway theatre district set a box-office record.
Premier Constantine Mitsotakis holds talks with Bush in Washington, D.C., becoming the first Greek premier to pay an official visit to Washington in more than 25 years.
Moody’s Investors Service Inc. lowers its rating on New York State’s general obligation debt so that only two states, Louisiana and Massachusetts, have a lower rating than New York. . . . The Senate Agriculture Committee bans exports of pesticides that are outlawed in the U.S. The panel then appends that legislation as an amendment to the 1990 farm bill.
NASA returns the spacecraft Columbia to a hangar for repair work, which delays its mission indefinitely .
Judge Jose Gonzalez rules that a 2 Live Crew album, As Nasty as They Wanna Be, is obscene under Florida state law. . . . Mark Messier of hockey’s Edmonton Oilers is awarded the Hart Trophy.
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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)
Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.
Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.
Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.
June 1
June 2
June 3
June 4
June 5
June 6
64—June 7–12, 1990
June 7
Europe
The foreign ministers of NATO meet in Turnberry, Scotland. . . . The leaders of the Warsaw Pact, meeting in Moscow, proclaim an end to the idea that the West is an “ideological enemy.”
In, Kirghizia, the death toll mounts 48. In response, Soviet interior minister Vadim V. Bakatin calls for “round-table” talks involving the authorities and nationalist elements of all the Soviet republics. . . . European Community agriculture ministers reach a compromise agreement to end embargoes against British beef put in place because of fears of mad cow disease. . . . British prime minister Margaret Thatcher visits the Soviet Union.
South African president F. W. de Klerk lifts the four-year-old nationwide state of emergency in three of the country’s four provinces. . . . Unconfirmed reports suggest that rebels have seized Liberia’s main airport.
Admiral Alfredo Poveda Burbano, 64, last military dictator of Ecuador, dies of a heart attack in Miami, Fla.
Civic Forum and its Slovak sister party, Public Against Violence, wins parliamentary and regional elections in the first free voting in Czechoslovakia in over 40 years.
After over a month of internal haggling, Yitzhak Shamir announces that he has formed a coalition in the Israeli government. . . . South African president de Klerk issues a limited emergency decree in Natal, site of three years of inter-black violence that killed 3,000. . . . In Liberia, a twomonth bout of fighting degenerates into tribal warfare.
José Figueres Ferrer, 83, threetime president of Costa Rica, affectionately known as “Don Pepe,” dies of a heart attack in the capital city of San José.
British prime minister Thatcher travels to Kiev, where she visits a British trade pavilion, places a wreath on the monument to 100,000 people slain by the Nazis in Babi Yar, and attends a meeting of the Ukrainian Supreme Soviet.
The formation of Yitzhak Shamir’s right-wing Israeli government prompts dire forecasts by Egypt, Jordan, Syria, and Palestinian leaders. . . . South African president de Klerk releases 48 political prisoners to promote negotiations on constitutional reform between his white minority government and the leaders of the nation’s black majority.
After much negotiation, Canadian prime minister Brian Mulroney and provincial premiers reach an agreement on the Meech Lake accord impasse. The agreement finds that a controversial clause stating that Quebec is a “distinct society” complements but does not override the nation’s Charter. The premiers of provinces that oppose the Meech Lake accord agree to submit it to their legislatures or to a provincial vote.
The ruling Bulgarian Socialist Party takes the lead in Bulgaria’s first free national elections in 58 years. . . . The pilot of a British Airways BAC 1-11 passenger jet is nearly sucked out of the plane after a cockpit windshield blows out at an altitude of 23,000 feet. Crew members grab the legs of the pilot and hang on to him for 15 minutes, until the copilot makes an emergency landing.
Tunisia holds local elections, but all opposition parties boycott the voting as unfairly biased, resulting in a 99% victory for Ben Ali’s ruling Democratic Constitutional Rally. . . . In Kuwait, elections for the 50 council seats are held, despite a boycott by opposition leaders. . . . Singer Miriam Makeba returns to her native South Africa, ending a 31-year exile.
Alberto Fujimori is elected president of Peru by a wide margin in the second round of elections. . . . The U.S. and Mexico agree in principle on moving toward talks on a freetrade pact. . . . Panamanian president Guillermo Endara marries a 23-year-old college student, Ana Mae Díaz Chen, in Panama City. The marriage sets off controversy among Panamanians.
India agrees to lift the crippling trade sanctions against Nepal it imposed in March 1989. In return, Nepal agrees to delay acceptance of arms from China and to maintain a dialogue with India on all defense-related matters.
In Romania, student leaders meet with representatives of the ruling National Salvation Front However, they do not reach agreements, and students refuse to abandon the tent city. . . . Tens of thousands of people protest in Sofia, Bulgaria, claiming that Socialists used intimidation and fraud to steal the elections. . . . In Czechoslovakia, reports indicate that several candidates dropped out of the elections to avoid public disclosure of past ties to the secret police.
The bullet-riddled bodies of three prominent Americo-Liberians turn up at a Monrovia morgue. . . . Israel’s Knesset approves a new right-wing coalition government led by P.M. Yitzhak Shamir.
After an electoral review, the Dominican Republic’s incumbent President Joaquín Balaguer, 83, is declared the winner of the May presidential voting by a margin of less than 25,000 votes over Juan Bosch.
The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, the dominant rebel faction, seizes 10 police stations in eastern Sri Lanka and captures about 600 officers.
Peace talks between representatives of Samuel Doe’s Liberian government and Charles Taylor’s NPF rebels are held in Freetown, Sierra Leone. . . . Algeria’s fundamentalist Islamic Salvation Front unexpectedly emerges as the winner in local elections. The vote is the country’s first free, multiparty balloting since independence in 1962.
More than 1,000 demonstrators march in Santiago, Chile, demanding that Augusto Pinochet be brought to trial for the executions of the people found June 2 in a mass grave.
In Sri Lanka, police report that hundreds of captured policemen were killed by the rebels. The Tamil spokesmen denies that any policemen were killed.
June 8
June 9
June 10
June 11
June 12
Africa & the Middle East
World Affairs
Western central banks offer Hungary $280 million in short-term loans.
Pres. Mikhail Gorbachev confers with the presidents of the three Baltic republics, proposes to transform the USSR into a confederation of “sovereign states” and asks the Baltic leaders to suspend independence declarations during negotiations. . . . The Supreme Soviet votes for a law to establish freedom of the press. . . . The Russian Federation declares the sovereignty of its laws over federal laws.
The Americas
Asia & the Pacific
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Includes developments that affect more than one world region, international organizations, and important meetings of major world leaders.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.
June 7–12, 1990—65
U.S. Politics & Social Issues
U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense
U.S. Economy & Environment
Health and Human Services Secretary Louis Sullivan takes issue with the growing animal-rights movement and its attempts to curb medical research on animals.
U.S. agents arrest Roderick James Ramsay, a former U.S. Army sergeant, in Tampa, Fla., on espionage charges. He is connected to Clyde Conrad, who was convicted of treason in West Germany June 6.
A British-registered oil tanker runs aground and spills 260,000 gallons of heavy crude oil in the third major spill of 1990 in New York Harbor. The tanker’s first mate, Englishman Geoffrey Frederick Gregory, 52, is arrested for operating a vessel while under the influence of intoxicants and of discharging a pollutant without a permit.
The first woman to head the American Bar Association, Jill WineBanks, announces her resignation.
Science, Technology, & Nature
Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle
June 7
A Titan-4 rocket successfully launches a secret military payload into orbit from Cape Canaveral. . . . An explosion aboard a Norwegian supertanker results in a fire and a threat of a massive oil spill off the coast of Texas. Two crewmen are killed in the explosion and two others are missing and presumed dead. Firefighters work for days to bring the raging flames under control.
Law enforcement officials arrest a Fort Lauderdale record store owner who sold a copy of the banned As Nasty as They Wanna Be to an undercover police officer.
Kerry Kennedy, daughter of the late Robert Kennedy, and Andrew Cuomo, son of New York governor Mario Cuomo, marry in Washington, D.C. . . . Monica Seles of Yugoslavia upsets Steffi Graf to win the women’s title in the French Open.
Thousands of animal-rights supporters march in Washington, D.C., to protest the use of animals for food and research.
A story published in the Atlanta Journal and Constitution reports that the CIA played a key role in the capture of African National Congress leader Nelson Mandela in 1962, which led to his imprisonment for more than 27 years.
The Supreme Court upholds a federal law allowing the president to mobilize the National Guard for training missions outside the U.S. without the approval of state officials. . . . The Supreme Court widens police power to stop, question, and search suspects on “reasonable suspicion” of criminal activity. . . . The Supreme Court strikes down as unconstitutional a 1989 federal law forbidding desecration of the American flag.
A federal judge in Washington, D.C., sentences former national security adviser John Poindexter to six months in prison for lying to Congress about his involvement in the Iran-contra arms scandal. . . . East Germany’s premier, Lothar de Maiziere, confers with Pres. Bush on reunification issues. He is the first East German leader to visit Washington.
Two members of the rap group 2 Live Crew are arrested on obscenity charges after a performance in Hollywood, Florida. . . . Andrés Gómez of Ecuador wins the men’s title over Andre Agassi of the U.S. in the French Open.
June 8
June 9
June 10
June 11
A New York Stock Exchange advisory panel recommends mandatory trading halts at times of extreme stock market volatility.
The three major U.S. television networks—ABC, CBS and NBC— announce that they are changing the way they measure television viewership for advertising purposes.
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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)
Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.
Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.
Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.
June 12
66—June 13–18, 1990
World Affairs
June 17
June 18
The Americas
Asia & the Pacific
In Chile, the army denies blame for the mass grave since it had been a wartime operation. . . . The Southern Front signs a peace treaty with the Nicaraguan government, the last contra group to do so.
In Sri Lanka, the Tamils ignore a cease-fire agreement, and fighting between army and rebel forces escalates. Rebels continue to attack police stations and eventually capture as many as 20 officers.
Australian industry minister John Button and Vietnamese Commerce Minister Hoang Minh Thang sign an agreement to expand trade between their nations. . . . Australian prime minister Bob Hawke insists that 200 Cambodian refugees who arrived in northern Australia by boat in 1990 have no legitimate fear of persecution in their native country.
In Romania, 10,000 miners from the Jiu Valley region pour into Bucharest. Armed with iron bars, they beat students, ransack the headquarters of opposition parties and newspapers, and rough up the foreign press. Police do not interfere. . . . The Supreme Soviet rejects a plan to triple bread prices but approves the nation’s first corporate income tax. . . . The British government rejects a funding proposal to build a railroad link between London and the English Channel Tunnel.
In an interview in The Wall Street Journal, Yitzhak Shamir charges that the U.S., by allowing “the perception in the Arab world” that U.S.-Israeli relations are troubled, is “to a great extent” to blame for increasingly hostile rhetoric from Arab nations. . . . A 12-year-old Jewish boy is stabbed and wounded by an Arab in east Jerusalem, prompting days of anti-Arab rioting by Israeli mobs.
Chilean general Horacio Toro, head of the civil police, calls for Augusto Pinochet’s resignation as commander in chief of Chile’s armed forces.
The International Bureau of Expositions choose Hanover, West Germany, as the site of World Expo 2000., . . . The Bush administration reverses its policy and announces support for a special international fund to help developing countries reduce the use of chemicals that erode the ozone layer.
The Romanian government reports more than 500 people were injured in the past three days and six are dead. A mob of miners leaves Bucharest. Pres. Ion Iliescu, at a mass farewell rally, thanks them for “doing very good work.”. . . East and West German negotiators reach an agreement about property and assets seized since 1950. . . . The Russian parliament elects Ivan S. Silayev premier of the federation, succeeding Vlasov.
Iran agrees to pay the U.S. oil company Amoco Corp. $600 million for installations seized during the 1979 Iranian revolution. The decision is the first major settlement of more than $1.8 billion in U.S. corporate claims against Iran.
Nicaraguan reports state that more than 14,000 contra rebels out of 16,000 demobilized under an agreement reached by Pres. Violeta Barrios de Chamorro’s government and the contras.
A summit attended by the presidents of Guatemala, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, El Salvador, and Honduras opens. Panama’s president sits in as an observer.
Lithuania suspends its declaration of independence. In response, the Soviet government restores 15% of Lithuania’s supply of natural gas. . . . The Romanian government orders an investigation of the June 13–14 riots. . . . Tens of thousands of demonstrators block crossing points on the Greek-Yugoslav border, and accuse the Greeks of discriminating against the ethnic Macedonians in Greece. . . . Dutch and Belgian police arrest suspects believed responsible for IRA attacks against British military targets on the continent.
Kenyan president Moi announces that the Kenyan people unanimously backed KANU as the country’s sole party since a multiparty system would spark tribal divisions.
The presidents of five Central American nations launch a plan for a Central American economic community.
The ruling Bulgarian Socialist Party wins a solid majority in parliament in run-off elections.
In response to the recent violence, the European Community indefinitely suspends economic relations with Romania.
East German officials end a string of arrests that capture nine people wanted in West Germany in connection with terrorist actions by the Red Army faction. . . . Romania’s new parliament votes for legislation that effectively bans protests in central Bucharest. The government arrests three prominent opposition activists.
June 14
June 16
Africa & the Middle East
In Romania, police oust more than 200 youths before burning a makeshift tent city. Thousands of students riot in Bucharest and burn police headquarters. At least 4 are killed and more than 200 are injured. . . . About 30,000 Serbs hold anticommunist rallies in Belgrade, Yugoslavia. . . . Reports indicate that 148 people died and 885 were injured in riots in Kirghiz. . . . Tens of thousands of people stage another round of protests in Sofia, Bulgaria, against election practices. . . . Lord Terence Marne O’Neill, 75, prime minister of Northern Ireland, 1963–69, dies in Hampshire, England.
June 13
June 15
Europe
In Sri Lanka, a second cease-fire between the Tamils and government is declared, and the two sides agree to exchange prisoners.
In Cambodia, forces of the Khmer Rouge and the rebel faction led by Prince Norodom Sihanouk capture Kompong Thom, a provincial capital 60 miles north of Phnom Penh.
In Israel, P.M. Yitzhak Shamir invites Syrian president Hafez alAssad to visit Jerusalem for peace talks to demonstrate its good intentions in the face of U.S. skepticism and Arab hostility.
In talks with U.S. secretary of state James Baker, Nicaraguan president Chamorro indicates that small arms destined for the leftist rebels in El Salvador continue to pass through to the U.S. . . . . Amnesty International reports “widespread” human-rights abuses by Brazilian law-enforcement authorities between 1985 and 1990.
The truce in Sri Lanka breaks down, prompting Deputy Defense Minister Ranjan Wijeratne to tell parliament, “From now on it is all-out war. We will annihilate the Liberation Tigers.” He states 600 rebels died during the fighting. . . . The state of Queensland withdraws its bid for a joint Australian-Japanese “city of the future” development project, giving the venture to South Australia.
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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.
June 13–18, 1990—67
U.S. Politics & Social Issues
U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense
U.S. Economy & Environment
Science, Technology, & Nature
The House approves legislation to provide a total of $4 billion over the next five years for AIDS health care and prevention. The legislation is sent to a conference committee.
Secretary of State James Baker criticizes the PLO for failing to condemn a raid on Israel and for the anti-American tone of the recent Arab League summit. He also rebukes the new Israeli government in unusually strong terms, citing Israeli officials’ remarks that the U.S. peace plan was irrelevant.
Don R. Dixon, former owner of the now-insolvent Vernon S&L, is indicted by a grand jury in Dallas on 38 counts, including conspiracy and misapplication of funds. . . . The House Banking Committee approves a housing bill that appropriates funding for the construction of rental apartments.
A board of inquiry, authorized by the Norwegian government in consultation with the U.S. Coast Guard, opens a hearing on the June 8 disaster off the Texas coast.
The New York Stock Exchange announces a plan to establish offhours trading systems.
Flash floods inundate Ohio, northern West Virginia, and western Pennsylvania. In Shadyside, Ohio, at least 23 people are killed and 10 missing.
Medieval artworks that disappeared from Germany after World War II are traced to a former U.S. Army lieutenant, Joe Tom Meador, a former art teacher who died in 1980 in Texas. . . . The Detroit Pistons defeat the Portland Trail Blazers to win their second consecutive NBA title.
Rep. Bruce F. Vento (D, Minn.) states to the RTC Oversight Task Force of the House Banking subcommittee on financial institutions supervision, regulation, and insurance that six former executives at two failed California thrifts continued to receive salaries as high as $300,000 months after they stopped working at the institutions.
Pres. Bush declares Belmont County a disaster area, bringing to the total to 17 counties that are federal disaster areas after a series of thunderstorms and floods. . . . The fire aboard a ship that exploded June 8 near Galveston, Tex., is finally extinguished.
George Nakashima, 85, furniture designer who received a gold medal for craftsmanship from the American Institute of Architecture, dies in New Hope, Pa.
The Supreme Court rules hospitals and nursing homes can sue states for higher Medicaid reimbursement rates. . . . Federal agents arrest 174 suspected members of the Los Angeles–based Crips and Bloods street gangs on drug and weapons offenses. Suspects are seized in Calif., Ariz., La., N.Mex., Okla., Oreg., and Wash. . . . Published remarks by Cardinal O’Connor that warn of the danger of excommunication to politicians who support legalized abortion touch off a political outcry. Pres. Bush vetoes a bill that would have eased many of the restrictions of the 1939 Hatch Act, which bars federal employees from engaging in most forms of political activity. . . . Jack Henry Abbott, who won literary acclaim for a 1980 book written in prison, is ordered to pay $7.57 million to the widow of a man he stabbed to death in 1981 after being paroled with the aid of author Norman Mailer and other literary figures.
The State Department decides to withhold economic aid from Romania after learning of recent violence. The decision does not affect food or medical aid.
The ACLU reports that acts of discrimination against people with AIDS increased in 1989.
The Supreme Court rules that a special exemption from patent infringement for drugs, to permit testing, may be applied to medical devices.
Rep. Stephen Solarz (D, N.Y.), chairman of the House Foreign Affairs subcommittee on Asian and Pacific affairs, warns that tensions between India and Pakistan over Kashmir pose “the most serious threat of a major military conflict anywhere in the world at the present time.”
A 42-year-old construction worker, James E. Pough, sprays gunfire from a semiautomatic rifle at an office in Jacksonville, Fla. Eight people are killed and five are critically injured before the gunman shoots himself to death. . . . The Supreme Court upholds the right of police to videotape drunk-driving suspects and use evidence of slurred speech against them at trial without having advised the drivers first of their constitutional rights. . . . Pres. Bush nominates lawyer Stephen Potts as director of the White House Office of Government Ethics.
The Internal Revenue Service steps up audits of the U.S. operations of foreign banks following the discovery that many of them paid little or no income taxes during the mid1980s.
An alliance of the American Stock Exchange, the Chicago Board Options Exchange, the Cincinnati Stock Exchange, and Reuters Holdings PLC of Britain announces its plan to establish off-hours trading systems.
According to data from the National Severe Storms Forecast Center, the first half of 1990 saw the most violent weather in the U.S. in 40 years, with a total of 726 tornadoes in the first six months of the year.
Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle
June 13
June 14
June 15
Dame Eva Turner, 98, one of the first British opera singers to achieve international fame, dies in London.
June 16
Harry Gant, 50, becomes the oldest driver ever to win a NASCAR race with a victory in the Miller 500 in Long Pond, Pennsylvania.
June 17
The Supreme Court lets stand a declaration that Cathy Stone Deupree Adkinson is the natural daughter of the late country singer Hank Williams and is therefore entitled to a portion of his estate. Adkinson, 37, was born five days after Williams’s death in 1953.
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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)
Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.
Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.
Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.
June 18
68—June 19–24, 1990
June 19
June 20
World Affairs
Europe
Five member nations of the EC sign an agreement, known as the Schengen treaty, that will open common borders. The treaty requires ratification and is expected to come into effect in 1992.
In Moscow, 2,744 delegates open a conference to establish a Russian Communist Party.
An international conference on the ozone problem opens in London. . . . The Sixth International AIDS Conference opens in San Francisco. The conference is attended by more than 10,000 researchers and offers 3,000 studies.
Ion Iliescu is sworn in as president in Bucharest. Alan Green Jr., the U.S. ambassador to Romania, boycotts the ceremony. Iliescu appoints Petr Roman as the new premier. . . . The parliament of Uzbekistan declares the sovereignty of its laws over the laws of the central government. . . . Switzerland tightens its immigration laws.
June 21
June 22
Africa & the Middle East
In El Salvador, the second round of peace talks open in Oaxtepec, Mexico.
In Singapore, Vincent Cheng is released from jail after a 1987 arrest and becomes the last of a group of 16 alleged communist plotters to be released. . . . In Kashmir, rebels kill four policemen in a grenade and rocket attack on two Srinagar hotels.
A major earthquake strikes northern Iran, killing thousands of people. The quake measures 7.7 on the Richter scale and is followed by dozens of aftershocks, one of which measures 6.5 on the Richter scale. . . . The PLO’s executive committee in Baghdad, Iraq, issues a statement calling on the Arab League to respond to the “challenge” issued by the U.S. on June 20. It complains that the U.S. has not reacted similarly to “Israeli crimes against Palestinians.”
Haitian Council of State member Serge Villard is shot by gunmen, two of whom are dressed in army uniform. Trade unionist Jean-Marie Montes is also shot.
The East German Supreme Court begins to overturn convictions of those found guilty of political offenses under the former Communist regime and to order compensation to be paid.
Bombs wreck the constituency offices of two cabinet ministers of F. W. de Klerk’s ruling National Party in Johannesburg. Reports surface that Piet Rudolph, the deputy Boerestaat leader, sent a videotape to a newspaper in which he declared “open war” on de Klerk’s government.
The Meech Lake accord, a series of constitutional amendments aimed at persuading the province of Quebec to ratify Canada’s 1982 constitution, dies as the provinces of Newfoundland and Manitoba do not approve the accord.
In Poland, prominent figures in the Solidarity movement break with union leader Lech Walesa. . . . Reports show that negligent safety procedures in the uranium mines in East Germany and Czechoslovakia have caused the premature deaths of thousands of workers. . . . Romanian president Ion Iliescu outlines a plan to create a special antiriot force in Romania made up of “young and determined lads who are morally beyond suspicion.”
June 24
Asia & the Pacific
The process for converting East Germans’ marks into deutsche marks is ratified by both governments. . . . A military court in Bucharest convicts Nicolae Andruta Ceausescu, the younger brother of deposed Romanian president Nicolae Ceausescu, of attempted murder and inciting genocide during the 1989 revolution. . . . The Budapest Stock Exchange, the first stock exchange in Eastern Europe, officially opens. . . . Sixty-one volunteers of the U.S. Peace Corps arrive in Hungary.
The parliament of Moldavia declares the sovereignty of its laws over the laws of the central government. . . . A conservative communist, Ivan K. Polozkov, is chosen to lead the newly independent Communist Party of the Russian Federation. . . . Gabriel Mace, 72, editor-in-chief of the satirical French weekly newspaper Le Canard Enchaine, dies of heart disease in Paris.
June 23
The Americas
Jean Chrétien is elected leader of Canada’s opposition Liberal Party in Calgary, Alberta.
Two large earthquake, aftershocks shake Iran. Accurate counts of the dead and wounded people after the June 21 earthquake are difficult to confirm, but it is estimated that tens of thousands are dead. . . . Israel’s housing minister Ariel Sharon announces that the government will not settle Soviet Jews in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Serge Villard, shot on June 21 in Haiti, dies on his way to the U.S. for treatment. . . . British Columbia premier William Vander Zalm considers the possibility of “sovereignty association” for his province.
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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.
June 19–24, 1990—69
U.S. Politics & Social Issues
U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense
U.S. Economy & Environment
Science, Technology, & Nature
The trial of Washington, D.C., mayor Marion Barry opens. . . . On the eve of an international AIDS conference, protesters stage the first of a series of demonstrations in San Francisco. The first protest is targeted at U.S. immigration policy regarding people with HIV, so 500 demonstrators march to the local office of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service.
Reports state that the Pentagon will eliminate about 40,000 civilian jobs by Sept. 30. . . . Separately, Defense Secretary Richard Cheney submits to Congress a plan to reduce military forces 25% over a five-year period.
The House approves a $20.8 billion fiscal 1991 energy and water bill. . . . A resolution making the House budget the guide for dividing discretionary spending between domestic and military programs is approved by the chamber.
Danish researchers report that a large-scale study has found that isoprinosine appears to delay the onset of AIDS in some people who are infected with HIV.
American protesters continue to call attention to what they see as the slow rate of progress at the international AIDS conference in San Francisco. The National Research Council reports the AIDS epidemic is continuing to spread in the U.S.
Pres. Bush suspends U.S. diplomatic dialogue with the PLO because it did not condemn the May 30 abortive attack on Israel. . . . Nelson Mandela arrives in the U.S. for an 11-day visit and is enthusiastically received with a ticker-tape parade in NYC. . . . Two explosions on the aircraft carrier Midway kill two crew members and injure 16 while off the east coast of Japan.
Public Citizen’s Congress Watch, a consumer organization, reports that the Bush administration’s efforts to combat S&L fraud resulted in the recovery of less than 2% of the funds that were lost.
The Supreme Court bars a state antitrust suit on behalf of consumers to recover overcharges by public utilities. . . . The Supreme Court rules that editorial statements are not automatically exempted by the First Amendment from libel lawsuits. . . . The Supreme Court rules out political patronage practices in the hiring, promoting, or transferring of most public employees in non-policy-making positions.
The U.S. expresses “willingness to provide appropriate humanitarian assistance, if Iran so requests” after learning of its earthquake. The U.S. and Iran have not had formal diplomatic relations since Iranian revolutionaries held 52 hostages for 444 days in 1979–81. . . . The navy begins an investigation into the cause of the June 20 explosions on the Midway.
U.S. auditors and regulators find instances of fraud in a federal program to sell real estate belonging to S&L institutions that the government seized. Separately, Pres. Bush announces a stepped-up effort to prosecute perpetrators of fraud at S&L institutions.
Marilyn Louise Harrell, also known as “Robin HUD” for her donations to the poor after embezzling millions of dollars from HUD, is sentenced to 46 months in prison and to pay $600,000 in restitution. . . . . Separately, the House Government Operations subcommittee wraps up its investigation of HUD and former Secretary Samuel Pierce, reporting that it had uncovered “widespread abuses, influence peddling, blatant favoritism, monumental waste and gross mismanagement.”
Northrop Corp. and McDonnell Douglas Corp. unveil a $50 million version of the Air Force Advanced Tactical Fighter at Edwards Air Force Base in California. . . . A navy CH-46 Sea Knight helicopter goes down off the coast of Virginia Beach,Virginia, killing all four persons on board.
Pres. Bush steps up efforts to prosecute perpetrators of fraud at savings and loan institutions.
At the International AIDS conference, studies show that some gay men in the U.S. stopped practicing safe sex, which prompts a call for explicit education efforts that are targeted at younger groups in America.
Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle
June 19
June 20
Nelson Mandela is welcomed by an exuberant rally in Harlem before attending a rock concert at Yankee Stadium. The ANC leader dons a Yankee baseball cap and jacket and proclaims, “I am a Yankee.”
Ilya M. Frank, 81, Soviet physicist who shared the 1958 Nobel Prize in physics, dies of unreported causes in the Soviet Union.
June 22
At the International AIDS conference, several researchers report progress toward a vaccine. . . . A Martin Marietta Corp. Titan-3 rocket successfully launches a $150 million communications satellite from Cape Canaveral, Fla. . . . At an international conference in London, scientists report that the ozone layer is being destroyed faster than estimated.
U.S. secretary of health and human services Louis Sullivan closes the International AIDS conference with a speech that is virtually drowned out by shouts, whistles, and air-horn blasts from 500 activists angered by U.S. policies on immigration and research.
June 21
June 23
Studies find that the savings and loan rescue plan will result in a substantial redistribution of wealth to states that housed the most insolvent thrifts.
June 24
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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)
Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.
Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.
Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.
70—June 25–30, 1990
June 25
World Affairs
Europe
The leaders of the European Community hold a summit in Dublin.
Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic warns that his republic will declare independence from Yugoslavia if the federal system changes to a confederation. . . . Tens of thousands of Moldavians and Romanians converge on the Soviet-Romanian border to condemn the 50th anniversary of Soviet annexation. . . . Eight people are injured when a bomb explodes at a London social club.
June 26
June 27
June 28
June 29
Africa & the Middle East In Zambia, riots begin in response to the 100% increase in the price of cornmeal, the country’s staple food. In the capital, police and troops open fire on stone-throwing university students, and riots last for three days.
The Americas
Asia & the Pacific
In Honduras, 10,000 banana workers strike over pay. . . . Brazil’s science and technology minister José Goldemberg reports ranchers and farmers illegally burned 11,600 square miles of forested land in the Brazilian parts of the Amazon jungle in 1989. . . . In Quebec, a parade draws 200,000 people, many of them waving Quebec’s flag and chanting, “Vive le Quebec libre” (“Long live free Quebec”).
Chinese authorities permit dissident physicist Fang Lizhi and his wife, Li Shuxian, to leave the country. The couple has been harbored in the U.S. embassy in Beijing for more than a year.
The Hungarian parliament votes to negotiate Hungary’s withdrawal from the Warsaw Pact. . . . The Provisional Irish Republican Army claims responsibility for the June 25 bombing of a London club.
The Brazilian Satellite Research Institute reports that 8% of total Amazon rain-forest area has been destroyed. . . . Brazil announces a plan to reduce tariffs on imported goods. . . . Three Quebec members of Parliament from Brian Mulroney’s ruling Progressive Conservative party resign in reaction to the Meech Lake failure. . . . P.M. Mulroney names Justice Antonio Lamer as the new chief justice of the Canadian Supreme Court.
The Estonian parliament curbs immigration from other parts of the Soviet Union and becomes the first Soviet republic to assert authority over internal immigration. . . . Polish farmers demand a reinstitution of price supports and stage a sit-in in the agricultural ministry building. . . . The Federal Assembly, the first freely elected parliament in Czechoslovakia since World War II, opens. . . . France’s National Assembly bans all tobacco advertising, beginning in 1993.
In a ceremony marking the end of the civil war in Nicaragua, some 100 top contra commanders surrender their arms to Pres. Violeta Chamorro.
The Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe concludes a four-week human-rights session. The CSCE adopts a declaration on human rights and commits its 35 member nations to multiparty free elections, the separation of political parties from the state, independent judiciaries, respect for minority rights, and the freedoms of expression, organization and assembly. It is believed to be the first time that the Soviet Union signs a document pledging a multiparty system.
Albanians flood embassies in central Tirana after a prodemocracy demonstration turns into a two-day clash with police. . . . . In Rimini, 246 English soccer fans are deported after an outbreak of violence with Italians.
In Zambia, Pres. Kenneth Kaunda tours riot-torn areas. It is reported that riots killed at least 23 people. . . . Iraqi president Saddam Hussein gives his first interview with a U.S. newspaper in almost six years and states war is “inevitable” unless the U.S. stops Israel from carrying out anti-Palestinian and anti-Arab policies.
In London, representatives of 93 nations agree to banish the production of chemicals that destroy the ozone layer by the end of the 20th century. The nations also agree to establish a global fund to help underdeveloped nations phase out use of those chemicals.
Lithuania’s Supreme Council votes to place a moratorium on the republic’s declaration of independence. A group of demonstrators protest the decision. . . . Polish police use force to oust hundreds of farmers from the agriculture ministry building in Warsaw. . . . Yugoslav premier Ante Markovic unveils the second stage of economic reform to parliament. . . . The Hungarian government unveils a package of emergency budget measures.
A bomb explodes in the home of Clive Gilbert, a Jewish Johnannesburg councilman. . . . In Iran, Pres. Hashemi Rafsanjani, who was criticized when he accepted U.S. aid after the June 21 earthquake, defends his decision. . . . Pres. Kaunda promises a national referendum on whether to allow multiparty politics in Zambia. . . . Separately, police storm the University of Zambia, arrest antigovernment students, beat others, and close the campus.
Officials discover that a U.S. Peace Corps worker, Timothy Swanson, has been abducted from his home in the Philippines. The U.S. embassy orders all of the Peace Corps’ 260 volunteers in the Philippines to be evacuated to the U.S. for their own safety.
The CIA reports that economic austerity measures introduced in China in late 1988 brought a deep recession. . . . India readmits Amnesty International humanrights observers into Kashmir. Observers were banned during the six-month Kashmiri uprising.
Colombian guerrillas of the Marxist People’s Liberation Army release a U.S. gold miner, Scott Heimdal, in return for a $60,000 ransom payment presented by his parents. The ransom payment was mostly raised through donations in the Heimdals’ hometown of Peoria, Ill.
A Kashmiri separatist group shoots and kills the highest-ranking judge in the capital city of Srinagar. . . . Japan’s Prince Aya, 24, marries a 23-year-old commoner, Kiko Kawashima, at a Shinto ceremony at the Imperial Palace in Tokyo in the first major royal marriage in Japan since 1959.
The Soviets reopen the oil pipeline to Lithuania’s only refinery at Mazeikiai. . . . Leading West German industrialist Detlev Rohwedder is appointed to lead the restructuring of East Germany’s state-owned companies.
June 30
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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.
June 25–30, 1990—71
U.S. Politics & Social Issues
U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense
U.S. Economy & Environment
Science, Technology, & Nature
Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle
The Supreme Court rules that a person whose wishes are clearly known has a constitutional right to refuse life-sustaining medical treatment in its first decision on a “right-to-die” case. . . . The Supreme Court rules that states may require a minor to notify both parents before an abortion only if the law offers an alternative for those who do not want to involve their parents. . . . The Supreme Court upholds Minnesota’s provision that minors must wait 48 hours for an abortion after notifying their parents.
Nelson Mandela meets Pres. Bush at the White House in an unprecedented visit between an ANC leader and a U.S. president. . . . Retired Admiral Robert Bostwick Carney, 95, commander in chief of North Atlantic Treaty Organization forces, 1951–53, and U.S. chief of naval operations, 1953–55, dies of cardiac arrest in Washington, D.C.
Armed robbers steal $10.8 million from an armored car on its way to the Federal Reserve office in Buffalo, N.Y. The FBI reports it is the second-largest armored car theft in U.S. history. . . . Sirhan B. Sirhan, the convicted killer of Robert Kennedy, is denied parole for the 13th time.
Nelson Mandela addresses a joint session of Congress.
Pres. Bush reports that the budget deficit requires “tax revenue increases,” sparking an uproar since the vow “Read my lips: No new taxes” was a center of Bush’s 1988 campaign. . . . A bill that appropriates $10.6 billion for the depts. of commerce, justice, and state and the federal judiciary, for fiscal 1991 is approved. . . . Pres. Bush announces a moratorium on offshore oil exploration for large areas of the coastal U.S. but leaves some key areas—off Alaska, North Carolina, the mid-Atlantic states, and the Gulf Coast—open to lease sales for drilling.
Los Angeles and Phoenix set new temperature records of 112 and 122 Fahrenheit degrees, respectively.
The Supreme Court upholds federal affirmative-action policies designed to increase the number of broadcast licenses held by minorities and women. . . . The Supreme Court rules that states may allow victims of child abuse to testify on closed-circuit television to avoid more trauma.
The House approves a $15.6 billion foreign-aid bill for fiscal 1991. . . . Pres. Bush unveils proposals to encourage the growth of free market economies in Latin America, in part by forgiving Latin debt to the U.S. and taking steps to establish a hemispheric free-trade zone encompassing North, Central, and South America.
The Supreme Court rules out a suit that challenges plans to open millions of acres of federal land to mining. . . . The Nuclear Regulatory Commission announces new guidelines that allow the disposal of some low-level radioactive wastes as ordinary trash. . . . The Senate passes an omnibus housing bill for fiscal 1991.
Severe heat and persistent drought conditions in the Southwest feed a series of fires that last three days. . . . NASA discovers a flaw in the Hubble Space Telescope that considerably cuts back its exploratory capability. The defect, an improper curvature of one or both of the mirrors, prevents light rays from coming to a sharp focus and negates use of the telescope’s wide-field camera.
The Supreme Court concludes its 1989–90 term. During the term, the court issued 129 signed majority opinions, the fewest in a decade. . . . Edward Dennis Jr. announces his resignation as assistant attorney general in charge of the criminal division. Pres. Bush chooses Robert Mueller to succeed him.
The U.S. and Japan sign a final agreement that commits both nations to reforming their domestic economies with the aim of reducing the U.S. trade deficit with Japan. . . . The Pentagon announces that the armed services will drop 78 top-ranking officers. . . . The air force suspends an F-15 pilot, Lt. Michael Lynch, for firing a heat-seeking Sidewinder missile at another F-15 during a practice dogfight. The target plane sustained nearly $1 million in damage.
The House adopts an $83.6 billion bill covering fiscal 1991 spending by the departments of Veterans Affairs and HUD, plus independent agencies such as NASA and the EPA.
Fires that swept through Arizona, Colorado, Utah, Montana, and California compel California governor George Deukmejian (R) to declare Santa Barbara and Los Angeles County emergency areas.
Pres. Bush vetoes a bill that would have required workers to be allowed unpaid time off for births, adoptions or medical emergencies at home. His veto draws bipartisan criticism. . . . The Senate approves a plan to increase funds for WIC, a federal nutrition program that aids poor women and children.
The Senate Intelligence Committee votes to cut off covert funds for the military training of the noncommunist Cambodian rebels because of growing concern about the strength of the Khmer Rouge.
The Resolution Trust Corp. announces that it successfully completed the sale or liquidation of 155 insolvent thrifts in the second quarter of 1990, exceeding a goal set earlier. . . . Separately, Common Cause reports that Sen. Pete Wilson (R, Calif.) is the leading congressional recipient of contributions associated with the savings and loan industry.
NASA discovers a fuel leak while test-firing the shuttle Atlantis. The flaw also appeared in the Columbia spacecraft, so NASA grounds the space shuttle fleet until the cause of a fuel leak can be found and fixed. . . . Fire officials believe the blaze in Santa Barbara was caused by an arsonist.
The NEA rejects grant applications from four artists who were approved by the review panel. The artists, Karen Finley, Holly Hughes, John Fleck, and Tim Miller, all deal with issues of sexuality. The decision sets off controversy. . . . Scott Turow’s Burden of Proof tops the bestseller list.
A series of fires started on June 27 are reported to have killed two people and destroyed more than 500 homes. Pres. Bush declares that Los Angeles and Santa Barbara counties are federal disaster areas after fires.
Marquis William Childs, 87, Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch for 47 years, dies of unreported causes in San Francisco.
A federal judge issues a temporary injunction against Rev. Donald Wildmon’s American Family Association’s pamphlet that criticizes federal funding of sexually explicit artwork by David Wojnarowicz because it places fragments of Wojnarowicz’s work out of context.
Reports surface that Roman Catholic Bishop Rene H. Gracida of Corpus Christi, Tex., excommunicated officials of two local abortion clinics.
The Vatican instructs Roman Catholic theologians not to publicly dissent from church teaching and warns that there is no “right to dissent” within the church.
June 25
June 26
June 27
June 28
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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)
Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.
Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.
Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.
June 29
June 30
72—July 1–6, 1990
World Affairs
The Americas
Asia & the Pacific Rebel leaders report that all roads linking northwestern Cambodia to Phnom Penh, the capital city, have been cut off by the rebel Khmer Rouge army. Western diplomats report the Khmer Rouge made its greatest gains of the 11-year Cambodian civil war in the past month. The International Red Cross estimates that at least 25,000 refugees fled in June. . . . The official results of the May national election are released by the government of Myanmar and show that the opposition National League for Democracy had easily won the majority of seats. . . . An agreement between Australia and New Zealand establishing free trade in goods takes effect.
Lt. Gen. Henry Dubar, the army chief of staff, reportedly has deserted Pres. Samuel Doe and fled Liberia to Sierra Leone. . . . Bombs in South Africa damage a synagogue and a Hebrew nursery school. . . . In Zambia, Pres. Kenneth Kaunda fires his army commander and names new chiefs of the air force and police. He swears in Lt. Gen. Hanniah Lungu as defense minister. . . . In Israel, the cabinet approves emergency powers for Housing Minister Ariel Sharon to allow him to bypass bureaucracy and launch a crash construction program. He calls for the importation of 90,000 prefabricated trailer and mobile homes over the next two years.
Britain’s queen Elizabeth II makes a rare foray into politics when she pleads for Canadian unity in Ottawa at a ceremony marking Canada Day.
Albanian members of Kosovo’s parliament declare that Kosovo is independent from Serbia. The move is denounced as unconstitutional by the Serbian government. . . . Thousands of East German workers begin a strike for higher wages and a shorter working week. . . . The Soviet Union lifts its economic embargo on Lithuania. . . . A controversial French bill that toughens penalties against racial discrimination passes. . . . Norway’s government declares an oil and gas strike illegal and invokes compulsory arbitration.
The Saudi Arabian government estimates that 1,426 Muslim pilgrims are dead after a stampede in a pedestrian tunnel leading to Mecca. . . . In Liberia, rebels launch an assault on Monrovia, cutting off electricity, food, water, and fuel. . . . In South Africa the ANC and its allies begin a series of nationwide protests against the Natal strife. . . . Reports emerge that Kenyan police raided music shops and arrested several people for listening to “subversive” cassettes.
A strike is called by Nicaragua’s Sandinista-led National Federation of Workers.
The parliament of the republic of Slovenia adopts a declaration of sovereignty asserting that its constitution and laws take precedence over the federal Yugoslav government. Slovenia is the first republic to approve such a measure. . . . West German chancellor Helmut Kohl welcomes East Germany’s decision to hold all-German elections in December.
Shimon Shamir, Israel’s ambassador to Egypt since 1988, resigns, saying he cannot work for the right-wing government. . . . In South Africa, a shadowy group calling itself the White Wolves claims responsibility for bombings on June 29 and July 1. . . . The foreign ministers of Iran and Iraq hold their first direct talks since 1988.
China and Indonesia sign a pact restoring diplomatic relations between the two Asian nations, effective in August.
The foreign ministers of 24 of the world’s leading industrial nations agree to channel economic assistance to Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, and Yugoslavia and continue to aid Hungary and Poland.
Bulgarian president Petar Mladenov admits that a videotape that shows him calling for military tanks to quell a large prodemocracy protest in Sofia in 1989 is accurate. Thousands of students mount a protest in front of the presidential building and demand that Mladenov resign. . . . Pres. Mikhail Gorbachev states he will resign in two years if perestroika fails to improve the lives of the Soviet people. . . . Nelson Mandela meets for the first time with Britain’s prime minister Margaret Thatcher.
The government of Kenyan president Deniel arap Moi cracks down on opponents advocating a multiparty political system and arrests two dissidents. . . . Liberia’s head of the presidential guard leaves the country.
A week-long National Affairs Conference ends in Taipei, Taiwan, with a call for democratic reforms.
Leaders of the NATO nations agree to a dramatic series of changes in military strategy and state they will seek a joint declaration of nonaggression with the Warsaw Pact nations.
Serbia dissolves the parliament and government of Kosovo, thus taking direct control of the autonomous Yugoslav province. Police in Kosovo, under Serbian direction, seize radio and television stations. . . . The Federal Assembly reelects former dissident and playwright Vaclav Havel to a two-year term as Czechoslovakia’s president.
In Kenya, security police arrest nine opposition figures.
New measures allow the Indian army and police forces shoot-onsight powers during curfew periods and ban gatherings of more than four people.
Petar Mladenov resigns as Bulgaria’s president “in order not to be a reason to increase political tension.” The resignation brings shouts of victory from 5,000 demonstrators. . . . Thousands of Albanian refugees seek political asylum in nine embassies in Tirana. Riot police seal off the embassy district and attack 10,000 people staging a protest. . . . Hungary approves a plan by Ford Motor Co. to build an $80 million auto plant in Szekesfehervar in Ford’s first venture in Eastern Europe.
A bomb explodes at a crowded bus terminal in Johannesburg, South Africa, injuring 27 black commuters.
July 2
July 3
July 5
Africa & the Middle East
Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic calls for a referendum on reforming the Serbian constitution. His proposal, if approved by the voters of Serbia and Kosovo, in effect revokes Kosovo’s self-governing status. . . . General Jaime Milans del Bosch, 75, a key figure in a failed 1981 Spanish coup, is released from prison in Madrid after serving more than nine years of a 26-year sentence. . . . Norwegian oil and gas workers in the North Sea go on strike. . . . The deutsche mark becomes the common currency for East and West Germany.
July 1
July 4
Europe
July 6
The Nicaraguan government breaks off talks with strikers, declares the strike illegal, and vows to fire publicsector workers who refuse to return to work by July 9.
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Includes developments that affect more than one world region, international organizations, and important meetings of major world leaders.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.
July 1–6, 1990—73
U.S. Politics & Social Issues
U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense
U.S. Economy & Environment
Gen. Michael J. Dugan succeeds retiring Gen. Larry D. Welch as the air force chief of staff. . . . Sen. Charles Grassley (R, Iowa) and Sen. William Roth Jr. (R, Del.), in a letter to the Pentagon’s inspector general, state that they uncovered evidence that the military is still paying ludicrous prices for ordinary items, citing a $999.20 pair of pliers among others.
A federal judge rules that the government-funded Legal Services Corp. cannot deny legal aid to those challenging congressional or state redistricting plans.
Science, Technology, & Nature
Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle
A former Nazi rocket scientist who played a key role in NASA, Arthur L. H. Rudolph, arrives in Toronto from West Germany and fights to reclaim his U.S. citizenship.
Salsabil becomes the first filly since 1900 to win the Irish Derby. . . . Cal Ripken sets an American League mark for shortstops by playing in his 73rd straight baseball game without an error.
Former Philippine first lady Imelda Marcos is acquitted in federal court in NYC of charges of racketeering, fraud and obstruction of justice. A spokeswoman for Corazon Aquino, now the Philippine president, contends that despite the verdict, evidence in the trial “established what the Marcos regime was all about— unbridled corruption and a total abuse of power.”
Steve Backley of Great Britain breaks the world record in the javelin throw with a distance of 293 feet, 11 inches at a grand prix meet in Stockholm.
The Energy Department estimates that the cost of cleaning up radioactive wastes at nuclear weapons plants will total at least $20 billion over five years.
The National Transportation Safety Board issues an official ruling that blames the pilot of a USAir jet for a 1989 accident at LaGuardia Airport that killed two passengers.
Two Christian Scientists are convicted of manslaughter by a Boston jury because they relied on prayer rather than conventional medical care to treat their 2-year-old son, who died of a bowel obstruction in 1986.
The Office of Thrift Supervision files civil charges against Thomas Spiegel, the former CEO of Columbia Savings and Loan, seeking $24 million in restitution and civil penalties. . . . Separately, the OTS also announces that Neil Bush is required to attend a hearing on charges against him. The OTS states that proceedings regarding failed thrifts will be open to the public.
A small-scale study published in the New England Journal of Medicine suggests that treatment with a human growth hormone can significantly reverse some of the physical effects of aging.
July 2
July 3
Philip (Phil) Boggs, 40, Olympic gold diving medalist dies of lymphoma. . . . Maurice Girodias, 71, French publisher who defied censorship laws by publishing Nabokov’s Lolita and Miller’s Tropic of Capricorn, dies in Paris of a heart attack.
Mitchell Darryl (Mitch) Snyder, 46, nationally known advocate for homeless people who fasted for 51 days to persuade the administration of Pres. Reagan to turn over an abandoned federal building so his group could establish a homeless shelter, commits suicide over a failed love relationship.
July 1
Paul Wynne, 46, television entertainment reporter who received nationwide attention for a weekly show that detailed his battle with AIDS, dies in San Francisco.
An explosion and fire at a petrochemical plant, Arco Chemical Co., in a Houston suburb kills 17 workers and injures five others. Officials claim the blast did not release any dangerous material. . . . Atty. Gen. Richard Thornburgh states the Justice Department will focus its probe of savings and loan fraud on the 100 institutions that are considered the worst offenders.
July 4
July 5
July 6
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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)
Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.
Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.
Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.
74—July 7–12, 1990
World Affairs
July 11
July 12
The Americas
Asia & the Pacific
In Kenya, prodemocracy demonstrators gather near downtown Nairobi, despite warnings from Pres. Daniel arap Moi. Police break up the protest with gunfire, clubs, and tear gas. A string of riots erupt that lasts four days.
Albania gives permission for a mass emigration of refugees. . . . Bulgarian student leaders demand the resignations of Premier Andrei Lukanov, Defense Minister Dobri Dzhurov, and Interior Minister Atanas Semerdzhiev. . . . Hungary dedicates a monument to the 600,000 Hungarian Jews slain during World War II. . . . A strike by Norwegian oil and gas workers in the North Sea ends.
South African police arrest nine white men in connection with a series of bombings over the past three months. . . . Israeli jets hit bases belonging to Hezbollah (the Party of God) in Jarjuh and Ain Busear. Police report that at least 14 Hezbollah members killed in the air strikes.
The Group of Seven major industrial democracies holds its 16th annual summit on world economic issues. The meeting is attended by West German chancellor Helmut Kohl, U.S. president George Bush, Japan’s premier Toshiki Kaifu, Britian’s prime minister Margaret Thatcher, Italy’s premier Giulio Andreotti, Canadian prime minister Brian Mulroney, French president François Mitterrand and European Community Commission president Jacques Delors.
Czechoslovakia evacuates 51 Albanians from its embassy. . . . Former head of the Communist Party in Prague, Miroslav Stepan, is convicted of abuse of power and sentenced to four years in prison. . . . Riot police break up a silent protest against Serbian rule by 1,500 ethnic Albanians in Kosovo.
Reports state that a new group calling itself the White Liberation Army claimed responsibility for the July 6 South African bus terminal bombing. . . . A revived interim parliament opens in Kuwait. . . . In Kenya, riot police and a paramilitary unit fight street battles with rock-throwing demonstrators who loot shops and burn buses and cars. Pres. Moi vows that his opponents will be hunted “like rats.”
In Nicaragua, a strike turns violent and at least four people are reported killed and more than 40 injured. Nicaragua is virtually paralyzed by the strike, and Pres. Violeta Chamorro appeals for calm in an emergency address. . . . Five Cuban dissidents ask for protection at the Czechoslovak embassy. . . . Forty-eight members of the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement, Peru’s second-largest guerrilla group, escape from a maximum-security prison.
Forbes magazine lists Japanese railway and real-estate magnate Yoshiaki Tsutsumi, with an estimated net worth of $16 billion, as the world’s wealthiest individuals (excluding heads of state).
The Group of Seven hails “the intention of the Soviet Union to move toward a democratic political system, as well as Soviet attempts to reform their economy along market principles.” . . . The Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe accords Albania observer status in the 35-nation organization.
Kosovo’s president, Hisen Kejdomcaj, resigns along with two other provincial officials. Yugoslav president Borisav Jovic, a Serb, appeals for a peaceful resolution to the Serbian takeover of Kosovo.
The Group of Seven industrial nations reaches significant agreement on several major issues despite their differing approaches to a world economy rapidly changing because of the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe. Accords that relate to global warming, farm subsidies, and aid to the Soviet Union are reached. . . . Ambassadors of Britain, France, Italy, Spain, and West Germany in Liberia express horror over the tribal killings of innocent civilians by both sides.
Romanian premier Petre Roman indicates that some coal miners will be prosecuted for their actions during the rampage in midJune. . . . Polish farmers stage a nationwide protest. . . . Soviet coal miners stage a one-day “warning strike”. . . . British home secretary David Waddington refers the case of the Maguire Seven, in which seven people were convicted in 1976 of operating an IRA bomb factory and sentenced to prison, to the Court of Appeal because a report finds several errors on questions of evidence.
Reports indicate that Israel, faced with the continuing influx of Soviet Jews, has a severe problem with housing, so ragged tent towns of poor Israeli families are springing up in cities across the country. . . . In Kenya, minor street clashes are reported, as the government announces an official death toll of 20 in the riots started on July 7, with 73 seriously injured people and more than 1,000 arrests.
A band of 200 armed Mohawk Indians confront Quebec police in a dispute involving tribal land claims over a golf course in Oka, about 25 miles from Montreal. The Mohawks set up a barricade, and one officer is killed. . . . Several Cubans take refuge in embassies over the next three days. . . . In Nicaragua, Sandinista leaders demand talks, and Pres. Chamorro agrees to reopen talks in return for restoring public order. . . . Protesters stage a general strike in Haiti that shuts down most of Port-au-Prince and finds support in the provinces.
Asian diplomats cancel a 28-nation conference to discuss how to handle the overflowing refugee camps for the Vietnamese “boat people.” Asian officials reluctantly conclude that the meeting would be fruitless without a change in U.S. policy that opposes forced repatriation.
A UN plan to evacuate Albanian refugees takes effect as vessels chartered by Italy and France arrive at Durazzo.
The Soviet Communist Party suffers a major setback when Boris Yeltsin, president of the Russian Federation, resigns from the party. The mayors of Moscow and Leningrad follow his lead. . . . Armenian gunmen attack a convoy of Azerbaijani buses, killing three.
A second round of peace talks between representatives of Samuel Doe’s Liberian government and Charles Taylor’s NPF rebels are held in Freetown, Sierra Leone.
A strike called by Nicaragua’s Sandinista-led National Federation of Workers ends when the government agrees to a number of the workers’ demands.
India and Pakistan agree to a meeting of their foreign secretaries to discuss the Indian state of Kashmir.
July 8
July 10
Africa & the Middle East
To show opposition to the Serbian takeover, Western diplomats boycott a reception given by Pres. Slobodan Milosevic. . . . Albanian president Ramiz Alia’s regime dismisses hard-liners from the Workers’ Party Politburo and the government in an attempt to defuse growing unrest.
July 7
July 9
Europe
In response to the Nicaraguan government’s threat to fire strikers, Sandinista workers and students engage in scattered protests for two days.
The Indian army takes control of much of Kashmir under new emergency measures instituted July 5.
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Includes developments that affect more than one world region, international organizations, and important meetings of major world leaders.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.
July 7–12, 1990—75
U.S. Politics & Social Issues
U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense
U.S. Economy & Environment
Science, Technology, & Nature
Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle
Pres. Bush tells Japanese premier Toshiki Kaifu that the U.S. no longer opposes Japanese aid to China. . . . Commander Robert L. (Hoot) Gibson’s stunt plane collides with another plane during an air race, downing the other craft and killing the pilot, Henry W. Jones Jr., 69, a retired fighter pilot.
The New York Times reports that the federal government pledged $1.85 billion in subsidies to an Arizona insurance executive who put up just $1,000 of his own money in a transaction that allowed him to purchase 15 insolvent Texas savings and loan associations in Dec. 1988.
Michael Drummond, 30, the first person to be successfully implanted with an artificial heart in 1985 as a bridge to receiving a human heart, dies after developing an infection that weakened the donor heart. Although he was given a second artificial heart, he dies of multiple organ failure and a yeast infection in his bloodstream.
Martina Navratilova defeats Zina Garrison in the All England Tennis Championships at Wimbledon to earn a record ninth singles title there.
The Louisiana state legislature approves legislation that bans abortion except in cases of rape reported to the police within seven days, incest, or threat to the mother’s life. The bill sets forth criminal penalties for doctors who perform abortions.
The New York Times reports that Pres. Bush gave the go-ahead for launching of U.S. commercial satellites via Soviet rockets.
Three computer hackers plead guilty in Atlanta to federal charges of conspiring to defraud the BellSouth Corp. telephone company of computer information.
In the first such disciplinary action, NASA grounds two astronauts for violations of safety rules. Commander Gibson is grounded after he collided with a plane on July 7, and navy captain Walker narrowly avoided a “near mid-air collision” in May 1989. . . . Reports conclude that a U.S.-Saudi arms sale worth $4 billion moved quietly through Congress without the usual vocal opposition from pro-Israel forces.
At Wimbledon, Swede Stefan Edberg beats West German Boris Becker to win the men’s title. . . . West Germany wins the 1990 World Cup soccer competition over Argentina in Italy.
Federal mediators declare an impasse in contract negotiations between Eastern Airlines and its pilots’ union. The decision starts a 30-day cooling-off period.
Howard Duff, 76, Hollywood character actor, dies of a heart attack in Santa Barbara, Calif.
In NYC, federal district judge Edelstein orders that monitors be placed at every local Teamsters’ union to observe the 1991 election for national union officers. . . . A federal jury in Birmingham, Ala., convicts USX Corp. and two United Steelworkers union officials of violating federal labor law in connection with a 1983 labor contract. The Senate overwhelmingly approves a wide-ranging anticrime bill that includes a temporary ban on the import or manufacture of nine types of semiautomatic assault rifles.
Defense Secretary Dick Cheney names Henry F. Cooper, a former U.S. arms negotiator, to head the Strategic Defense Initiative (“Star Wars”) program.
A Roman Catholic nun from Brooklyn, New York, Sister Mary Rose McGeady, is named the new president of the NYC-based Covenant House shelter for runaways.
July 7
July 8
July 9
July 10
Pres. Bush defends his son, Neil Bush, who is under attack for his role in the failure of a Colorado savings and loan association. At the same time, however, the president promises that Neil Bush will receive no special treatment because he is the president’s son. . . . In what is believed to be the largest settlement ever of a whistleblower’s lawsuit, Textron Inc. agrees to pay the government $17.9 million to settle civil charges that it knowingly supplied the Coast Guard with faulty helicopter engines. Fifteen percent of the settlement is to go to Robert Ballew, the man who disclosed the wrongdoing.
July 11
The House approves a $30.8 billion transportation bill that imposes a penalty on states that fail to enact laws to revoke licenses of drivers convicted on drug charges. . . . The Energy Department discloses that large amounts of radiation were released from the Hanford Nuclear Reservation along the Columbia River in Washington State in a three-year period ending in Dec. 1947.
Several actors visit Capitol Hill to argue against obscenity restrictions. . . . The FCC seeks to enforce a 24-hour-a-day ban on what it deems “indecent” material on radio and TV. . . . In NYC, Asian-American actors protest casting a white lead actor in Miss Saigon.
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Includes elections, federal-state relations, civil rights and liberties, crime, the judiciary, education, health care, poverty, urban affairs, and population.
Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)
Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.
Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.
Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.
July 12
76—July 13–18, 1990
World Affairs
July 13
July 14
NATO secretary general Manfred Woerner is scheduled to become the first NATO leader to visit Moscow.
July 17
July 18
Africa & the Middle East
Forty members of an international team of mountaineers are killed in an avalanche on Lenin Peak in Kirghiz in one of the worst mountain disasters in world history. . . . The Soviet Communist Party closes its congress with Pres. Mikhail Gorbachev in command after he beat a series of conservative challenges. . . . In Albania, 100,000 people participate in a pro-government rally. Meanwhile, 4,000 Albanian refugees arrive in Italy. . . . More than 20,000 people rally in Bucharest’s Victory Square, defying a ban on protests in the center of the capital.
A bomb explodes at a mainly black hotel bar west of Johannesburg, South Africa, killing a black waiter.
The new Soviet Communist Party Central Committee elects a 24member Politburo that reflects Pres. Gorbachev’s aim to separate the party from the central government.
In a direct challenge to the ANC, Mangosuthu Buthelezi formally announces that his group, Inkatha, will convert from a Zulu “cultural and liberation movement” into a national, multiracial political party. . . . Syrian president Hafez al-Assad starts his first visit to Egypt in more than 13 years, ending the long rift that resulted from Cairo’s peace treaty with Israel. . . . In South Africa, a grenade thrown into a bar kills one black man and injures 21.
The Americas
Asia & the Pacific Gen. Khin Nyuht, head of Myanmar’s military intelligence, announces that opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi will not be released July 19, when her oneyear sentence expires in another sign that the military government is not willing to leave power after losing elections.
In Cuba, Fidel Castro denies exit visas to refugees who were entering Czechoslovakian embassy because “experience has shown us this just stimulates more” to leave. . . . In the Dominican Republic, Pres. Juan Bosch calls for a period of national mourning to “bring an end” to the government before turning the reins over to president-elect Joaquín Balaguer.
West German and Soviet leaders hold talks in Moscow. . . . Around 500 Albanian refugees reach Marseilles. . . . Around 100,000 demonstrators stage a rally outside the Kremlin to demand that the Soviet Communist Party relinquish power and turn over its property to the people. Separately, Pres. Gorbachev ends the Communist Party’s monopoly on radio and television broadcasting.
Talks between representatives of the Mohawk Nation, the federal government and the Quebec government break down as they cannot reach consensus over a land dispute. . . . . Czechoslovakia evacuates the dependents of its diplomats from Cuba.
Soviet president Gorbachev agrees to conditions that allow a reunified Germany to become a member of NATO. . . . The East German Interior Ministry confirms that East Germany harbored Palestinian terrorists, including the man believed responsible for killing 11 Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich. . . . Arab League foreign ministers announce a decision to boycott companies and other nongovernmental institutions that help Jews immigrate to Israel.
Prominent figures in Poland’s Solidarity labor movement form a new political lobby to challenge the presidential ambitions of Solidarity leader Lech Walesa. . . . The Ukrainian parliament votes to declare the sovereignty of its laws over the laws of the central regime.
The seven Cubans who took refuge at the Czechoslovak embassy hold the original five dissident refugees and five Czechoslovak diplomats hostage. The diplomats are freed after several hours.
A major earthquake strikes Luzon Island, the main island of the Philippines. The quake’s epicenter is located near Cabanatuan, about 55 miles north of Manila, and it registers 7.7 on the Richter scale, making it the strongest earthquake to hit the Philippines since 1976. . . . A crisis in India’s ruling Janata Dal party is averted when the controversial chief minister of the state of Haryana resigns under pressure from P.M. Vishwanath Pratap Singh.
East and West Germany, the four Allied powers, and Poland reach an agreement in Paris on a plan to guarantee Poland’s border with a united Germany, overcoming the last major international hurdle to German reunification.
Ethnic clashes between Kirghiz and Uzbeks resume in the Kirghiz city of Osh. . . . Lithuania’s Supreme Council passes a law that permits the formation of security forces made up of Lithuanian conscripts, a measure that seems to contradict the republic’s freeze on independence-related laws pending formal talks with the Kremlin.
Iraqi president Saddam Hussein charges that some gulf rulers are “inspired by America” to plot to keep oil prices low through overproduction. . . . A stray shell lands near a group of reservists during an army training exercise in Israel, killing five soldiers and wounding 10. . . . The Israeli Supreme Court rules that the emergency powers given to Sharon on July 1 are unconstitutional.
In the Dominican Republic, stonethrowing demonstrators angered by the slow transfer of power to the president-elect clash with police. One person is killed and at least 20 are injured. . . . All the Cubans in the Czechoslovak embassy surrender. More Cubans seek asylum in embassies of other nations for the next five days.
Pres. Corazon Aquino flies to Cabanatuan to survey the damage caused by the July 17 earthquake and declares that Cabanatuan, Baguio, and several other areas in the Philippines are calamity areas. . . . China announces that possession of obscene photographs or films is punishable by death.
The IMF approves Hungary’s emergency budget measures, clearing the way for further aid.
Seven prominent Soviets resign from the Communist Party. . . . Spain recalls its ambassador, Antonio Serrano de Haro, to Madrid after he and Cuban officials disagreed bitterly with each other.
Iraq makes public a letter to the Arab League that charges Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates with taking part in an “imperialist-Zionist plan” to depress oil prices. Kuwait’s ruling emir, Sheik Jabir alAhmad Al Sabah, responds by dispatching envoys to Arab capitals, calling an emergency session of Kuwait’s interim parliament and putting the emirate’s small, 20,000man armed forces on alert.
Reports surface that a wave of kidnappings swept Rio de Janeiro in the first half of 1990. At least 30 abductions had taken place, and $16 million had been paid in ransom. . . . Eleven members of the dissident Pro-Human Rights Youth Association are sentenced on charges ranging from terrorism and rebellion to having contacts with U.S. officials in Cuba.
Secretary of State James Baker announces that the U.S. is withdrawing its diplomatic recognition of the Cambodian rebel coalition and will initiate talks with Vietnam in an effort to end the Cambodian civil war. . . . Yun Po Sun, 92, president of South Korea, 1960–62, dies in Seoul after suffering from diabetes and high blood pressure.
July 15
July 16
Europe
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Includes developments that affect more than one world region, international organizations, and important meetings of major world leaders.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.
July 13–18, 1990—77
U.S. Politics & Social Issues
U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense
U.S. Economy & Environment
The Senate approves a landmark bill to prohibit discrimination against people with physical or mental disabilities and sends it to the White House.
The Senate Armed Services Committee approves a bill for $288.9 billion in defense spending in fiscal 1991, a reduction of $18 billion from the administration’s request.
The House passes a $20.7 billion bill for the Treasury Department, the Postal Service, and other agencies for fiscal 1991. . . . Reports state that inflation in the 12 months through June reached 9.8%, the highest in eight years. . . . The Federal Reserve shifts toward a looser monetary policy, and the federal funds interest rate falls to about 8.06%.
Science, Technology, & Nature
Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle
July 13
July 14
The U.S. wins the Lacrosse World Series, 19-15, over Canada in Perth, Australia.
Vice Pres. Dan Quayle announces that the White House strongly opposes the U.S. Senate candidacy in Louisiana of former KKK leader David Duke. . . . District judge Thomas Lambros orders the consolidation of thousands of personalinjury asbestos lawsuits into a nationwide class action. . . . James Meredith, an aide to Sen. Jesse Helms (R, N.C.), criticizes the leadership of the NAACP, alleging its members are involved in unspecified “criminal or immoral activities.”
McDonnell Douglas Corp., the nation’s leading defense contractor, announces it will eliminate 14,000–17,000 jobs by the end of 1990 and trim discretionary and capital spending. . . . Pres. Bush revises the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board and installs former Texas senator John Tower (R) as chairman.
The White House reports the estimated fiscal 1991 budget deficit ascended to $168.8 billion, exceeding the January forecast of $100.5 billion. . . . . The government finds that retail sales fell 2.8% in June, the biggest monthly drop since 1979.
The White House directs NASA to appoint an outside task force to examine the space program’s longterm direction.
The DEA reports that supplies of cocaine in major metropolitan areas in the U.S. fell in the past year while prices rose.
Reports state that the armed forces accepted 42,000 fewer enlistees in 1990 than at the same point in 1989, a 20% reduction.
The Senate and House begin to work to process the fiscal 1991 spending bills in the absence of a formal budget resolution.
NASA announces that space shuttle flights will resumed in mid-August or early September. . . . Astronauts aboard Mir conduct a space walk that brings them perilously close to exhausting their oxygen supply.
A $50.35 billion appropriations for the Agriculture Department for fiscal 1991 is approved by the House.
According to a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, blood pressure that is above normal but not high enough to qualify as hypertension can permanently damage the heart and blood vessels and increase the risk of heart attack.
The Senate passes a civil-rights measure designed to overcome recent Supreme Court decisions that make it more difficult for individuals to win job-discrimination lawsuits. . . . NAACP executive director Benjamin Hooks calls James Meredith’s July 16 assertions “sheer nonsense.”
The heavy-metal rock group Judas Priest and its record label, CBS Records, are sued by the families of two youths who shot themselves after listening to the band’s album Stained Class.
July 15
July 16
July 17
The Evangelical Lutheran Church of America suspends two congregations for five years for ordaining a gay man and two lesbians in defiance of church policy.
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Includes elections, federal-state relations, civil rights and liberties, crime, the judiciary, education, health care, poverty, urban affairs, and population.
Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)
Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.
Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.
Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.
July 18
78—July 19–24, 1990
July 19
July 20
Europe
Spain suspends a $2.5 million aid program to Cuba and asks the EC to halt all aid projects with Cuba. The EC agrees.
Gen. Wojciech Jaruzelski expresses a willingness to resign as Poland’s president before the end of 1990 for an elected successor. . . . Latvia decides to form its own customs service to guard its borders with other Soviet republics. . . . More than 10,000 people in Timisoara demand the release of dissidents and call for the resignation of Romanian president Ion Iliescu.
Saudi Arabia’s King Fahd urges Kuwait and Iraq to settle their differences by dialogue. . . . In Liberia, NPF rebels end peace talks and say they will oust Pres. Samuel Doe by force.
The Haitian government asks the UN to send monitors to observe its election, becoming the first UN member to make such a request. The General Assembly defers action on the request.
A bomb explodes in London’s International Stock Exchange building. There are no casualties since the area was evacuated after telephone warnings were received. The IRA claims responsibility. . . . Negotiations on a treaty that will transform the USSR. into a confederation of sovereign republics open when Pres. Mikhail Gorbachev presides over a meeting in Moscow of the Presidential Council and the Federation Council.
Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak asks Kuwait and Iraq to settle their differences through discussion.
Reports indicate more than a dozen people were killed during ethnic clashes between Kirghiz and Uzbeks in Osh, Kyrgyzstan. At least 100 were seriously injured. . . . Rock performers stage a large concert in East Berlin to celebrate the dismantling of the Berlin Wall. More than 150,000 people attend. . . . Slavic Bulgarian nationalists end a general strike launched to protest alleged discrimination against Slavs in the region by ethnic Turks.
July 21
July 23
The members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) criticize the U.S. for withdrawing its recognition of the Cambodian rebel coalition and also take issue with U.S. policy on Vietnamese and Cambodian “boat people” refugees.
The Americas
Asia & the Pacific
Quebec’s Minister of Native Affairs John Ciaccia announces that the federal government will acquire land in Oka that is the subject of an armed dispute between Mohawk Indians and local authorities. The government also moves a special Royal Canadian Mounted Police assault task force into Montreal in response to demands from white residents that the army clear a blockade of the Mercier Bridge set up by Mohawks on July 11.
In the Philippines, reports estimate that 674 people died and 2,600 were injured in the earthquake that struck Luzon Island July 16.
Reports state that 26 Cubans have sought asylum at the Italian ambassador’s residence and the Spanish and Swiss embassies. In response, Cuban police seal off the Canadian and West German embassies and tighten security around the Spanish embassy.
Israel’s center-left Labor Party chooses to retain Shimon Peres as its leader, defeating a strong challenge by his long-time rival, Yitzhak Rabin. . . . Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak meets with Iraqi foreign ministery Tariq Aziz in Cairo. . . . In the South African township of Sebokeng, Inkatha supporters battle members of the Vaal Civic Association, allied with the ANC. Thirty people are killed. . . . Separately, reports indicate that South African police have arrested as many as 40 Umkhonto guerrillas.
China and Saudi Arabia establish diplomatic relations. As part of the agreement, Saudi Arabia recognizes China as the “sole legitimate government” of the “entire Chinese people.” The move leaves South Korea and South Africa as the only major nations to recognize Taiwan as the legitimate government of China.
The government orders the “organs of social order” to put an end to antigovernment protests in Bulgaria. Police, however, take no action against the tent city set up by protesters. . . . The Ukrainian parliament elects Leonid Kravchuk to the post of president. He vows to seek increased Ukrainian autonomy.
U.S. officials and Arab diplomats note that Iraq has massed 30,000 troops on its frontier with Kuwait. The move is generally interpreted as an intimidation tactic rather than as a preparation for war. . . . Jordan’s King Hussein joins a meeting between Aziz and Mubarak in Cairo.
Civil defense officials in the Philippines report at least 1,621 people died in the July 16 earthquake. . . . In Australia, members of the federal cabinet spar over the findings of a scientific report on logging in southeastern New South Wales. . . . Reports show that 80% of the 500,000 victims of the 1984 Bhopal, India, gas leak have not yet received any of the $470 million settlement from Union Carbide.
Three Northern Ireland policemen and a Roman Catholic nun are killed by a bomb explosion near the Ulster town of Armagh. . . . Greece’s parliament ratifies a military agreement between the nation and the U.S. and Greece to continue the U.S. military presence in Greece but to concentrate it on the island of Crete. Police battle with 2,000 demonstrators in Hania, Crete, protesting the pact.
Bush administration officials announce that the U.S. dispatched air force aerial refueling planes in an emergency training exercise with UAE fighter jets, at the UAE’s request. The maneuvers were backed up by the six-warship U.S. Navy task force on permanent duty in the Persian Gulf. . . . Israel’s National Council for Building and Planning reverses an earlier decision and approves construction of a huge radio transmitter for the U.S. Voice of America.
July 22
July 24
Africa & the Middle East
World Affairs
Quebec’s Human Rights Commission rules that a blockade of food and medical supplies to the barricaded Mohawks is illegal.
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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.
July 19–24, 1990—79
U.S. Politics & Social Issues
U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense
U.S. Economy & Environment
Science, Technology, & Nature
Sen. Donald Riegle Jr. (D, Mich.) says he will turn over to the Treasury nearly $120,000 in contributions that he received since 1983 from PACs and individuals with ties to the savings-and-loan industry. . . . A $170.7 billion appropriations bill is approved by the House for the departments of Labor, Education, and Health and Human Services for fiscal 1991. . . . PPG Industries Inc. agrees to pay New Jersey $82.5 million for dumping chromium wastes in Hudson County. Justice William J. Brennan Jr. resigns from the Supreme Court after nearly 34 years of service. . . . Herbert T. Jenkins, 83, police chief of Atlanta, 1947–73, with a policy of accommodating civil-rights leaders, dies in Atlanta of a selfinflicted gunshot wound.
Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle The $21 million Richard Nixon Library in Yorba Linda, California, is dedicated with Pres. Bush and former presidents Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, and Richard Nixon at the ceremonies. . . . The Senate approves a bill that limits the amount of advertising on TV programs aimed at children and requires broadcasters to provide programming for children.
A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals sets aside Oliver North’s convictions for deceiving Congress and for receiving an illegal gratuity. It overturns his conviction for destroying government documents so all three of North’s felony convictions are suspended. . . . George Stone, a navy contract specialist, is sentenced to 15 months in prison for his role in the Pentagon procurement scandal. . . . A group of 60 Panamanian companies sue the U.S. government demanding $30 million in compensation for damages incurred during the 1989 invasion.
July 19
July 20
The New York Times reports that an Arizona insurance executive, James M. Fail, who in 1988 won $1.85 billion in federal subsidies to acquire 15 Texas thrifts, was allowed in March 1987 to buy an insolvent Oklahoma bank despite his failure to submit required documents to regulators.
July 21
Kennedy family matriarch Rose Kennedy turns 100. . . . Manuel Puig, 57, Argentine novelist whose 1979 book The Kiss of the Spider Woman was made into an awardwinning film in 1985, dies of a heart attack following gall bladder surgery in Cuernavaca, Mexico.
Reports suggest the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms gave permission for the import of modified versions of semiautomatic assault rifles banned in 1989 by Pres. Bush. . . . Pres. Bush nominates David H. Souter as a Supreme Court justice. Debate over Souter’s politics, particularly his stance on abortion rights, ensues.
The navy suspends a plan to use bottle-nosed dolphins as sentries at a submarine base near Bangor, Washington, an idea that prompted legal challenges from animal-rights activists.
Sen. Tim Wirth (D, Colo.) sends nearly $100,000 to the state of Colorado because it is money he raised from the S&L industry in his career. . . . Walt Disney Co. accepts responsibility for the illegal disposal of hazardous paint thinner and other cleaning solvents used at Disneyland, in Anaheim, California, and agrees to pay the EPA a $550,000 fine.
The House Government Operations subcommittee on employment and housing, which held hearings into allegations of wrongdoing at the HUD Department under former Secretary Samuel R. Pierce Jr., asks the special prosecutor investigating the case to widen his probe.
In a memo, Vice Admiral Joseph Donnell, the commander of the navy’s East Coast installations urges that lesbian sailors be rooted out of the service. . . . The Strategic Air Command ends round-theclock flights of the airborne command planes collectively known as “Looking Glass” in order to save $18 million in fiscal 1991.
Atty. Gen. Richard Thornburgh notes that the Justice Department may need until 1995 to prosecute the savings and loan fraud cases at the 100 institutions on the list.
James David Hart, 79, literary scholar who was the creator and sole author of the Oxford Companion to American Literature, dies of a brain tumor in Berkeley. . . .The House approves a TV advertising bill similar to the one passed in the Senate July 19.
July 22
July 23
July 24
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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)
Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.
Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.
Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.
80—July 25–29, 1990
World Affairs
July 27
July 28
Africa & the Middle East
The Americas
Pres. Mikhail Gorbachev decrees that ethnic militants have 15 days to disarm voluntarily or they will face confrontations with Soviet security forces.
Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak announces that Iraqi and Kuwaiti officials have agreed to hold direct talks to work out their oil and border disputes. . . . Clashes between Inkatha supporters and members of the Vaal Civic Association, allied with the ANC, break out in South Africa’s Soweto township.
Former U.S. president Jimmy Carter visits Haiti and says he will return in November to monitor elections. . . . British Columbia’s native affairs minister, Jack Weisgerber, declares that, for the first time in British Columbia’s history, the province will recognize “certain aboriginal rights and interests.”. . . Seven members of Canada’s parliament who left their political parties over the Meech Lake accord announce they will form a bloc in the House of Commons as the Bloc Quebecois (BQ).
Ambassadors of five EC nations in Liberia issue another joint statement expressing their horror over the tribal killings of innocent civilians by both sides. . . . U.S. secretary of state James Baker arrives in Jakarta for talks with the ASEAN ministers from Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand.
Poland’s Senate gives final approval on a package of legislation to privatize the economy. . . . The U.S. begins removing its stockpile of chemical weapons from West Germany that has been stored there for 23 years. . . . Stasi’s former chief, Erich Mielke, is arrested by East German authorities and is charged with harboring terrorists.
In South Africa, Nelson Mandela meets with F. W. de Klerk to discuss recent unrest.
In Peru, a bomb explodes outside the presidential palace. Several more bombs, believed to have been planted by Maoist guerrillas knock out electricity in Lima. . . . Representatives of the leftist FLMN rebels and the Salvadoran government reach an accord on human rights, the first such pact in their decade-old war. . . . Quebec’s minister of Native affairs, John Ciaccia announces a government blockade of food and medical supplies to barricaded Mohawks will be lifted in response to the July 24 ruling.
The UN High Commissioner for Refugees states that at least 375,000 Liberians have fled to neighboring Ivory Coast, Guinea, and Sierra Leone. Food shortages, malnutrition, and disease are reportedly spreading in Liberia. . . . The European Investment Bank, an EC unit, will lend Czechoslovakia up to $500 million over a three-year period. . . . At the ASEAN meeting, U.S. secretary of state Baker announces a modified U.S. position on the “boat people” issue. The U.S., he asserts, agrees to the repatriation of those refugees who “do not object” to returning. In return, the ASEAN nations agree to continue accepting the refugees. However, they warn that unless a comprehensive settlement is reached soon, their countries will begin to send boat people back to sea.
The Byelorussian parliament passes a sovereignty resolution and expresses the desire to become a neutral, nuclear-free state. . . . The French government releases five men convicted in the attempted 1980 assassination of former Iranian premier Shahpur Bakhtiar. . . . Authorities in West Berlin arrest a 32-year-old West German of Lebanese origin on charges of organizing the 1986 bombing of the La Belle discotheque. The attack, which killed two U.S. soldiers and a Turkish woman, led to a retaliatory air raid by the U.S. on Libya. . . . Separately, West Germany’s leading antiterrorist official is slightly injured in a bomb blast aimed at his car. The Red Army Faction terrorist group claims credit for the attack.
An Italian envoy warns that Liberia is slipping into “anarchy and national suicide.”
Armed with rifles and grenades, a group of 100 black Muslims in the Caribbean island nation of Trinidad and Tobago attack the parliament building, seize the prime minister and several other cabinet officials, take over the government television station where they keep 29 people hostage, and blow up the police headquarters. It is an coup attempt against P.M. Arthur N.R. Robinson. . . . Canadian federal minister of Indian affairs Thomas Siddon announces that the government has bought the 30-acre parcel of land adjacent to the golf course that is at the center of the Mohawk dispute. . . . Colombia’s Medellin drug cartel pledges to suspend the use of violence indefinitely as a good-will gesture to the new administration, but many Colombians are skeptical of the promise.
The Honduran government signs a 12-month, $41 million standby loan agreement with the IMF.
Poland’s Citizens’ Movement for Democracy lobby, formed July 16, opens its first meeting. Members strenuously object to press characterizations of the Citizens’ Movement as a political party. . . . The three Baltic republics refuse to participate in negotiations with the Soviet central government over a new union treaty, which would transform the USSR into a confederation of sovereign republics.
A pipe bomb explodes on a crowded Tel Aviv beach, wounding 18 Israelis and tourists and killing a 17-year-old Canadian girl. Enraged Jews attack Arab bathers and workers and stone cars with Arab license plates. Police detain seven Israelis in connection with the rampage.
Alberto Fujimori is sworn in as president of Peru in Lima. . . . The dispute over land between the Canadian government and the Mohawk Indians continues. . . . In Trinidad and Tobago, negotiations with rebels staging a coup begin, and acting president Emanuel Carter declares a state of emergency and a curfew. Eight hostages, two of them government ministers, are released. In Port of Spain there are outbreaks of gunfire between government troops and members of the sect. Fires rage in several locations as looters ransack stores.
Soviet government data for the first half of 1990 indicates the economy is still in crisis. . . . The Red Army Faction threatens a guerrilla war against the “Fourth Reich” of a unified Germany. . . . Bruno Kreisky, 79, chancellor of Austria, 1970–83, dies of heart disease in Vienna.
Eight Palestinians are arrested for the July 28 bombing. . . . Forty years after it was banned and nearly six months after it was legalized by Pretoria, the South African Communist Party publicly relaunches itself as an open political party at a rally in the black township of Soweto.
The Retail Council of Canada announces that it is taking steps to fight an exodus of Canadian shoppers across the border to the U.S. for lower prices.
July 25
July 26
Europe
July 29
Asia & the Pacific
The ruling Mongolian People’s Revolutionary Party retains control of both houses of parliament in the first free elections in Mongolia since the communist takeover in 1921. . . . Ivan Timofeyevich Polyukhovich, a 74year-old accused war criminal, is found shot near his home in Adelaide, a day before his trial was set to begin.
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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.
July 25–29, 1990—81
U.S. Politics & Social Issues
U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense
The Senate votes 96 to 0 to denounce Sen. David Durenberger (R, Minn.) for improper financial dealings.
U.S. Economy & Environment
Science, Technology, & Nature
Eastern Airlines and nine of its managers are indicted on charges of falsification of aircraft maintenance records from 1985 to 1989. The criminal indictment on maintenance is unprecedented in the airline industry.
Pres. Bush signs into law a landmark civil-rights bill that prohibits discrimination against people with disabilities. . . . The House of Representatives votes to reprimand Rep. Barney Frank (D, Mass.) for improper use of his office to aid a male prostitute. . . . The New Jersey Supreme Court rules that warning labels on cigarette packages do not protect tobacco manufacturers from product-liability lawsuits filed by smokers or their families.
General Electric agrees to pay $30 million in penalties and restitution in a case stemming from overcharges on an Army battlefield computer system. . . . A jury in Los Angeles convicts Honduran narcotics trafficker Juan Ramon Matta Ballesteros on three counts in connection to the 1985 slaying in Mexico of a DEA agent, Enrique Camarena Salazar, and three other individuals.
According to a Washington Post/ ABC News poll, Americans are increasingly pessimistic about the national economy.
Louisiana governor Buddy Roemer (D) vetoes a strict antiabortion bill passed by the state legislature. . . . A mistrial is declared in Los Angeles in the second trial of Raymond Buckey, the sole remaining defendant in the McMartin Pre-School child molestation case.
The Justice Department closes the criminal phase of Operation Uncover, a 15-month investigation of illegal trafficking by defense contractors in confidential Pentagon documents. The criminal phase ends with the sentencing of Frank J. Caso and John R. Kiely to serve six months in a half-way house and fined each $5,000. . . . An Army UH-60 Blackhawk helicopter crashes about five miles from Charleston, South Carolina, killing five soldiers and injuring eight others. . . . Separately, a Marine Corps UH-1N Huey helicopter crashes in the Southern California desert, killing two Marines and injuring three others.
USX Corp. agrees to pay $34 million in costs and penalties for discharging untreated waste water from its Gary, Indiana, steel mill.
Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle Louisiana governor Buddy Roemer (D) vetoes the nation’s first bill that requires warning stickers on record albums with explicit lyrics because it is unconstitutional.
Cosmonauts take another space walk from Mir.
Brent Mydland, 37, keyboard player for the Grateful Dead, dies in Lafayette, California.
July 26
The Burden of Proof by Scott Turow is at the top of the Publisher’s Weekly bestseller list.
July 27
Two barges carrying partly refined oil collide with a Greek tanker in Galveston Bay, on Texas’s gulf coast, spilling 500,000 gallons of heavy crude oil into the bay.
The National Governors’ Association agrees to form a committee to examine the S&L bailout and propose solutions to the budgetary crisis it created. The governors also finalize plans for a panel to monitor improvements in education.
Five former officials of the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI) and a Colombian businessman are convicted in Tampa, Florida, for laundering $32 million for Colombia’s Medellín drug cartel.
The Houston Ship Channel, which leads into Galveston Bay, is closed after the July 28 spill.
July 25
July 28
The west side of Chicago suffers a 14-square-mile blackout after a fire in a malfunctioning transformer damages a Commonwealth Edison generating plant. During the blackout, stores are ransacked and 49 people are arrested.
July 29
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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)
Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.
Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.
Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.
82—July 30–August 3, 1990
World Affairs
Aug. 3
The Americas
Asia & the Pacific In Myanmar, the League of Democracy demands that the government step down and release all political prisoners, but the ruling military junta shows no signs of handing over power. . . . Reports state that the rate of extinction of animals and plants in Australia is the highest in the world.
Government troops storm into a Lutheran church compound in Monrovia where 2,000 Gio and Mano civilians had taken refuge and kill as many as 600 people. The attack is considered to be the worst single Liberian massacre so far. A spokesman for Pres. Doe claims that the killers are rebels dressed up as government troops, but U.S. officials back up the contention of witnesses that the attackers are Krahn soldiers.
A fierce gun battle breaks out at the television station in Trinidad and Tobago. . . . A Quebec superior court judge refuses to order police to dismantle their barricades in Oka since the Mohawks are defying the law by refusing to dismantle their roadblocks.
Two men are charged in Northern Ireland in connection with the July 24 slaying of three policemen and a nun. . . . The IRA claims responsibility for the death of Ian Gow. . . . West Germany reschedules $1.8 billion of Polish debt. . . . The Presidium of the Albanian People’s Assembly issues two decrees, one permitting foreign investment, the other granting Albanians a limited right to public demonstrations.
In a telephone interview with the BBC, Liberian president Samuel Doe vows to the “fight until the last soldiers in the Liberian army die.”
Trinidad and Tobago’s prime minister Arthur N. R. Robinson, 63, is freed by a rebel faction who shot him in the leg.
Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev and his chief political rival, Boris Yeltsin, agree to cooperate on transforming the nation’s economy to a market system. . . . Bulgaria’s Grand National Assembly chooses Zhelyu Zhelev as the nation’s president. . . . Givi Gumbaridze, Georgia’s president, promises that multiparty elections will be held in October. About 800 protesters end a blockade of a railroad junction in response. . . . Swiss legislation that outlaws money laundering goes into effect.
Talks on oil and border disputes between Iraq and Kuwait in the Saudi city of Jidda break off after only one two-hour session.
One hundred and thirteen black Muslims who staged a coup in Trinidad and Tobago surrender after freeing their remaining hostages at the Red House and the television station. . . . Around 16,000 workers at two major Canadian steel companies go on strike.
Indian prime minister Viswanath Pratap Singh fires Deputy Prime Minister Devi Lal, ending a cabinet crisis after Singh forced Lal’s son to resign from a state post in July.
Iraqi troops and tanks storm into Kuwait and seize control of the oilrich desert sheikdom. Reports indicate that at least 200 Kuwaitis were killed or wounded before armed resistance was crushed by the massive invasion force. Moving with unusual unanimity, the UN Security Council, NATO, and the EC condemn Iraqi’s invasion of Kuwait and demand the immediate and unconditional withdrawal of Iraqi troops. . . . The World Bank offers to lend Poland $300 million for basic goods and aid to the unemployed.
Britain and France freeze Kuwaiti assets to keep them from Iraq, and Switzerland monitors Kuwaiti holdings to prevent their seizure. The Soviet Union decides to suspend arms deliveries to Baghdad, until now its ally. . . . Armenian nationalists raid a military depot and steal a cache of flamethrowers and guns. . . . More than 4,000 contract workers take part in a 24-hour wildcat strike on North Sea oil platforms.
Kuwait’s ruling emir, Sheik Jabir alAhmad Al Sabah, flees to Saudi Arabia after the Iraqi invasion. . . . The Israeli cabinet adopts a $1 billion plan to import 20,000 pre-fab and trailer homes.
The government of Trinidad and Tobago confirms 30 deaths in the attempted July coup. Much of the commercial district and suburbs of Port of Spain is in ruins with a short supply of food and medicine.
Philippine communist rebels free Timothy Swanson, a U.S. Peace Corps worker they kidnapped in June. The rebels also free a Japanese relief worker, Fumio Mizuno, who was abducted in a separate incident in June.
Waiving its usual requirement of unanimity, the Arab League passes a resolution condemning “Iraqi aggression against Kuwait.” The measure is approved by 14 of the league’s 21 members. . . . Most European nations, Canada, and Japan freeze Kuwait’s assets to prevent their seizure by Iraq. . . . The Saudi-led six-member Gulf Cooperation Council speaks out against the Iraqi invasion, along with Egypt, Morocco, and Algeria. . . . In a move unprecedented in decades, Soviet foreign minister Shevardnadze and U.S. secretary of state Baker issue a joint statement. It condemns “the brutal and illegal invasion of Kuwait.”
West German chancellor Helmut Kohl and East German premier Lothar de Maiziere sign an agreement to hold all-German general elections on Oct. 14. . . . Hungary’s parliament elects Arpad Goncz to the post of president. . . . Britain records its highest temperature ever, 99 degrees Fahrenheit. London breaks a 50-year old mark with a reading of 95 degrees Fahrenheit.
In Liberia, reports indicate that Prince Yormie Johnson’s rebels are fighting fiercely with government troops within a mile of Pres. Doe’s mansion.
Leaders of the 13 nations of the Caribbean Community and Common Market meet in Kingston, Jamaica to plan for an integrated Caribbean market. . . . The leaders of Italy, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Austria, and Hungary meet.
Aug. 1
Aug. 2
Africa & the Middle East
Ian Gow, an adviser to British prime minister Margaret Thatcher, is killed by a car bomb. . . . A suspected IRA bomb maker loses his appeal in Dublin against extradition to Britain in the first case governed by Ireland’s 1987 Extradition Act. . . . Armenia’s parliament declares that Armenians have a “natural right to self-defense.”. . . The Ukrainian parliament demands its military conscripts serve only in the Ukraine. . . . Albania and the Soviet Union restore diplomatic relations after 29 years.
July 30
July 31
Europe
In Sri Lanka, Tamil rebels kill 140 Muslims at prayer in the eastern town of Kathankudy.
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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.
July 30–August 3, 1990—83
U.S. Politics & Social Issues
U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense
U.S. Economy & Environment
The House passes an $8.31 billion military construction appropriation for fiscal 1991 that cuts funding for construction on U.S. bases overseas. . . . In Los Angeles, former state policeman Juan Jose Bernabe Ramirez is convicted on three counts in the abduction and killing of DEA agent Enrique Camarena Salazar.
Officials of the Resolution Trust Corp. (RTC) tell Congress that it will need as much as $100 billion in fiscal 1991 to continue the savings and loan industry bailout at its current pace. . . . The Coast Guard reports that 500,000 gallons leaked from a collision in the Gulf of Mexico on July 28.
Ruben Zuno Arce, 60, is found guilty on three counts in connection with the 1985 slaying of DEA agent Enrique Camarena Salazar. . . . The House Armed Services Committee approves a defense authorization bill cuts $24 billion from the administration’s fiscal 1991 budget.
The Texas Department of Health halts fishing after the spill in the Gulf of Mexico. . . . The National Transportation Safety Board ends a 16-month investigation of the Exxon Valdez oil spill and cites failures by the captain, the third mate, Exxon Shipping Co., the Coast Guard, and Alaskan authorities for the accident. . . . The House passes a measure that raises the federal debt ceiling to $3.444 trillion from $3.123 trillion. . . . The House overwhelmingly approves legislation for tougher prosecution of S&L crime.
Superior Court judge Stanley Weisberg dismisses all charges against Raymond Buckey, the sole remaining defendant in the McMartin PreSchool child molestation case, thereby ending the longest and most expensive criminal prosecution in U.S. history. . . . The Senate narrowly passes a campaign-finance reform bill that calls for voluntary spending limits in Senate campaigns.
Science, Technology, & Nature
July 30
July 31
McDonald’s and the Environmental Defense Fund begin to seek ways to reduce the tons of trash generated daily by the fast-food chain. . . . The RTC announces a plan to dispose of $50 billion in real-estate and securities assets by the end of 1990. . . . Texas governor William Clements Jr. (R) declares Galveston Bay a disaster area. . . . A series of budget meetings between congressional leaders and the Bush administration ends after making no progress.
Rep. Floyd H. Flake (D, N.Y.) is indicted by a federal grand jury on 17 counts of conspiracy, fraud, and tax evasion.
Pres. Bush orders economic sanctions against Baghdad and quickly freezes both Iraq’s and Kuwait’s assets in the U.S. . . . The American Legion and the Vietnam Veterans of America file suit to force the federal government to complete a study on the impact of Agent Orange on U.S. troops.
The House passes a campaignfinance reform bill that is weaker than the one passed by the Senate on Aug. 1. . . . The House passes a civil rights measure that is nearly identical to the one passed on July 18 by the Senate. . . . Federal Judge David Kenyon imposes a plan to reset voting districts in L.A. so they do not discriminate against Hispanic Americans.
U.S. intelligence monitors an Iraqi military buildup of 100,000 troops south of Kuwait city.
Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle
Actress Meryl Streep releases a report by the Screen Actors Guild women’s committee which shows that actresses in films, television, and commercials get fewer roles and are paid less than male actors.
Oil prices shoot up in frenzied trading in the wake of Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait. West Texas Intermediate, the benchmark U.S. crude, rises to $23.11 a barrel, up $1.57.
Aug. 1
Aug. 2
Aug. 3
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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)
Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.
Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.
Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.
84—August 4–9, 1990
World Affairs
Aug. 4
The 12-nation European Community imposes a broad array of trade sanctions against Baghdad, Iraq.
Aug. 9
Iraqi-controlled Kuwaiti radio announces that a new “popular army” is being formed that is open to all nationalities, including the invading Iraqi troops occupying the sheikdom.
The Americas
Asia & the Pacific
In Honduras, the government sends in troops to oust striking workers from banana plant facilities and threatens to dismiss the workers.
U.S. Marines begin to fly into Liberia to evacuate U.S. citizens after a rebel leader threatened to take foreign hostages The forces evacuate 73 people, 61 of them Americans. No shots are fired and no one is injured. . . . Conflicts erupt in Kagiso, South Africa.
China halts arms sales to Iraq. . . . Under U.S. pressure, Japan bans Iraqi and Kuwaiti oil imports, blocks Japanese exports to those countries, suspends capital transactions, and freezes aid to Iraq. . . . The government of Papua New Guinea and separatist rebels on the country’s island of Bougainville sign an interim agreement after peace talks in New Zealand.
The Polish government and the Roman Catholic Church decide that all public schools will offer voluntary classes in religious education beginning in the fall.
U.S. defense secretary Dick Cheney meets with Saudi Arabia’s king Fahd. After Fahd gives permission, U.S. president Bush decides to send military troops to Saudi Arabia. . . . Iraq reduces the flow of oil through Turkey, due to the growing world boycott. . . . Two Jewish teenagers who disappeared while hitchhiking are found bound, gagged, and stabbed to death on the outskirts of the Arab sector. Israelis go on a revenge rampage.
Pakistani president Ghulam Ishaq Khan dismisses the government of P.M. Benazir Bhutto, accusing Bhutto of “corruption and nepotism.” . . . In Sri Lanka, reports indicate that Muslim mobs raided the Tamil village of Thirraikerni, killing 40 men, women, and children in retaliation for the Aug. 3 attack. . . . The U.S. holds its first formal bilateral talks with Vietnam on the conflict in Cambodia.
The Estonian parliament passes a resolution stating that the republic is no longer part of the Soviet Union. . . . Despite entreaties from Iraq, Turkey states it will obey UN sanctions and stop ships from loading Iraqi oil at the pipeline terminus.
Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein vows to “pluck out the eyes of those who attack the Arab nation” and declares, “We would rather die in dignity than live in humiliation.”. . .The ANC suspends its 30-year armed struggle against South Africa’s white minority regime. . . . Revenge rampages in Israel worsen after the funerals of the teenagers found on Aug. 6. At least 80 Palestinians are injured by mobs shouting “Death to the Arabs!” and two are killed.
Cesar Gaviria Trujillo is sworn in for a four-year term as Colombia’s president and promises to continue the war against drug cartels. . . . In Honduras, some 10,000 banana workers return to work, ending a strike that began June 25 over pay. . . . Canada’s Liberal Party loses its majority in the appointed Senate for the first time since 1946 when New Brunswick Sen. Margaret Anderson retires.
The Sri Lankan army kills 42 Tamils suspected of participation in a massacre. . . . The premier of the Australian state of Victoria, John Cain, announces his intention to leave the post after serving for nearly nine years.
Iraqi president Saddam Hussein responds to U.S. forces in Saudi Arabia by annexing Kuwait. . . . Liberian rebels release 22 hostages from eight nations who were taken Aug. 6.
Czechoslovakia’s federal premier, Marian Calfa, meets with the premiers of the Czech and Slovak republics, Petr Pithart and Vladimir Meciar, respectively, to discuss Slovak autonomy. . . . P.M. Margaret Thatcher orders British air and naval forces to the Persian Gulf at the request of King Fahd of Saudi Arabia. . . . A Swiss Red Cross worker, Emanuel Christen, is released after being held hostage in Lebanon for 10 months. . . . Greek employees at two bases scheduled for closure begin a 48-hour strike.
The evacuation of U.S. citizens from Liberia ends after bringing out at least 125 people.
The federal government, Quebec provincial government, and Mohawk negotiators agree to the intervention of a mediator in a land dispute. Separately, P.M. Brian Mulroney announces that Canadian Forces army troops will be sent to Oka, Quebec, to relieve provincial police forces in the dispute with the Mohawks. . . . In the Dominican Republic, Pres. Joaquín Balaguer sets forth an economic austerity program. . . . Peruvian president Alberto Fujimori announces an austerity program.
In Pakistan, Ghulam Mustafa Jatoi states that tribunals can bar those found guilty of corruption from running in the Oct. 24 national elections. Bhutto supporters call the move a blatant attempt to keep the former prime minister and her allies from regaining power. . . . In Myanmar, government security forces fire on 5,000 prodemocracy marchers in Mandalay. Four people are killed.
The UN Security Council votes unanimously to declare Iraq’s annexation of Kuwait as “null and void” under international law. . . . The International Energy Agency, meeting in Paris, assures that world oil supplies currently remain plentiful and that there is no need to draw on emergency reserves, but it also urges preparation for such a need in the future.
Helmut Kohl and Lothar de Maiziere announce that they will delay an earlier plan and back December 2 for all-German elections instead. . . . The Kremlin agrees to give Armenia’s government sole authority over the collection of weapons from militants. . . . East Germany, in a surprise move, cancels $450 million in contracts for Czechoslovak imports because of financial problems. . . . U.S. secretary of state James Baker talks with Turkish president Turgut Ozalin in Ankara.
Iraq officially seals its borders so only foreign diplomats are allowed to leave. . . . Saudi Arabia’s King Fahd, in his first public comment since the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, blasts it as “the most vile aggression known to the Arab nation in its modern history.”
In Peru, inhabitants of slum areas riot in reaction to the economic austerity plan. Police are reinforced by armed soldiers on the streets in an effort to prevent looting, and soldiers kill three people who are burning tires and erecting roadblocks.
In Australia, Victoria’s ruling Labor Party selects Deputy Premier and Education Minister Joan Kirner to replace John Cain.
The UN Security Council votes to impose a sweeping trade embargo against Iraq and occupied Kuwait. . . . Reports suggest that U.S., British, West German, French, and other foreign citizens have been rounded up in Kuwait and Iraq. . . . . . . . The 16-nation Economic Community of West African States agrees to send a peacekeeping force to Liberia. . . . Separately, in Liberia, rebels seize 22 foreigners from eight countries.
Aug. 7
Aug. 8
Africa & the Middle East
The Armenian parliament elects a fervent nationalist, Levon Ter-Petrossian, to the post of president. . . . Reports indicate that 35 British military advisers in Kuwait were seized by Iraqi troops and are being held in a Baghdad hotel.
Aug. 5
Aug. 6
Europe
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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.
August 4–9, 1990—85
U.S. Politics & Social Issues
U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense
U.S. Economy & Environment
A congressional study concludes that testing of DNA genetic material is a valid means of identifying suspects in criminal cases, but it advises that strict standards be set to insure that such tests are performed properly.
In response to reports about Liberia, Pres. Bush authorizes a rescue mission after a meeting at Camp David with Defense Secretary Dick Cheney and Gen. Colin Powell, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. . . . The Senate votes for a $289 billion defense authorization.
Congress clears and sends to the president comprehensive oil-spill legislation that covers liability, cleanup, and prevention.
The House and Senate approve legislation that provides $875 million in the coming year and $4 billion over the next five years to help cities and states cope with the rising costs of AIDS. The legislation, known as the Ryan White Comprehensive AIDS Resources Act, is the federal government’s most comprehensive financial response to the AIDS crisis thus far.
An Air Force internal audit that finds $9.2 million in improper spending on recreational projects is made public. The outlays include $2.2 million to upgrade an officers’ club at a U.S. air base in England and $244,667 to renovate golfing facilities at Tyndall Air Force Base in Florida.
Officials grow increasingly concerned about the 3,000 U.S. citizens in occupied Kuwait and more than 500 others in Iraq. . . . The last defendant in the trail of the 1985 slaying of DEA agent Salazar, Javier Vasquez Velasco, 31, is convicted on two counts. None of the defendants are convicted on murder charges.
Science, Technology, & Nature
Aug. 4
The west side of Chicago suffers another blackout when an explosion and fire break out at an electrical substation that Commonwealth Edison was using to supply power to customers hit by the July 29 blackout. Around 25,000 customers in the same area have their electricity cut off.
At a news conference in Washington, Cheney and Powell make public the details of the deployment of U.S. troops to Saudi Arabia. The action, dubbed Operation Desert Shield, is also the subject of a national address by Pres. Bush, who states, “After perhaps unparalleled international consultation, and exhausting every alternative, it became necessary to take this action.”
The Justice Department challenges Georgia’s runoff primary system as a violation of the Voting Rights Act. This challenge also affects Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Mississippi, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Texas since they have similar runoff systems. . . . A former DEA agent, John Anthony Jackson, pleads guilty in Los Angeles to charges that he conspired with two other agents to sell drugs and to launder the profits.
The second Goodwill Games conclude in Seattle, Washington. The Soviet Union wins 188 medals. U.S. athletes come in second, winning 161 medals. Athletes from 35 different countries receive medals.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average plunges 93.31 points in the biggest one-day slide since the panic selloff of October 1989.
The council of Actor’s Equity denies permission for Jonathon Pryce to repeat his London role in a New York production of Miss Saigon because the union cannot “appear to condone the casting of a Caucasian in the role of a Eurasian.”
Some U.S. oil companies start cutting or freezing prices after public complaints that the companies artificially inflated the price of gasoline after the Iraqi invasion. . . . Oil prices and the stock market begin to stabilize. . . . The United Auto Workers union goes on strike.
The federal agency overseeing the thrift industry announces that it will sue the principal owner of Lincoln Savings and Loan Association, Charles H. Keating, to recover $40.9 million in depositor funds. . . . The Wall Street Journal reports that jet fuel prices rose about 20% since July.
Aug. 5
Aug. 6
U.S. forces take off for Saudi Arabia.
The American Bar Association alters a position it adopted in February by declaring itself neutral on the issue of abortion.
Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle
Theatrical producer Cameron Mackintosh announces that he is canceling the planned production of Miss Saigon in NYC, rather than accede to the conditions made by the American Actors Equity on August 7.
Two Soviet cosmonauts return to Earth with 23 space-grown crystals after six months aboard the space station Mir. Besides growing the crystals, estimated to be worth $1 million each, the cosmonauts conducted hundreds of experiments and photographed 8.4 million square miles of the Earth’s surface. The crystals are to be used in semiconductors and computer chips. . . . Forest fires that swept the Southwest and destroyed more than 22,000 acres of Yosemite National Park force the National Park Service to close the entire park to visitors for the first time in its 100-year history.
Canada’s federal sports minister, Marcel Danis, lifts the government’s lifetime ban on sprinter Ben Johnson, who was caught using steroids at the 1988 Olympic Games.
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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)
Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.
Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.
Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.
Aug. 7
Aug. 8
Aug. 9
86—August 10–14, 1990
Aug. 10
Aug. 11
Aug. 12
Aug. 13
Aug. 14
World Affairs
Europe
NATO foreign ministers back U.S. military moves against Iraq but steer clear of collective NATO action. They state, however, that an Iraqi attack on Turkey will be considered an attack on NATO. . . . Iraq orders all foreign embassies in Kuwait to shut down and transfer their diplomatic personnel to Baghdad within two weeks. The U.S. and the EC reject the order, since they do not recognize Iraq’s annexation of Kuwait. . . . In a landmark decision, an emergency Arab League summit in Cairo votes to send troops to Saudi Arabia and other Persian Gulf states to protect them from Iraqi attack.
A bomb explodes on a bus in Azerbaijan, killing 17 people and injuring 15 others. . . . In Armenia, Pres. Ter-Petrossian states that members of the various militias are allowed to retain their arms as a special security force. The Armenian National Army, however, refuses either to be brought under government control or to give up its weapons. . . . The Presidium of the Russian parliament passes a resolution asserting the republic’s control over all of its natural resources. . . The Lithuanian government and parliament urge Moscow to exempt Lithuanians from the Soviet military draft and to return to the republic all Lithuanian draftees.
Neutral Austria agrees to let U.S. military aircraft fly through its airspace on the way to the Middle East. Similar pledges have been received from the U.S.’s allies in NATO.
Africa & the Middle East
The Americas
Asia & the Pacific
Hours before an Arab League vote, Saddam Hussein shocks fellow Arab leaders in a speech that calls, “Oh, Arabs, oh, Muslims and believers everywhere, this is your day to rise and defend Mecca, which is captured by the spears of the Americans and the Zionists.”. . . Assistant Secretary of State John Kelly visits Damascus for talks with Syrian officials.
Canadian prime minister Brian Mulroney announces that Canada will send three warships and 800 sailors to the Persian Gulf as part of a multinational force.
Australian prime minister Bob Hawke pledges military support for an multinational force against Iraq.
Reports show Turkey reinforced its border with Iraq with 10,000 additional troops to a total strength of 70,000. . . . Two days after a deadline expired, Pres. Mikhail Gorbachev extends by two months the date for nationalist groups to disarm, since the government received fewer than 2,000 firearms. . . . A former Greek deputy finance minister, Nikos Athanasopoulos, is found guilty of fraud and forgery in connection with the illegal sale of grain to the EC in 1986.
Egyptian and Moroccan troops begin landing in Saudi Arabia. . . . The Washington Post reports that Iraq is jamming the Voice of America, the BBC, and Egyptian and Turkish radio stations. . . . Syria serves notice that it will not come to Iraq’s assistance if it is attacked by Israel and that Syrian forces will join the Arab contingent. . . . Violence breaks out in Ermelo, South Africa. . . . Since Iraq continues to allow refugees to leave via Jordan, 11 U.S. citizens arrive in Jordan
The reputed number-two man in the Medellín drug cartel, Gustavo de Jesús Gaviria is killed in a shoot-out with Colombian antinarcotics policemen.
In Sri Lanka, 33 Tamil civilians at a refugee camp are killed by Muslim villagers. In response, Tamil gunmen kill 119 Muslims in five villages. . . . Pakistan’s new government starts arresting Bhutto allies. . . . According to Asia Watch, both the Philippine government and the communist rebels in that country are guilty of human rights violations.
In his first “peace initiative,” Saddam Hussein links a possible Iraqi troop withdrawal from Kuwait with “an immediate and unconditional Israeli pullout from the Araboccupied territories in Palestine, Syria, and Lebanon, the withdrawal of Syria from Lebanon, and withdrawal between Iraq and Iran,” all to be overseen by the UN Security Council.
In the first known Western casualty in the Persian Gulf, British businessman Douglas Croskery is shot to death by Iraqi soldiers while trying to cross into Saudi territory. Britain protests the “barbarous act.”. . . Pres. Gorbachev reminds republics that his declaration that all independence moves by Estonia and Latvia are invalid is still in effect.
Tens of thousands of Arabs hold a pro-Iraqi, anti-American march in Jordan. Other such protests are held by Palestinians in the Israelioccupied territories and Lebanon and by Arab militants in Yemen, Sudan, Libya, and Mauritania. . . . In South Africa, an eruption of violence starts in the Thokoza township and spreads to Kathlehong, Vosloorus, and Soweto. At least 140 people are killed during the three days of the violence. . . . In Liberia, several Western reporters are beaten by government troops.
In Canada, the Mohawk Nation and the federal and Quebec governments sign an agreement to resume formal talks. Separately, residents of Chateauguay, the South Shore community near the Mercier Bridge, clash with police over the blockade of the bridge by the Mohawks. Police respond with nightsticks and tear gas when hundreds of Chateauguay protesters pelt them with rocks and bottles. At least 38 people, including 16 police officers, are injured.
In Sri Lanka, more Tamil civilians are killed by gangs of Muslims armed with axes. . . . According to a report by a now-exiled Chinese journalist in The London Observer, the Chinese army killed more than 450 people in Tibet in March 1989.
Although the U.S. claims to be acting under Article 51 of the UN Charter, which grants all countries the right of “individual or collective selfdefense” against an aggressor, several nations fault the de facto blockade. They argue a new resolution, Article 42 of the UN Charter, is required to authorize military enforcement of the embargo, and that such a step should wait until there is evidence of significant violations of the sanctions.
Britain states its naval force in the gulf is also prepared to intercept any ships that try to break the sanctions. . . . Armenia’s new president appoints Vazgen Manukian, a nationalist and former political prisoner, to the post of premier.
Jordan’s king Hussein meets in Baghdad with Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. . . . The PLO issues a statement claiming it abstained on the Arab League’s vote to send forces to oppose Iraq. However, Egyptian officials maintain that records show the PLO voted against the resolution. . . . . Iraqi officials for the first time indicate that some Americans and other foreigners in Iraq and Kuwait are “restrictees” who will not be allowed to leave until the crisis is over.
In Canada, Gilles Duceppe becomes the first Quebec separatist elected to Parliament. . . . Unrest due to the Mohawk barricade continues as protestors hurl Molotov cocktails at police. Indians from the Long Lake 58 band set up a railway barricade near Longlac, about 180 miles from Thunder Bay, Ontario, to draw attention to demands for native rights.
Pakistan agrees to send troops to Saudi Arabia at the request of King Fahd. . . . A Taiwanese navy patrol boat collides with a boat filled with refugees being forcibly repatriated to China, and at least 21 refugees drown.
The U.S. convenes a meeting of the UN Security Council’s permanent members and puts forward a proposal to reactivate the Military Staff Committee. The committee is a moribund UN body, consisting of the chiefs of staff of the five permanent members, which oversees military enforcement of council resolutions.
Elio Erriquez, a Swiss hostage held in Lebanon for 10 months, is released. . . . The Yakutian Autonomous Republic, a resource-rich self-governing region of Russia, is reported to be claiming sovereignty over its diamonds, precious metals, and raw materials. . . . The Czechoslovak government announces that dissidents who were persecuted by communists from 1948 to 1989 are entitled to share in a compensation pool tentatively set at $95 million.
Jordan’s King Hussein flies to the U.S. . . . Syrian troops begin arriving in Saudi Arabia.
Haiti’s 19-member Council of State, which rules alongside the interim president, passes a vote of no confidence in the administration of President Trouillot. . . . A two-day general strike against Pres. Joaquin Balaguer’s economic plan ends in the Dominican Republic. Reports indicate that 11 people died in violent antigovernment protests. . . . Reports confirm that nine Cubans slipped into the Belgian embassy and asked for asylum.
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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.
August 10–14, 1990—87
U.S. Politics & Social Issues
U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense
Washington, D.C., mayor Marion Barry (D) is convicted in federal court on one misdemeanor drug possession count and is acquitted on a second. Jurors are unable to reach a verdict on the 12 other misdemeanor and felony drug charges, so a mistrial is declared on those counts. . . . Pres. Bush leaves for a controversial 25-day vacation at his summer home in Maine, which is to be punctuated by brief trips to Washington. . . . Henry G. Barr, former head of the criminal investigations division of the Justice Department under Atty. Gen. Richard Thornburgh, is indicted by a federal grand jury in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania on drug charges.
Bush officially informs Congress that he sent U.S. forces to the gulf in a “notification consistent with” the War Powers Resolution. However, he does not invoke the controversial 1973 law, which would give Congress a say in the deployment. . . . Officials report the number of U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia may reach 100,000, twice as many as estimated. . . . The navy orders two hospital ships to the Mideast. . . . Pres. Bush, citing the Persian Gulf crisis, says he will exempt automatic spending cuts on Pentagon accounts related to military personnel if the administration and Congress fail to reach a budget accord. . . . Judge Edward Rafeedie orders the release of Humberto Alvarez Machaín, a Guadalajara doctor indicted in the Enrique Camarena murder, because he was illegally kidnapped from Mexico.
U.S. Economy & Environment
Science, Technology, & Nature
Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle
The unmanned U.S. spacecraft Magellan attains orbit around Venus and begins a mapping mission projected to cover as much as 90% of the planet’s surface.
Aug. 10
In the first-ever NFL game in continental Europe, 55,000 fans turn out to watch the Los Angeles Rams defeat the Kansas City Chiefs in West Berlin.
Administration officials confirm that Pres. Bush ordered the large navy fleet assembling in the Mideast to be prepared to use force to prevent any ships—including those carrying food—from breaking the economic embargo of Iraq and occupied Kuwait imposed by the UN Security Council. U.S. officials call its enforcement of the embargo on Iraq an “interdiction.”
Aug. 11
Aug. 12
A U.S. district judge in NYC bars enforcement of an amendment passed by Congress in 1989 that bans obscene messages offered by commercial telephone services because the law “presents a threat of imminent irreparable harm to First Amendment freedoms.”
Defense Secretary Richard Cheney orders cutbacks in two costly navy programs with the aim of saving a total of $7 billion through fiscal 1994, including $2.2 billion in fiscal 1991.
A power outage caused by a fire at an electrical substation forces the shutdown of several businesses in NYC’s financial district. Among those forced to close are the American Stock Exchange and the New York Mercantile Exchange. . . . Rank-and-file Teamster members spurn their leadership’s advice and vote to accept a new contract at UPS . . . . GM and the United Auto Workers union reach a tentative agreement to end a strike.
A U.S. district judge in Norfolk, Virginia, rules that a team of treasure hunters is entitled to keep the largest treasure trove in U.S. history, estimated at $1 billion in gold bars and coins, from a ship that sunk in 1857 off the South Carolina coast. It is the first time that individuals (rather than nations) are found to have deep-sea salvage rights in international waters. . . . Marion Barry announces that he will seek an at-large seat on the Washington, D.C., City Council as an independent candidate.
Pres. Bush states that if Aqaba, Jordan, is “a hole through which commerce flows” to Iraq, it will be blocked by the U.S. Navy.
Pres. Bush accuses congressional Democrats of endangering “the economic well-being of this country” by their failure to take budgetary action. . . . The FDIC announces that it will seek to increase by 30%, or $1.1 billion, the annual premiums paid by banks to its insurance fund.
Pictures taken by the Hubble Space Telescope are made public and reveal 60 stars in a star cluster called 30 Doradus, in the constellation Dorado, heretofore thought to consist of only 27 stars. The area is considered a star nursery, containing clusters believed to be only 160,000–170,000 years old, newcomers within a universe 10–20 billion years old.
Hedley Williams Donovan, 76, editor in chief of Time Inc., 1964–79 who was responsible for the content of Time’s four magazines— Time, Life, Fortune, and Sports Illustrated—and helped launch Money and People, dies of a chronic lung ailment in New York City.
Aug. 13
Aug. 14
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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)
Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.
Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.
Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.
88—August 15–20, 1990
World Affairs
Aug. 17
Aug. 18
Aug. 19
Aug. 20
Africa & the Middle East
The Americas
Asia & the Pacific Pres. Ghulam Ishaq Khan directs the Pakistani criminal code to “conform with the injunctions of Islam,” undoing Benazir Bhutto’s steps to secularize the judicial process. . . . Asia Watch reports the government of Myanmar is guilty of “gross human rights violations.” . . . Indian prime minister Vishwanath Pratap Singh plans to reserve nearly half of all government jobs for people from “socially and educationally backward castes.” He asks that 40% of the seats in Parliament are reserved for lower castes and the poor. . . . Bangladesh sends soldiers to Saudi Arabia.
The Russian Federation and the Baltic republic of Lithuania sign a treaty on trade and economic cooperation that bypasses the central government. It is the first of its kind between two Soviet republics. . . . In East Berlin, 250,000 collective farmers stage protests demanding government support of agriculture.
Iran has a moment of victory when Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein offers a permanent settlement to the IranIraq War that represents virtually a complete capitulation to Teheran’s demands.
In Canada, talks involving representatives of the Mohawk Nation, the federal government, and the Quebec government begin. . . Reports state that the Iranian government appointed Mohammad Hossein Lavasani as ambassador to Canada, a position that had not been filled since 1979.
UN Secretary General Javier Perez de Cuellar states that any unilateral U.S. action regarding Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait will violate the UN Charter. . . . The blockade against Iraq goes into effect. The main zones for intercepting ships are inside the gulf near Kuwait, in the Gulf of Oman, and in the northern Red Sea, including the Jordanian port of Aqaba.
A series of reports conclude that the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe are beset by environmental problems of monumental proportions. According to Thomas B. Cochran of the private U.S. Natural Resources Defense Council, the Soviet plutonium-weapons center at Chelyabinsk, in the Ural Mountains, is the “most polluted spot on the planet.”
Some 80,000 people sign up in Jordan to join a volunteer force to fight against the U.S. The group, founded by a Palestinian guerrilla, is not part of Jordan’s government. . . . Nelson Mandela meets with Pres. F. W. de Klerk to discuss the violence in South Africa. The fighting returns to Soweto and lasts for two days, killing more than 63 people. . . . U.S. Marines airlift several hundred foreigners from Liberia.
Joaquín Balaguer, 83, is sworn in for a second consecutive term—and his sixth overall—as president of the Dominican Republic. . . . Indians in Canada set up another blockade on Canadian Pacific Rail’s main line outside White River, Ontario.
Soviet foreign minister Shevardnadze says the USSR is willing to contribute military forces to a joint force under the UN flag if the Security Council votes to take action against Iraq.
West German police arrest seven people suspected of supplying Iraq with technology to produce poison gas.
The U.S. Navy halts two Iraqi cargo ships in the Persian Gulf but allows them to proceed after determining that they are empty. . . . Thirty-five Americans held under armed guard in a Baghdad hotel are transferred to another hotel and cut off from contact with the U.S. embassy. . . . The speaker of Iraq’s parliament declares, “The people of Iraq have decided to play host to the citizens of these aggressive nations as long as Iraq remains threatened with an aggressive war.”
A blockade is erected on British Columbia Rail’s main line at Seton Portage by Indians in Canada to draw attention to native rights.
The UN Security Council calls on Iraq to release all foreigners and warns against harming them. UN Secretary General Javier Perez de Cuellar states he will send two senior envoys to Iraq to begin talks aimed at gaining the freedom of foreign citizens.
The Serb minority in the Yugoslav republic of Croatia votes on an unofficial referendum on political autonomy. Voting on the initiative has been declared illegal, but it continues over a two-week period. . . . France warns Iraq of “grave consequences” if any harm comes to the 560 French citizens in Iraq and Kuwait. . . . French citizens protest an extension of the high-speed Train a Grande Vitesse (TGV) rail line from Lyons south to Marseille and along the Mediterranean Coast.
The Iraqi ministry of labor and social affairs issues a statement that calls the U.S.-led naval blockade of Iraq “an act of war” and says foreigners, including babies, will suffer the same shortages as Iraqis. . . . Fears of war are amplified as U.S. Navy warships fire warning shots across the bows of Iraqi oil tankers trying to evade the trade embargo. . . . Iraqi troops begin to withdraw from the Iranian territory they still occupy, and the two sides start to exchange prisoners of war.
Iraq orders 9,000 “Western foreigners and Australians” in Kuwait to report to three hotels in Kuwait city. Along with Americans and Britons, there are hundreds of Canadian, French, West German, Australian, and Japanese citizens in Kuwait. Saddam Hussein states he will free foreign nationals if the U.S. withdraws its forces from Saudi Arabia and promises not to attack, and if the worldwide trade boycott of Iraq is lifted.
Like the U.S. and Britain did, the French government orders its navy to use force if necessary to implement the UN embargo of Iraq.
Violence throughout South African townships flares up and lasts four days, leaving more than 500 dead. . . . U.S. Marines airlift hundreds of foreigners from Liberia . . . Two Jordanian soldiers, acting on their own, cross the border to Israel and clash with an army patrol. One is killed and the other captured. . . . Jordan protests that a U.S. warship in the Red Sea turned back a Sudanese vessel at Aqaba to pick up refugees.
In Canada, the blockade set up by Indians from the Long Lake 58 band is dismantled after Canadian National Railways officials obtain an injunction from the Ontario Supreme Court.
UN negotiations about the enforcement of the embargo continue. . . . Iraq threatens to close 60 embassies in Kuwait by Aug. 24, after which all embassy personnel will lose diplomatic status and be subject to internment. The U.S., Britain, France, the Soviet Union, West Germany, Italy, Spain, Denmark, Sweden, and Finland reject the Iraqi demand as unacceptable.
Romanian workers in Brasov stage warning strikes to protest shortages of raw materials and to demand freedom from government bureaucrats and holdover central economic controls. . . . Armenian guerrillas burn the Azerbaijani village of Baganis-Airum after driving off Soviet troops.. . . . A senior Iraqi official visits Moscow. . . . A cigarette shortage in the USSR causes scores of smokers to block traffic in Leningrad, Gorky, and other cities.
Iraq announces it moved some Westerners to key military and industrial sites to deter the U.S. from bombing Iraqi targets. . . . Libyan leader Muammar Gadhafi criticizes Iraq’s use of foreign civilians as hostages and says Libya will send forces to the Persian Gulf if the UN Security Council votes to enforce its naval blockade. He also condemns the U.S. for enforcing a blockade without UN authorization. . . . Liberian president Samuel Doe refuses to agree to any cease-fire plan that requires his resignation.
About 900 soldiers of the Canadian Forces’ 5th Mechanized Brigade replace Quebec police at barricades near Oka and Chateauguay, continuing the conflict begun on July 11.
Aug. 15
Aug. 16
Europe
In Sri Lanka, reports state the death toll from the latest outbreak of civil war and related ethnic violence has reached 3,350. At least 2,000 of the dead were civilians.
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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.
August 15–20, 1990—89
U.S. Politics & Social Issues
James Thomas Foley, 80, the longest-serving federal judge in the U.S., dies in Albany, New York, of a stroke.
U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense
U.S. Economy & Environment
Reports confirm that the Bush administration is expediting arms sales to Egypt and Saudi Arabia and is considering new weapons requests from other Mideast nations, including Bahrain, Morocco, Oman, Turkey, and the UAE
The Energy Department announces a strategy to offset the loss of the oil supply from Iraq and Kuwait by conservation measures such as carpooling, properly inflating tires, and increasing U.S. oil production.
Jordan’s king Hussein meets with Pres. Bush. . . . The Senate Foreign Relations Committee rejects a Bush administration proposal to provide Haiti with $1.2 million in nonlethal training and equipment for election security. . . . In an example of the post–cold war era, the Soviet military attaché in Washington, D.C., gives the Pentagon information about arms that Moscow sold to Iraq over the years.
The EPA finds that almost all major metropolitan areas in the U.S. failed to meet federal clean-air standards for at least several days during the past three years.
A study in the New England Journal of Medicine reports that a widely prescribed drug for Alzheimer’s disease, Hydergine, neither slows nor cures the disease and may actually accelerate the mental deterioration of sufferers. . . . A report in the New England Journal of Medicine finds the hydrogenated fats used in margarine and vegetable shortenings can boost a form of cholesterol.
Actor’s Equity holds a second vote and reverses its Aug. 7 decision about Miss Saigon.
Aug. 16
Defense Secretary Dick Cheney starts a whirlwind tour of five Arab countries to confer with government leaders and visit U.S. soldiers and sailors stationed in the region. . . . The Pentagon commandeers 38 wide-body jets from 16 commercial airlines to help ferry troops and cargo to the Persian Gulf. It is the first time the U.S. invokes the emergency program known as the Civil Reserve Air Fleet since its creation in the 1950s.
The Commerce Department reports that the U.S. merchandise trade deficit fell in June to the lowest level in seven years.
Lew Allen, director of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, states that if the flaw in Hubble’s mirror from a spacing error of 1.3 millimeters turns out to be “an essentially pure spherical aberration,” as indicated thus far, it will be “relatively easy to correct.”. . . According to R. Stephan Saunders, the Magellan’s project scientist, pictures received of Venus show ancient hardened lava flows, faults, fractures and volcanic cinder cones.
Carlton Fisk of the Chicago White Sox hits his 328th home run as a catcher, breaking the record of 327 set by Johnny Bench.
Aug. 17
Three NYC teenagers are convicted in the gang rape and beating of a 28-year-old investment banker who had been jogging in New York’s Central Park in April 1989. The youths, Antron McCray, Yusef Salaam, and Raymond Santana, are convicted on rape, assault, and several lesser charges, but are acquitted of attempted murder. . . . Pres. Bush signs into law a bill authorizing emergency federal aid to help cities and states cope with the rising costs of AIDS.
Science, Technology, & Nature
Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle Terry Mulholland of the Philadelphia Phillies throws the eighth no-hitter of Major League Baseball’s 1990 season., breaking the record set in 1908 and in 1917.
Pres. Bush signs the federal Oil Pollution Act passed recently by Congress.
B(urrhus) F(rederic) Skinner, 86, psychologist who was a pioneer in the field of behaviorism, dies in Cambridge, Massachusetts, of complications from leukemia.
Richard Lee Strout, 92, columnist for the New Republic magazine who won a Pulitzer Prize for lifetime achievement in 1978, dies in Washington, D.C. . . . Yugoslavia wins the men’s World Basketball Championship with a 92-75 victory over the Soviet Union in Buenos Aires.
A federal jury in Minneapolis convicts three former Northwest Airlines pilots of flying a jetliner while intoxicated.
Pres. Bush for the first time refers to detained Americans and other Westerners in Kuwait as hostages but states the U.S. will not be intimidated. . . . Defense Secretary Cheney announces that he obtained permission from UAE to allow U.S. military forces to operate from bases there. . . . Pres. Bush signs a trade bill that makes permanent the 1983 Caribbean Basin Initiative and widens the list of goods allowed into the U.S. under the CBI.
Yosemite National Park in California reopens to the public after closing due to fire damages.
Aug. 15
Aug. 18
Aug. 19
Aug. 20
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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)
Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.
Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.
Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.
90—August 21–26, 1990
Aug. 21
Aug. 22
Aug. 23
Aug. 24
Aug. 25
Aug. 26
World Affairs
Europe
The Western European Union, a defense grouping of nine member states, agrees to increase its naval operations in the Persian Gulf region and coordinate its efforts with the U.S. . . . EC foreign ministers condemn Iraq’s intention to hold foreigners near military targets and pledge to try to keep embassies open in Kuwait “as long as practically and physically possible.”
P.M. Margaret Thatcher states that Britain will not negotiate with Iraq over Western nationals held in Kuwait and Iraq. . . . Students in the University Square area of Bucharest lead six days of anti-Iliescu demonstrations and are joined by citizens protesting high prices and shortages of goods. Sporadic clashes with riot police occur when rock-throwing militants attempt to block traffic. . . . Karelia, an autonomous region of Russia on the Finnish border, declares sovereignty. . . . Greece says it will send ships to the Persian Gulf.
Iraq offers to free some Japanese and French detainees in a bid to divide the Western alliance.
Africa & the Middle East
The Americas
Asia & the Pacific
Vessels arrive at the Yemeni port of Aden, but Yemen’s government does not allow them to unload their oil. . . . In Jordan, Iraqi foreign minister Tariq Aziz urges the U.S. to begin peace talks but warns that Iraq will not be intimidated into first withdrawing from Kuwait. . . . A joint statement is released in South Africa by Chief Buthelezi and F. W. de Klerk, urging an end to the violence. . . . Iraq completes its troop pullout in Iran.
As peace talks wind down, rebels attack a military communications center in San Salvador. . . . In Haiti, 300 demonstrators demand Pres. Ertha Trouillot’s resignation. . . . Rebels of Peru’s largest guerrilla movement use armed force to support a 24-hour strike to protest Pres. Alberto Fujimori’s austerity plan. . . . Mohawk negotiators in Quebec submit a proposal aimed at ending a 43-day armed standoff. Blockades outside White River, Ontario, and at Seton Portage are dismantled after railway officials obtain court injunctions.
The caretaker government of Pakistan publishes regulations authorizing special judicial tribunals to try top officials of the dismissed government of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto in the officials’ absence.
The East German parliament approves an electoral law to govern allGerman elections set for Dec. 2. . . . In Romania, 30,000 workers hold a rally and meet with representatives sent by Premier Petre Roman. . . . A Saudi envoy is warmly received when he visits Moscow, even though Saudi Arabia and the Soviet Union do not have diplomatic relations. . . . Smokers upset about the cigarette shortage in the USSR block traffic in Moscow.
Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Shamir attempts to calm the public with assurances that Israel will not become involved in a gulf war. Shamir states that Israeli involvement may deter Arab states from opposing Iraq. . . . The interblack conflict that spread over the past month to townships near Johannesburg results in a death toll of more than 500 blacks. Archbishop Tutu returns to South Africa and calls for an international peacekeeping force.
Reports show that 13 Cubans remain inside the Spanish embassy, and nine are inside the Belgian ambassador’s residence in Havana.
The proceedings of the Australian Senate are shown on television for the first time.
Japan reveals that it will offer compensation to Arab states that are hurt economically by the UN trade embargo of Iraq. Japan promises to send medical personnel and supplies to the U.S.-led gulf forces. These offers are made since Japan’s constitution prohibits any direct involvement in overseas combat activity. . . . The French government dismisses Iraq’s offer to release some hostages as a ploy and reaffirms its solidarity with the countries whose citizens are being held.
The parliament of Armenia votes to declare independence. The resolution asserts Armenia’s control over its economy and natural resources and claims the right to create and control its own army. It also asserts Armenian control over a disputed enclave in the Azerbaijan republic. . . . After weeks of debate, East Germany votes to reunify with West Germany on Oct. 3. . . . Turkmenistan declares its sovereignty. . . . Pres. Mikhail Gorbachev declares illegal an attempt by the Russian Federation to assert control over its natural resources.
The U.S. Marines are withdrawn from Kuwait since the U.S. does not intend to defend the Kuwaiti embassy from the Iraqi army. The U.S. evacuates most of its staff from its embassy in Kuwait City. . . . A convoy of more than 100 people cross into Iraq with assurances that they can leave the country via Baghdad. However, this convoy is not allowed to leave Iraq immediately, despite the reputed prior Iraqi pledge. Iraq allows women and children to leave but retains adult men.
A 3,000-strong military force from the 16-nation Economic Community of West African States lands in Liberia to effect a cease-fire in the Liberian civil war and to pave the way for free elections. . . . The UN Security Council begins a marathon all-night session to confer about the embargo on Iraq.
Russian president Yeltsin calls Soviet Pres. Gorbachev’s Aug. 23 decree an “encroachment upon Russia’s sovereignty” and accuses Gorbachev of undermining their decision to cooperate on reform. . . . .Tadzhikistan declares its sovereignty. . . . Brian Keenan, a teacher from Belfast, Northern Ireland, who has been held hostage in Lebanon for over four years, is freed in Beirut by his pro-Iranian captors.
The South African government imposes a limited state of emergency in strife-torn areas. . . . Iraqi troops surround at least nine foreign embassies in Kuwait City after they refuse to shut down. The troops shut off water and electric lines but do not enter the premises.
Three members of the caretaker administration of Haiti’s president Ertha Pascal Trouillot resign. . . . Colombian attorney general Alfonso Gómez predicts, “It is going to be very difficult to convince our people of the necessity to extradite our nationals given these kinds of verdicts,” in response to the U.S. trial of Marion Barry.
The UN Security Council authorizes a U.S.-led Western naval armada in and around the Persian Gulf to use force to prevent violations of UN economic sanctions imposed on Iraq. The vote is 13 to 0, with Cuba and Yemen abstaining. Iraqi president Saddam Hussein dismisses the Security Council as a puppet of the U.S.. . . . Forces from 16 African nations start a week-long operation to capture sections of Monrovia.
Angry smokers riot in the Siberian city of Chelyabinsk over shortages of cigarettes and food, resulting in hundreds of arrests. . . . . In what is believed to be the largest rally ever by Yugoslav Muslims, 200,000 people honor Muslims slain by Serbian royalists during World War II.
In South Africa, police seal off black areas in townships and confiscate huge numbers of weapons. . . . The Washington Post reports that Jews who left the Soviet Union for Israel fear the dangers of anti-Semitism in the Soviet Union more than an attack on Israel by Iraq. . . . Charles Taylor’s rebel forces stage a mock execution of journalist Stephen Smith, which compels the press to flee Liberia.
In Canada, negotiations between the Mohawks and the federal and provincial governments collapse when the Mohawks demand that they be treated as a sovereign nation and receive immunity from prosecution in the death of a Quebec policeman shot July 11.
The UN announces that Secretary General Javier Pérez de Cuellar will mediate the Persian Gulf crisis. . . . In Liberia, forces from 16 West African states order Prince Johnson to remove his rebels from the Monrovia port area. Johnson agrees to pull out all but a token force.
A total of 178 Yugoslav coal miners die after an underground explosion in Bosnia-Herzegovina. . . . Hundreds of protesters loot the headquarters of the ruling Bulgarian Socialist Party in Sofia. . . . . Spanish ships set sail for the Persian Gulf. . . . Shevardnadze states the USSR will not use military means to enforce the blockade of Iraq but will not object to other nations doing so. . . . France deploys ground troops to join the naval forces in the Gulf.
Iraq’s ruling Revolutionary Command Council decrees that “housing a foreigner for the purpose of hiding him or her from the authorities is a crime of espionage,” and is punishable by death. . . . Mario Pinto De Andrade, 62, one of the founders of Angolan nationalism, dies in London.
Reports confirm that the verdict in the drug trial of Washington, D.C., mayor Marion Barry Jr. outrages citizens in Colombia who view it as a test of whether the U.S. is serious about fighting its drug problem.
In Guam, U.S. District Judge Alex Munson overturns the island’s recently approved antiabortion law, ruling that it is unconstitutional. . . . New Delhi is hit by four days of student riots protesting a new government hiring program that reserves civil-service jobs for those from the lowest rungs of India’s caste system.
In Sri Lanka, Tamil rebels begin a series of attacks in the eastern part of the country.
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Includes developments that affect more than one world region, international organizations, and important meetings of major world leaders.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.
August 21–26, 1990—91
U.S. Politics & Social Issues
U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense
U.S. Economy & Environment
FBI Director William Sessions names Paul Philip, the agency’s highestranking black field agent, to investigate allegations of racial discrimination within the bureau. Sessions also appoints Thomas Jones, the highest-ranking black agent in the FBI’s headquarters in Washington, D.C., as the bureau’s chief spokesman.
John S. Vento, the third defendant to be convicted in the 1989 racial killing of a black youth, Yusuf K. Hawkins, in the Bensonhurst section of the NYC borough of Brooklyn, is sentenced in NYC for unlawful imprisonment.
U.S. District Judge Daniel Huyett strikes down several key provisions of a 1989 Pennsylvania abortion law. . . . The FEC sues the National Republican Senatorial Committee on charges of illegal fundraising. . . . A federal grand jury in Columbia, South Carolina, indicts five members of the South Carolina state legislature for selling their votes to an undercover FBI agent.
Science, Technology, & Nature
Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle
Pictures taken by the spacecraft Magellan are released much earlier than planned. The images reveal a prominent fault line cutting across volcanic plains on Venus.
Pres. Bush orders the mobilization of a limited number of U.S. military reserves to augment Operation Desert Shield. It is the first time U.S. reservists are called to active duty in a foreign crisis since 1968. . . . The State Department reports that embassy officials in Kuwait contacted 1,982 of the 2,500 U.S. citizens believed to be in the country, leaving about 500 unaccounted for.
The price of a barrel of West Texas Intermediate, a benchmark grade of U.S. crude oil, soars 9% to $31.22 on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
Eight years after it was first developed, a genetically engineered rabies vaccine begins to be tested on raccoons on Parramore Island, an uninhabited island off Virginia.
A federal judge in Washington, D.C. dismisses a lawsuit by Charles Keating Jr., former chairman of Lincoln Savings and Loan Association, that challenges the government’s seizure of the thrift. . . . Oil prices rise to $31.93, the highest in seven years. . . . The Dow Jones closes at the lowest point since 1989.
The New England Journal of Medicine publishes a study that finds that phenytoin, a drug given to more than 100,000 head-injury victims each year, is ineffective after the first week.
In response to how Iraq broke its pledge to allow Americans to leave Baghdad, the U.S. State Department calls the development “another stark example of Iraqi duplicity.” . . . Defense Secretary Dick Cheney orders cutbacks in the Army’s newgeneration Light Helicopter program of reconnaissance and attack aircraft.
Aug. 21
Aug. 22
David Rose, 80, Hollywood film and television composer who won a total of five Grammy awards, four Emmy awards and six gold records for his music, dies of complications from heart disease in Burbank, California.
A state district judge in Reno, Nevada, rules that the heavy-metal group Judas Priest is not responsible for the deaths of two youths who committed suicide. . . . Irish singer Sinead O’Connor refuses to allow the U.S. national anthem to be played before her concert.
Aug. 23
Aug. 24
Aug. 25
Reports state that 45,000 U.S. servicemen and women are in the Persian Gulf. . . . U.S. president Bush announces that the Voice of America’s TV Marti, a controversial television station that broadcasts to Cuba, passed a five-month test and will be put into operation on a permanent basis.
Aug. 26
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Includes elections, federal-state relations, civil rights and liberties, crime, the judiciary, education, health care, poverty, urban affairs, and population.
Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)
Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.
Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.
Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.
92—August 27–September 1, 1990
Aug. 27
Aug. 28
Aug. 29
Aug. 30
Aug. 31
Sept. 1
World Affairs
Europe
The five permanent members of the UN agree for the first time to a plan to end the Cambodian civil war. The plan, however, will take effect only with the approval of the four warring factions.
In Romania, 10,000 employees at a Brasov tractor factory strike. . . . About 15,000 Socialist supporters stage a rally in Sofia and denounce the vandals who looted headquarters as “newborn neo-fascists.” Bulgaria’s new president, Zhelyu Zhelev, also denounces violence in a national radio address. . . . A senior Macedonian politician, Pear Gosev, accuses neighboring Serbia of “threatening to wipe Macedonia off the map.”
The UN plan for peace in Cambodia is endorsed by two rebel factions.
In Armenia, five people, including a member of parliament, are shot and killed in the republic’s capital, Yerevan. . . . The Moscow City Council orders rations after it receives an emergency supply of Bulgarian cigarettes.
In another step toward peace in Cambodia, Khmer Rouge, the most powerful rebel faction, backs the UN plan. . . . UN Secretary General Javier Perez de Cuellar flies to Amman, Jordan. . . . OPEC authorizes its members to increase oil production to maintain normal supplies during the Persian Gulf crisis.
Britain refers the case of the Birmingham Six, who were found guilty of two 1974 bomb attacks, to the Court of Appeal. . . . Reports claim the French government imposed tight restrictions on 26 Iraqis in France. . . . In France, 20,000 farmers protest on a “National Day of Action.” Violence breaks out in Angers, Alencon, and St. Lo. . . . Armenia declares a state of emergency and outlaws the Armenian National Army, a paramilitary group. . . . Ethnic Albanians clash with Serbian police in Kosovo.
UN secretary general Javier Perez de Cuellar meets with Iraqi Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz. . . . Officials of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), the organization that established the multinational force in Liberia, selects Amos Sawyer, a Liberian exile living in the U.S., to lead a proposed interim government.
Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev hosts an economic summit in Moscow. Separately, Pres. Gorbachev fires Vladilen V. Nikitin as a first deputy premier and chairman of the state commission on food and supplies because of a summer-long shortage of cigarettes and food in the USSR. . . .The Armenian National Army, the largest guerrilla group in Armenia, promises to surrender its arms and disband after soldiers and riot police surround the group’s headquarters in Yerevan.
The World Bank agrees to give Poland a $300 million loan. . . . Reports in the West African press claim Charles Taylor’s rebels killed at least 200 West African civilians in Liberia in retaliation for the participation of their nations in the multinational force. . . . Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz states that Iraq will release all its foreign hostages if the UN guarantees that U.S.-led military forces will not attack Iraq.
France announces a 1.2 billion French franc aid package for its farmers. . . . Representatives of East Germany and West Germany sign a treaty establishing terms for the reunification of Germany and naming Berlin as the new capital. . . . Soviet president Gorbachev states that the country needs a sixmonth period to deal with chronic shortages and inflation before attempting an economic transition.
The Arab League passes resolutions that renew its condemnation of Iraq and call upon it to pull out of Kuwait, pay war reparations, release all foreign nationals, guarantee the safety of all civilians in Kuwait and allow embassies there to function freely. The League also calls on its members to submit any peace proposals for collective action.
Africa & the Middle East
The Americas
Asia & the Pacific
U.S. officials claim that Iraq, in a reversal of its previous orders, instructed its merchant fleet not to resist efforts by U.S. or other naval forces to inspect Iraqi vessels. . . . In South Africa, tens of thousands of blacks commemorate those who died in the clashes, and up to 50,000 march in Soweto in a funeral for eight ANC supporters killed in the unrest.
Quebec premier Robert Bourassa requests the army to dismantle the Mohawk barricades at Oka and the Mercier Bridge. Bourassa states negotiations with the Mohawks broke down, and he accuses them of making “all kinds of unacceptable demands.”
After four days of riots in India, P.M. V. P. Singh vows that his party will not back down from the quota plan. . . . The Washington Journal reports that South Korea plans to provide nonlethal aid to the forces in Saudi Arabia.
Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein issues presidential decrees declaring that Kuwait is Iraq’s 19th province, renaming Kuwait City with the name it had before World War I, Kadhima, and shaving territory off the “province” of Kuwait to be called “Saddamiyat al-Mitlaa,” in honor of Saddam Hussein. . . . Hussein promises to allow the departure of detained women and children. . . . Reports show that Burkina Faso, which is not involved in the West African force, supplied arms and troops to the Taylor-led rebel faction in Liberia.
Two of the 13 Cubans in the Spanish embassy in Havana leave the building. . . . In Canada, a convoy evacuating Mohawks from the Kahnawake reserve near Chateauguay is met by 500 angry Quebec residents, many armed with baseball bats, who throw rocks and bricks. About a dozen Mohawks are reported injured in the incident. In addition, some Quebecois start blocking deliveries of food to the reserve in retaliation for the bridge blockade.
Reports state the small island nation of Tonga took advantage of a legal loophole and claimed the rights to the last 16 unoccupied orbital satellite spaces over the South Pacific region.
Canadian Forces army troops, aided by masked Mohawk Indians, dismantle two barricades erected by Mohawks on roads leading to the Mercier Bridge, after reaching a settlement that does not involve the land claims and sovereignty issues. . . . Ecuador’s Supreme Court acquits former president León Febres Cordero on a charge of embezzling public funds.
Philippine president Corazon Aquino announces her willingness to negotiate with both communist and military rebels to reach ceasefire agreements. . . . The Japanese government unveils a package of economic and logistical contributions to the international effort in the Persian Gulf.
Japanese premier Toshiki Kaifu specifies the aid package pledged on Aug. 29 will be worth $1 billion.
South African president F. W. de Klerk’s ruling white National Party announces its intention to open itself to members of all races.
Finance Minister Antonio Ermán González unveils a new austerity plan aimed at slowing Argentina’s inflation rate to a single-digit monthly level.
In the first release, an Iraqi plane carrying 69 Japanese citizens leaves Baghdad while 143 Japanese men remain behind as hostages. . . . A judicial inquiry commissioned by Pres. F. W. de Klerk’s government finds the police opened fire without justification in Sebokeng, South Africa, on March 26.
Four of the 11 Cubans still in the Spanish embassy leave. . . . In Canada, as 400 dismantle barricades set up by Mohawk Indians in Oka, many Mohawk Warriors flee the area. but about two dozen heavily armed members of the Warrior Society hole up in a former drug and alcohol rehabilitation clinic with about 30 women and children and vow to fight if troops attempt to remove them.
Pakistan’s interim government reveals that former prime minister Benazir Bhutto will be charged with official corruption and abuse of power. . . . The New York Times reports that the rebel Khmer Rouge moved more than 60,000 refugees from camps on the Thai border into malaria-ridden “liberation zones” in rebel-controlled sectors of Cambodia.
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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.
August 27–September 1, 1990—93
U.S. Politics & Social Issues
U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense
U.S. Economy & Environment
Science, Technology, & Nature
A U.S. District Court jury in Miami declines to make a monetary award to Eugene Hasenfus, a U.S. mercenary whose plane was shot down over Nicaragua on a supply mission to the contra rebels in 1986.
The U.S. expels 36 Iraqi embassy personnel and restricts the remaining 19 Iraqi officials to within 25 miles of their embassy in Washington, D.C. . . . Pres. Bush praises UN secretary general Perez de Cuellar’s involvement but expresses pessimism about hopes for a diplomatic solution to the Iraq crisis.
U.S. District Judge Thelton E. Henderson in San Francisco bans tuna fish caught by the five nations that fail to limit dolphin kills. . . . The College Entrance Examination Board releases the 1990 results of the SATs and finds that, while scores on the mathematics section of the test remained level, scores on the verbal section declined from 1989.
Pres. Bush briefs more than 170 members of Congress on the Persian Gulf crisis and the U.S. buildup in Saudi Arabia. . . . An eight-member court-martial board at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, believed to be the first of its kind since the Vietnam War, convenes. . . . The National Transportation Safety Board places most of the blame on the navy for a June 1989 accident involving a nuclear submarine and a tugboat.
At least 25 people are killed and more than 350 are injured when a major tornado tears through Will County in northern Illinois, about 35 miles southwest of Chicago.
Preliminary population listings from the 1990 census show that California not only retains its place as the most populous state, but it also grew another 24% since 1980.
Thirteen U.S. servicemen die when their C-5A transport plane carrying supplies intended for the Persian Gulf crashes and burns at Ramstein Air Base in West Germany. . . . The 36 Iraqis expelled from their embassy on Aug. 27 leave the U.S. with their families.
Illinois governor James R. Thompson (R) tours the region hit by a tornado and declares it a state disaster area. Pres. Bush declares it a federal disaster area as well.
Bush states he will not allow Iraq’s holding of Western hostages to “shape the foreign policy of this country.” He also announces a plan to seek billions of dollars from U.S. allies to help pay for the military buildup in the Mideast and to aid those countries most hurt by the UN embargo on Iraq. . . . A U.S. commander notes that the navy is intercepting 75 ships daily in the Persian Gulf, the Gulf of Oman and the Red Sea, mostly by radio.
The launch of the spacecraft Columbia is delayed when NASA discovers an electronic malfunction in a telescope in the shuttle’s Astro observatory payload for its astronomy mission.
Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle Stephen (Stevie) Ray Vaughan, 35, one of the U.S.’s top blues and rock guitar players, dies in a helicopter crash near East Troy, Wisconsin, that also takes the lives of three members of Eric Clapton’s entourage.
Aug. 27
Aug. 28
Aug. 29
A federal appeals court panel in San Francisco overturns a $5.2 million libel award to singer Wayne Newton against NBC regarding news reports on his purchase of a Las Vegas hotel and casino.
The State Department files a formal protest with the Yugoslav foreign ministry when it learns Shaban Kastrati, 19, a U.S. citizen, has been sentenced to 60 days in jail for alleged complicity in unrest in Albania. . . . Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf vows, “There is not going to be any war unless Iraq attacks first.” . . . A court-martial board in Fort Bragg acquits a member of the 82d Airborne Division of murder during the 1989 U.S. invasion of Panama.
Ken Griffey Sr., 40, and Ken Griffey Jr., 21, become the first father and son ever to play on the same team. . . . Nat (Sweetwater) Clifton, 65, one of the first black players in the NBA, dies of a heart attack in Chicago. . . . Burden of Proof by Scott Turow remains at the top of the bestseller list.
Edwin Oldfather Reischauer, 79, one of the U.S.’s leading experts on Japan who served as ambassador to Japan, 1961–66, dies of complications from hepatitis in La Jolla, California.
The French national team sets a new world record in the men’s 4by-100-meter relay at the European championships in Split, Yugoslavia, when it clocks in at 37.39 seconds.
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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)
Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.
Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.
Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.
Aug. 30
Aug. 31
Sept. 1
94—September 2–7, 1990
Sept. 2
Sept. 3
Sept. 4
Sept. 5
Sept. 6
Sept. 7
World Affairs
Europe
UN secretary general Javier Perez de Cuellar admits he is “disappointed” after meeting with Iraqi foreign minister Tariq Aziz. “I did not find any indication of flexibility, apart from allowing women and children to leave,” he explains. . . . A Lufthansa charter flies 65 Americans and 250 Europeans from 10 nations out of Iraq. Another Iraqi Airways jet takes off with nearly 200 Britons, 22 French citizens, and 47 Americans.
Reports state that the USSR will allow a team of selected U.S. Navy officers to join Soviet warships patrolling the Persian Gulf in order to coordinate procedures in the event that war breaks out. . . . British prime minister Margaret Thatcher states that Iraqi president Saddam Hussein may face a trial for war crimes if any harm comes to hostages currently held in Iraq.
A UN conference on the economies of poor countries opens in Paris. . . . Arab League secretary general Chedli Klibi, a Tunisian, resigns after more than 10 years in the post. His resignation points to growing tensions in the Arab League.
More than 100,000 people stage a general strike in Kosovo to protest Serbia’s takeover of ethnic-Albanian businesses. . . . Shoppers in Moscow grow angry when they discover that bread has virtually disappeared from the shelves of the city’s food stores.
Iraq accuses Egypt of engineering Klibi’s Sept. 3 resignation to take over the Arab League and “make it a rubber stamp for the Egyptian and Saudi governments.” . . . The Times of London reports that a French investigation into the Sept. 1989 bombing of a UTA aircraft over Niger found that the attack was probably a cooperative effort between Libya, Syria, and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command. . . . Serbian police detain a team from the International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights in Kosovo.
Africa & the Middle East In South Africa, police reported that 21 blacks died in overnight fighting.
Two caravans—one carrying 300 women and children and the other 100 people—travel from Kuwait to Baghdad. Two Iraqi airliners fly 300 people to Jordan. . . . Reports indicate the gulf sheikdom of Qatar expelled more than 70 Palestinian families in retaliation for Palestinian support for Iraq. . . . In South Africa, members of Inkatha kill 27 people in a non-Inkatha workers’ hostel in Sebokeng township. When residents of the hostel try to stop the attackers, troops arrive, allegedly open fire and kill nine more people.
Reports state that a team from the International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights was expelled from Yugoslavia by Serbian authorities.
In the USSR, details of a plan drafted by a 13-member working group headed by economist Stanislav Shatalin are published. The program would, if implemented, lead to swift and radical economic transformation of the USSR. . . . Reports show France and Britain cut off supplies of military equipment to Jordan because of its links to Iraq.
An Iraqi plane carries 135 Canadians, 12 Americans, and 10 Irish citizens to freedom in Turkey. . . . The New York Times reports that the leaders of the West African forces demanded that Pres. Samuel K. Doe resign.
Reports indicate that West Germany is opposed to providing financing for the U.S.-led military operation in the gulf. Rather, it prefers to provide aid to “those countries that are hit by the gulf crisis and that make a significant contribution to its solution.” . . . The British House of Commons meets after being recalled for debate on the Persian Gulf crisis. The session marks the first time that Parliament is recalled from a recess since 1982.
Reports show that a total of more than 600,000 non-Western refugees have arrived in Jordan so far since the invasion of Kuwait. About 100,000 remain stranded there, while 20,000 continue to arrive every day, but only 10,000 refugees leave daily.
Foreign ministers of the EC nations pledge financial aid to the nations hurt by the UN embargo, but state no direct contributions will be made to the U.S.-led military effort. . . . A series of “freedom flights” from Iraq begin and last for over two weeks. The flights transport citizens of France, Canada, Japan, West Germany, Taiwan, Australia, the Philippines, Ireland, India, Syria, Jordan, Kenya, Lebanon, Trinidad, Singapore, Jamaica, the Seychelles, Sri Lanka, Nigeria, and South Africa.
A vote in Britain’s House of Commons backs the government’s stance in the Persian Gulf. . . . A total of 111 members of the dissolved Kosovo parliament meet in secret and adopt a new constitution that portrays Kosovo as an independent republic of Yugoslavia.
A three-man delegation from the International Commission of Jurists assails the police in Natal, South Africa, for appearing to side with Inkatha and calls for the deployment of human rights monitors, possibly from the European Community, in the province.
The Americas
Asia & the Pacific
The Canadian army holds control of all barricades around Oka constructed over land disputes since July 11.
Delegates to Mexico’s ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party national congress approve a series of measures aimed at weakening traditional power brokers in the party and making the selection of party candidates and leaders more democratic.
Mongolia’s first democratically elected parliament convenes for the first time and reelects Punsalmaagiyn Ochirbat as president.
The last five remaining Cubans who sought asylum in foreign embassies in Havana leave the Spanish embassy, bringing to an end a 58day crisis that strained ties with Spain and Czechoslovakia. . . . The Quebec National Assembly sets up a 35-member commission to study the province’s future political options in the wake of the failure of the Meech Lake accord . . . . Brazilian investigators discover a mass grave that they believe hold as many as 1,700 bodies.
North Korean Premier Yon Hyong Muk arrives in South Korea in the truce village of Panmunjom to meet with South Korean Premier Kang Young Hoon. . . . New Zealand prime minister Geoffrey Palmer resigns, as his Labour Party prepares for an uphill fight in federal elections.
Colombian president Cesar Gaviria Trujillo offers drug traffickers a chance to avoid extradition to the U.S. if they surrender, confess to Colombian courts, and turn their property over to the state . . . The mass grave discovered in Brazil holds at least two corpses of political prisoners who disappeared in the early 1970s. . . . Amnesty International reports that Brazilian death squads murder hundreds of children each year, often with the endorsement or participation of the police.
Soviet foreign minister Eduard Shevardnadze and Japanese foreign minister Taro Nakayama release a joint statement condemning Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait. The communique is hailed in the Japanese press as an unprecedented bilateral move by the two powers. . . . China states that, starting Jan. 11, 1991, it will obey a global ban on ivory trading. . . . Special tribunals to prosecute former ministers of the government of dismissed prime minister Benazir Bhutto open in Lahore, Pakistan.
The Mercier Bridge, a main commuter artery into Montreal, Canada, is reopened to traffic after a conflict with Mohawk Indians that started July 11. . . . The New Democratic Party scores a historic victory in Ontario, winning an election that gives it control of the provincial government and replaces Liberal Premier David Peterson with Bob Rae. . . . The Brazilian police launch an investigation into the origins of the mass grave found Sept. 4.
The ruling military government of Myanmar jails six opposition leaders on charges of spying and fomenting unrest. Opposition parties won a landslide victory in elections in May, but the ruling State Law and Order Restoration Council continue to delay surrendering power. . . . An unprecedented meeting between the North Korean and South Korean premiers ends without a joint statement or any major agreements.
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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.
September 2–7, 1990—95
U.S. Politics & Social Issues
U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense
U.S. Economy & Environment
Science, Technology, & Nature
Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle
Sept. 2
Pres. Bush ends his controversial long holiday and returns to the White House. . . . David J. Acer, 40, Florida dentist who is believed by the CDC to be the only health-care provider in the U.S. to infect one of his patients with AIDS, dies from AIDS.
The New York Times reports that the U.S. secretly deployed combat aircraft at several Arab gulf states besides Saudi Arabia. U.S. officials state the wider deployment is necessary because Saudi air bases became too crowded.
Judge David Souter, Bush’s nominee for the Supreme Court, receives the top rating from the American Bar Association. . . . Sen. Sam Nunn (D, Ga.), a long-time opponent of abortion, decides that he now supports the right to abortion until the fetus is viable outside the womb.
Bush formally proposes to forgive Egypt’s $7 billion military debt to the U.S. for opposing Iraq and supporting U.S. military moves in the gulf. . . . Secretary of State James Baker testifies before the House Foreign Affairs Committee on the gulf crisis and calls the invasion a “defining moment” of the post–cold war era.
Sept. 3
Scientists announce they have identified a genetic defect that appears to cause some cases of osteoarthritis, the most common form of arthritis.
Pres. Bush declares that there are “clear signs of progress” in the U.S.’s war against illegal drugs, and he vows to continue fighting “until this scourge is licked for good.”
Irene Marie Dunne, 91, popular Hollywood actress of the 1930s and 1940s, dies of heart failure in Los Angeles.
A study published in the American Journal of Epidemiology finds no significant evidence of increased cancer rates during the six-year period following the 1979 reactor leak at Three Mile Island. The review of disease cases in the area suggest the slight increases are “curious” but not “convincing” of a causal link, because the number of cases is too low to be statistically significant. . . . . Launch of the space shuttle Columbia is postponed by a new fuel leak.
The Alliance for Justice, representing about 30 groups, warns that “Judge Souter’s opinions and legal briefs threaten to undo the advances made by women, minorities, dissenters and other disadvantaged groups” while investigating Bush’s nominee for the Supreme Court. Similar reservations are expressed by Arthur J. Kropp, president of People for the American Way Action Fund.
The U.S. decided to approve the export to Brazil of rocket casings that can be used to make an intercontinental ballistic missile, according to The New York Times. . . . A federal appeals court in Richmond, Virginia, upholds the dismissal of charges related to the Iran-contra affair against former CIA agent Joseph F. Fernandez.
The oil industry unveils an $800 million, five-year plan to combat major oil spills off the U.S. coast.
Eight NYC youths are indicted in the fatal stabbing of a 22-yearold tourist from Utah, Brian Watkins. . . . The Department of Health and Human Services finds that more than 250,000 American adolescents use anabolic steroids for bodybuilding or other athletic purposes.
U.S. officials welcome Colombia’s shift in its policy of extraditing drug lords. “If the government and people of Colombia are now able to enforce their own laws against drug trafficking, so much the better,” says Atty. Gen. Richard Thornburgh.
Budget talks between congressional leaders and the Bush administration begin. . . . The FCC concludes that most television and radio stations regularly overcharge political candidates for advertisements in an audit.
A study in the New England Journal of Medicine finds that nonsmokers who grew up in households where they were exposed to heavy tobacco smoke as children are twice as likely to develop lung cancer as other nonsmokers.
Sept. 4
Sept. 5
Tom Fogerty, 48, rhythm guitarist and cofounder of the rock group Creedence Clearwater Revival, dies in Scottsdale, Arizona, of respiratory failure due to tuberculosis.
In tennis, the U.S. Open men’s doubles title goes to Pieter Aldrich and Danie Visser of South Africa.
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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)
Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.
Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.
Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.
Sept. 6
Sept. 7
96—September 8–13, 1990
World Affairs
Sept. 8
Sept. 9
Sept. 10
Sept. 11
Sept. 12
Sept. 13
Europe
Iraqi president Saddam Hussein issues an open message to U.S. president Bush and Soviet president Gorbachev, denouncing “foreign intervention” and restating his nation’s intent to keep Kuwait. . . . U.S. secretary of state Baker concludes his visit of the Middle East after obtaining pledges of aid several nations totaling billions of dollars.
Africa & the Middle East In South Africa, 26 people are killed in an Inkatha raid on a squatter settlement in Soweto.
The Americas
Asia & the Pacific
The Dominican Republic’s main labor groups agree to economic and social reforms in talks with the government.
U.S. president Bush and Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev display unity on the Persian Gulf crisis following seven hours of talks in Helsinki, Finland.
A bomb explodes at a recruiting office in Derby, but no one is injured. . . . Police in the town of Novi Pazar use tear gas to quell a clash between followers of the Democratic Action Party and 30,000 adherents of the Serbian Renewal Movement. . . . . Father Aleksandr Menn, a liberal Russian Orthodox priest, is murdered with an ax by an assailant in a wooded area near his home in Zagorsk.
According to reports, Pres. Samuel K. Doe arrived unannounced at the headquarters of the West African force that entered Liberia. He was accompanied by a large entourage of bodyguards. Shortly thereafter, Prince Yormie Johnson and a contingent of his rebels arrived and quarreled with Doe’s men. Gunfire broke out, and 78 people were killed, nearly all of them Doe bodyguards . . . . Iraqi foreign minister Tariq Aziz arrives in Teheran the first high-level Iraqi official to visit Iran since the outbreak of the Persian Gulf War in 1980.
The four warring Cambodian factions agree to accept a UN plan to end the civil war. Western observers and diplomats call the agreement one of the most hopeful signs in 20 years of conflict in Cambodia. . . . U.S. secretary of state James Baker briefs the foreign ministers of the NATO on the summit at NATO headquarters in Brussels.
The mayors of Moscow and Leningrad urge an abandonment of Revolution Day celebrations marking the 1917 triumph of the Bolsheviks. . . . Soviet president Gorbachev sends telegrams to the heads of 15 republics, their parliaments, and local officials, urging a fostering of respect for law and order. “The whole system of legislative, executive and judicial power could break down,” he writes, as a result of ethnic feuds and nationalist violence.
Liberian president Samuel K. Doe is killed by rebels led by Prince Yormie Johnson . . . . Iran and Iraq agree to restore diplomatic relations. . . . Pope John Paul II blesses the Basilica of Our Lady of Peace in the Ivory Coast, despite controversy over its cost in a nation saddled with debt. It is the largest Christian church in the world . . . . In South Africa, a group of Anglican prelates led by Archbishop Desmond Tutu meet with Pres. F. W. de Klerk and charge that right-wing whites are behind recent township violence.
Sir Dawda Jawara, the president of Gambia, orders the Economic Community of West African States’ forces to protect Liberians and others from the Krahn tribe from reprisal attacks since Doe was a Krahn.
Soviet president Gorbachev stuns Premier Nikolai Ryzhkov by endorsing the radical 500-day Shatalin program of economic reform during a raucous debate in the Supreme Soviet. The parliament of the Russian Federation vote to endorse the Shatalin plan in conjunction with the republic’s “500-day confidence mandate.” . . . The first two Pizza Hut fast-food restaurants in the USSR open in Moscow.
Nelson Mandela and de Klerk meet, and the ANC leader warns that the authorities’ failure to halt factional fighting threatens South Africa fragile peace process. . . . In Liberia, a new round of fighting between Johnson’s rebels and surviving members of Doe’s armed forces erupts at the executive mansion.
In Chile, Gen. Augusto Pinochet leads a controversial public holiday celebration of the anniversary of the 1973 coup that brought him to power. Many civilians attend alternative ceremonies in honor of former Pres. Salvador Allende Gossens and others who died in the coup. Pres. Patricio Aylwin departs to Antarctica for the day. . . . The Progressive Conservative Party scores a reelection victory in the Canadian province of Manitoba.
In Mongolia, the upper house of parliament chooses Dash Bambasuren as the country’s new premier, replacing Sharavyn Gungaadorj.
Representatives of East Germany, West Germany, and the four victorious Allied World War II powers sign a treaty that ends the powers’ responsibilities over Germany and paves the way for a fully sovereign Germany to be reunited. . . . A 285mile railway line crossing the border between western China and the USSR is completed so trains can run from the eastern Chinese port of Lianyungang to Rotterdam, the Netherlands, a total of 6,700 miles.
The Bulgarian government formally charges 20 people with arson in a fire that destroyed the Socialist Party’s headquarters in August. . . . An explosion occurs at a nuclear-fuel processing plant in the city of UstKamenogorsk. The blast leaves the city shrouded in a dust cloud of beryllium, a nonradioactive but highly toxic metal.
Iran’s supreme religious leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, condemns the U.S. military buildup in the Persian Gulf and says an Islamic jihad, or holy war, is justified in combating it. . . . Pretoria calls on other nations to help end the bloodshed in South Africa by convincing Nelson Mandela to meet with Chief Buthelezi.
Pres. Alberto Fujimori turns down a U.S. offer of $35.9 million for antidrug operations in Peru, reiterating a long-standing opposition to purely military solutions to the drug crisis. . . . The Canada–Nova Scotia Offshore Petroleum Board, federal energy minister, and Nova Scotia’s provincial energy minister approve the development of two oil fields off the coast of Nova Scotia . . . . Brazil ends measures instituted to protect the nation’s computer industry from foreign competition.
The Pakistani government files two more charges against Benazir Bhutto concerning an Islamabad hotel project and a petroleum contract. . . . Separately, one tribunal dismisses for lack of evidence the corruption case against former petroleum minister Jahangir Badar.
The UN Security Council votes to impose strict limits on humanitarian shipments of food to Iraq and occupied Kuwait.
Two ethnic Albanians are shot dead by Serbian police while purportedly resisting arrest in Kosovo. . . . West Germany and the Soviet Union disclose details of an agreement in principle on German payments for the maintenance and repatriation of Soviet forces currently in East Germany. The nations initial a 20-year friendship pact.
In South Africa, 400 squatters’ shacks are burned down. On a train from Johannesburg to Soweto, 26 black commuters are killed and more than 100 wounded when black attackers shoot and stab people randomly. Reports confirm that at least 731 blacks were killed since the beginning of August. . . . From Liberia, reports surface that rebels engaged in reprisal attacks against the Krahn, Samuel Doe’s tribe, and the Mandingo, who were allied with Doe.
Former president Efraín Ríos Montt, 64, who ruled Guatemala for 18 months after a military coup in 1982, files to run in the November presidential election pending a final decision on his eligibility.
The Sri Lankan army breaks a three-month rebel siege of a fort on the northern Jaffna peninsula with a surprise dawn attack. According to military sources, 12 soldiers and about 100 rebels are killed in the fighting. . . . Amnesty International reports that more than 500 people have been executed in China in 1990, most as part of a campaign to “clean up crime” before the Asian games begin.
King Birendra of Nepal is formally presented with a new constitution that establishes a multiparty democracy in the country. . . . About 1,000 protesters battle with police in Mandalay, Myanmar. . . . Former prime minister Benazir Bhutto is formally charged by a special Pakistani court with abuse of power.
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Includes developments that affect more than one world region, international organizations, and important meetings of major world leaders.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.
September 8–13, 1990—97
U.S. Politics & Social Issues
U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense
U.S. Economy & Environment
Science, Technology, & Nature
Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle In tennis, Gabriela Sabatini of Argentina wins the U.S, Open women’s title in an upset, defeating West Germany’s Steffi Graf.
U.S. officials announce that Department of Health and Human Services secretary Louis Sullivan selected a Cleveland cardiologist, Bernadine Healy, to become director of the National Institutes of Health. . . . The former immigration processing center on Ellis Island in Upper New York Bay, which served as the gateway for millions of immigrants, is dedicated as a museum after undergoing an eight-year, $156 million renovation.
Nineteen-year-old Pete Sampras beats Andre Agassi in an upset victory in the finals of tennis’s U.S. Open. Martina Navratilova and Gigi Fernandez win the women’s doubles title.
A Cuban American, Jose Dionisio Suarez Esquivel, pleads guilty in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., to the 1976 killing of Chilean exile Orlando Letelier. He receives a sentence of no more than 12 years in prison in exchange for his plea.
Sept. 8
Sept. 9
Sept. 10
The three youths convicted in the near-fatal rape and beating of a female jogger in NYC’s Central Park, Antron McCray, Yusef Salaam, and Raymond Santana, are sentenced to maximum possible sentence of five to 10 years in prison by Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Thomas B. Galligan.
Pres. Bush addresses a joint session of Congress and a national television audience to gain support for his deployment of U.S. military forces to the Persian Gulf region in response to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. . . . A New York Times story reports that a survey of members of the armed services found that sexual harassment in the military is widespread. The survey was conducted by the Defense Manpower Data Center, a Pentagon unit, in 1988–89.
The Judicial Conference of the United States approves a threeyear experimental program to permit radio and television coverage of civil trials. . . . Officials report that Louis Sullivan selected David Kessler as the next commissioner of the FDA, replacing James Benson. . . . The Michigan state legislature approves a bill that requires teenagers 17 or younger to obtain a parent’s or judge’s permission for an abortion.
The House passes an amendment to the Defense Department authorization bill calling for Japan to assume the entire cost of basing 50,000 U.S. troops in Japan. If Japan does not pick up the cost, the amendment calls for 5,000 troops a year to be withdrawn.
Atlantic Richfield Co. (Arco) announces that it will pay $287 million to Alaska in settlement of a 13-year dispute over royalties on oil from the North Slope. . . . The Bush administration joins congressional leaders in advocating an end to the limit on the deposit premiums that the FDIC charged banks. . . . The Energy Department folds its auction of a Jasper, Tennessee, ethanol plant when the bids come in too low.
The Tennessee Court of Appeals awards joint custody of frozen embryos to a divorced couple, overturning a 1989 ruling that gave sole custody of the embryos to the woman. . . . The Senate Judiciary Committee opens hearings into the nomination of David Souter to the Supreme Court. . . . Samuel Studdiford Stratton, 73, Democratic U.S. representative from New York State, 1959–89, dies in Gaithersburg, Maryland.
Bush administration officials disclose the U.S. warned Iraq that it will hold Baghdad responsible for any terrorist attacks on U.S. or allied targets carried out by pro-Iraqi or Iraqbased terrorist groups. . . . A Coast Guard officer notes that U.S. forces are boarding three to four ships a day, mainly in the Red Sea, to check cargoes and destinations.
Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan endorses giving the FDIC new latitude to hike bankdeposit premiums, but he cautions that that latitude should be used sparingly because of the dangers of a premium hike.
Ron Townsend, the president of Gannett Television Group, becomes the first black member of the Augusta National Country Golf Club, home of the Masters tournament.
The Professional Golfer’s Association (PGA) begins looking for new hosts that do not violate the new antidiscrimination policies it adopted.
Sept. 11
Sept. 12
Sept. 13
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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.
Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.
Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.
98—September 14–19, 1990
Sept. 14
Sept. 15
Sept. 16
Sept. 17
Sept. 18
World Affairs
Europe
Iraqi troops raid the residences of the Canadian, Dutch, and Belgian ambassadors in Kuwait. Western officials at the Canadian mission, including the consuls of the U.S., Britain, Ireland, Australia, and Canada, are briefly detained. Troops release a military attaché from the French residence, but the three citizens who sought refuge there are kept in custody. Iraq’s ambassador to France claims Iraqi actions do not violate international law because Kuwait is no longer an independent nation, but part of Iraq.
Britain announces that it is sending a full armored brigade of 8,000 troops and 120 Challenger tanks to Saudi Arabia. . . . Italy states that it will send a frigate and eight Tornado aircraft to the Persian Gulf to supplement its previous commitment. . . . Pres. Mikhail Gorbachev offers the Supreme Soviet an amended version of the radical Shatalin plan to create a market economy in 500 days. The revision is known as the “president’s plan.”
Wealthy industrial nations agree to increase their aid to the world’s poorest countries at a UN conference in Paris. . . . Freed Western hostages claim that Kuwaiti resistance is crumbling due to the harsh Iraqi response. “For each Iraqi soldier that gets killed, there are at least six Kuwaitis who are killed,” one states.
Africa & the Middle East
The Americas
Asia & the Pacific
U.S. and Australian warships fire warning shots at an Iraqi tanker in the Gulf of Oman after it refuses to stop. The vessel then halts and is boarded. After it is determined that the ship holds no cargo, it is allowed to proceed to Iraq. . . . Two Israeli cabinet members, Finance Minister Yitzhak Modai and Science Minister Yuval Neeman, meet with Soviet president Gorbachev in the highest-level contact between the two nations in 23 years. . . . U.S. secretary of state James Baker meets with Syria’s president, Hafez al-Assad, and foreign minister, Farouk al-Sharaa.
Canadian prime minister Brian Mulroney announces that his nation will send a squadron of CF-18 fighter jets to the gulf to provide air cover for two Canadian destroyers on their way to the region. . . . The Canadian federal government, the provincial government of Newfoundland, and representatives of four oil companies sign agreements to pave the way for construction of Canada’s largest offshore oil project located in the Hibernia oil field about 195 miles southeast of St. John’s, Newfoundland.
In the face of criticism that Japan’s contribution to international efforts in the Persian Gulf is insufficient, Japan’s cabinet pledges another $3 billion in aid.
French president François Mitterrand announces that 4,000 soldiers and dozens of planes, helicopters and tanks will be sent to Saudi Arabia. . . . Spanish premier Felipe González’s decision to send three warships to the Persian Gulf draws criticism at home. . . . West German chancellor Helmut Kohl announces a $2 billion package of aid for the gulf effort after meeting with U.S. secretary of state Baker.
Iraq unexpectedly opens the southern border between occupied Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, allowing thousands of Kuwaitis to flee into exile.
Nearly 13,000 workers at Ford Motor Co. of Canada Ltd. go on strike after a contract dispute.
The UN Security Council unanimously condemns Iraq’s violation of the diplomatic outposts.
British prime minister Margaret Thatcher begins a five-day visit to Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Switzerland.
U.S. president Bush, in a videotape broadcast on Iraqi television, warns the Iraqi people that Pres. Saddam Hussein brought them “to the brink of war” by invading Kuwait.
The EC foreign ministers announce that all 12 member nations will expel all Iraqi military attachés and limit the movements of other Iraqi diplomats. . . . In a press conference, U.S. president Bush endorses French president Mitterrand’s request that the UN Security Council extend the embargo against Iraq to include air traffic.
A British Army colour sergeant, Bernard Cox, is shot outside an Army recruiting center in North London. . . . An anti-Socialist rally in Sofia, Bulgaria, draws 30,000 people. . . . Soviet president Gorbachev proposes to hold a nationwide referendum on whether there should be private ownership of land. . . . The Soviet Union and Saudi Arabia restore diplomatic relations after 52 years.
Iraqi troops at the exit point on the border begin seizing Kuwaiti men between the ages of 17 and 45 as they try to cross. Iraqi troops strip refugees of their passports and identity papers. . . . In Liberia, the remnants of Samuel Doe’s army loot and burn the capital city, Monrovia, The soldiers, chanting “No Doe, No Liberia!” burn homes, rape women, and shoot those they suspect of being rebel sympathizers, according to witnesses. . . . Farright white extremist Piet Rudolph, who declared “open war” on the government of Pres. de Klerk and is implicated in terrorist bombings, is caught by police in Pretoria after months in hiding as South Africa’s most-wanted white man.
Canadian prime minister Mulroney names William A. Stevenson to the Supreme Court of Canada.
The 45th session of the General Assembly convenes at UN headquarters in NYC Guido de Marco, Malta’s minister of foreign affairs and justice, is unanimously chosen to serve as president of the assembly for the next year, succeeding Joseph Namvan Garba of Nigeria.
The IRA claims responsibility for the Sept. 17 shooting of British army colour sergeant Bernard Cox. . . . Sir Peter Terry, former governor of Gilbraltar, is shot at his home in Milford, England.
Reports indicate that as many as 10,000 Kuwaitis have left the country, a large number of them wealthy Kuwaiti professionals driving luxury cars. . . . The Transvaal province attorney general Klaus von Lieres states Winnie Mandela, the controversial wife of Nelson Mandela, will be tried on charges of kidnapping and assault. . . . The New York Times reports that Jordan stopped truck traffic at its border with Iraq.
Trinidad and Tobago’s national security and justice minister, Selwyn Richardson, resigns after a coup attempt. . . . Argentina announces that it will send a small force to the gulf region, becoming the first Latin American nation involved in the Persian Gulf crisis. . . . The fifth round of peace talks between the rebel Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN) and the government of El Salvador end with little hope of a cease-fire.
The IRA claims responsibility for the attack on Sir Peter Terry, the former governor of the British colony of Gibraltar, who had authorized a security operation that resulted in the slaying of three IRA operatives there. . . . Poland’s president, Gen. Wojciech Jaruzelski, effectively announces his resignation when he asks parliament to set a date for ending his term in office. . . . The Russian Federation’s parliament passes a resolution formally requesting the chairman of the Council of Ministers, Nikolai Ryzhkov’s resignation.
The Washington Post reports that the Iraqi occupation of Kuwait has shifted into a more brutal phase.
Sept. 19
In a nationally televised address, Pres. Corazon Aquino called for a discussion on the “orderly withdrawal” of U.S. troops from the Philippines. Protests against the bases are staged for two days in several cities.
A round of talks on the future of U.S. military bases in the Philippines opens in Manila.
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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.
September 14–19, 1990—99
U.S. Politics & Social Issues
U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense
U.S. Economy & Environment
Science, Technology, & Nature
The House Special Task Force on El Salvador concludes that “a concerted effort has been made by the armed forces, including the high command, to contain the investigation; to avoid implicating any individual except those charged; and, almost certainly, to prevent the conviction of” Col. Guillermo Alfredo Benavides.
A congressional audit of nearly 100 deals in which the Federal Home Loan Bank Board granted subsidies to private buyers of failing savings and loan associations in 1988 reveals that the FHLBB (now defunct) vastly underestimated the deals’ cost, which in 1988 were estimated to be at $38.6 billion. However, the report claims their total cost skyrocketed to $71 billion. . . . Exxon Corp. completes its second straight summer of cleanup work in Alaska’s Prince William Sound, site of the largest oil spill in U.S. history.
At the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, a four-year-old Cleveland girl with a rare immune deficiency becomes the first person to undergo experimental treatment using a genetically engineered human gene. She is injected with a blood infusion containing her own genetically engineered cells to enhance her production of the enzyme adenosine deaminase (ADA), necessary to keep T-lymphocyte immune cells alive. . . . The White House announces that Pres. Bush will nominate Walter E. Massey as the new head of the National Science Foundation.
E(dwin) Allan Lightner Jr., 82, former U.S. ambassador to Libya, 1963–65 and assistant chief of the U.S. mission in Berlin, 1959–63, dies of heart failure in Bayside, Maine.
Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle
Sept. 14
Magellan’s Venus-mapping project formally begins.
The Washington Post and The Los Angeles Times publish stories in which Gen. Michael J. Dugan, Air Force chief of staff, reveals classified information on the troops in Iraq and makes controversial remarks.
Sept. 15
The Emmy Awards are presented. The winners for best drama and comedy series are L.A. Law and Murphy Brown, respectively.
Pres. Bush, for the first time, addresses the controversy regarding the U.S. policy toward Iraq before it invaded Kuwait. Bush admits that “with hindsight” he “absolutely” regrets the U.S.’s early overtures toward Saddam Hussein’s regime. But he asserts that the invasion cannot be blamed on a faulty U.S. policy. . . . Manuel M. Caldera pleads guilty in a federal court to conspiring to bribe public officials to obtain navy contracts in the 1970s and 1980s. He is the 35th person convicted in the Pentagon procurement scandal. . . . Defense Secretary Dick Cheney fires Gen. Dugan for publicly discussing confidential elements of the U.S. military strategy in the Persian Gulf crisis.
The New York Post reaches an agreement with all 11 of its unions. . . . The United Auto Workers and General Motors agree on a new three-year contract.
The FBI promotes 11 of the Hispanic agents who won a discrimination lawsuit against the bureau in 1988. . . . Several abortion-rights groups and women’s rights groups urge the Senate committee to reject David Souter’s nomination to the Supreme Court because they fear that Souter will cast the deciding vote to overrule Roe v. Wade.
Former CIA agent Thomas Clines is convicted on charges stemming from his participation in the illegal shipment of weapons to the Nicaraguan contras. . . . The Pentagon issues a list of 151 overseas U.S. military bases or installations that will either close or be curtailed in fiscal 1991 . . . . A GAO report is made public that estimates that the 1989 U.S. invasion of Panama cost over $163.6 million.
Butte County, California, officials vote to accept an $11 million state bailout and avoid becoming the first county government in the U.S. to declare bankruptcy . . . . The directors of Fannie Mae elect James Johnson as the new chairman and CEO. . . . The EPA announces nine major companies have agreed to reduce toxic chemical emissions from 40 plants in 14 states.
Theatrical producer Cameron Mackintosh reinstates the scheduled opening of Miss Saigon in NYC after negotiations with Actors Equity. . . . Atlanta, Georgia, is chosen to host the 1996 Summer Olympic Games. . . . Rep. Joseph Kennedy II (D, Mass.) and his wife, Sheila, file for a no-fault divorce.
The Senate Judiciary Committee concludes hearings for David Souter.
The House passes a $283 billion defense authorization for fiscal 1991. . . . The defense subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee passes a $1.89 billion emergency supplemental defense spending bill to cover the costs of the U.S. buildup in the Persian Gulf. . . . The full Appropriations Committee asserts that Congress, not the Pentagon, will control the spending of funds, including the contributions of U.S. allies, in the Persian Gulf crisis.
The Resolution Trust Corp. formally requests Congress for roughly $122 billion in funding for the fiscal year beginning October 1. . . . Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan tells Congress that the Persian Gulf crisis is likely to cut economic growth and fuel inflation. . . . Budget negotiations, resume, with the participants pared down to eight key negotiators.
Hermes Pan (born Hermes Panagiotopulos), 79, Academy Award– winning choreographer who created the dances films starring Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, dies of unreported causes in Beverly Hills, California.
Columbia’s launch is canceled because of a leak of hydrogen gas during fueling.
Forbes magazine lists Bill Cosby as the world’s highest-paid entertainer with an estimated income of $115 million for 1989 and 1990 . . . . Lisa Olson, a reporter for the Boston Herald, charges that she was harassed by several New England Patriot players in their locker room, causing a furor.
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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)
Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.
Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.
Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.
Sept. 16
Sept. 17
Sept. 18
Sept. 19
100—September 20–25, 1990
Sept. 20
Sept. 21
World Affairs
Europe
Africa & the Middle East
The Soviet Union backs an air embargo on Iraq and calls for the foreign ministers of the five permanent UN Security Council members—China, France, Great Britain, the U.S., and the USSR—to underscore the nations’ commitment to pressure Iraq into withdrawing from Kuwait.
The East German and West German parliaments ratify a treaty governing the legal aspects of German reunification. . . . The Bulgarian Grand Assembly confirms a cabinet, three months after the Socialist Party’s victory in national elections.
The U.K., Hong Kong, Vietnam, and the UN High Commission for Refugees announce an agreement to increase the number of boat people repatriated to Vietnam from Hong Kong.
Pres. Mikhail Gorbachev asks the Supreme Soviet for new powers to meet the nation’s economic plight. He rejects the idea that Premier Nikolai Ryzhkov should resign, and Ryzhkov states that he will stay in office. . . . In Poland, the Sejm votes to hold presidential elections in Dec. and to dissolve itself by Apr. 1991. . . . A German immigration spokesman states that only a “handful” of the 80,000 guest workers brought to East Germany under the communist regime will be allowed to remain in the united Germany.
Sept. 22
Sept. 23
Sept. 24
Sept. 25
The Americas
Asia & the Pacific
An Israeli reserve soldier mistakenly drives into a Gaza Strip refugee camp and runs into a donkey cart while trying to escape stone-throwers, injuring two youths. A large mob then stones and burns the car, killing the soldier.
Chilean president Patricio Aylwin asks Gen. Augusto Pinochet Ugarte to keep out of politics. . . . In Nicaragua, a national dialogue among the government, businesses, and labor on the new economic program begins. . . . The Medellin cocaine cartel claims to be responsible for the kidnappings of three prominent Colombians. . . . Argentine president Carlos Menem reaffirms his commitment to send troops to the Persian Gulf despite domestic opposition.
Amnesty International reports that 64 people were executed in a single day in China, many of whom were arrested for illegal religious or prodemocracy activity.
Iraq’s ruling Revolutionary Command Council declares there is “not a single chance for any retreat” and tells Iraqi citizens to prepare for “the mother of all battles.” . . . In Lebanon, Pres. Elias Hrawi signs the Taif peace accord, which gives Muslim majority more power, into law, against the objections of Gen. Michel Aoun. . . . Charles Taylor, leader of a Liberian rebel faction, announces a unilateral cease-fire set to take effect the next day.
The Canadian Auto Workers union reaches an agreement with Ford Motor Co. of Canada, ending a strike that started on Sept. 15.
In the Philippines, the government decides to hike fuel prices and to increase police suppression of protests against U.S. military bases . . . . The International Campaign for Tibet reports that China is suppressing Buddhism in Tibet . . . . Thailand’s cabinet lifts a decadelong ban on imported cigarettes but maintains its ban on cigarette advertisements.
Syrian president Hafez al-Assad visits Teheran for talks with Iranian president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani.
Pres. Jaime Paz Zamora signs an agreement with leaders of Bolivian Indian tribes that bars timber companies from felling trees in the rain forest where the tribes live, effective October 31.
At a meeting in Washington, D.C., economics ministers from the Group of Seven (G-7), the seven largest industrial democracies, predict continued economic growth despite the strain caused by the Persian Gulf crisis.
Swiss voters approve a 10-year moratorium on the construction of new nuclear power plants.
Angry Israelis attack Palestinian workers, and the right-wing cabinet members call for a draconian crackdown.
In the Dominican Republic, a bomb explodes in Santo Domingo near the headquarters of the National Union of Revolutionary Students, killing three students and wounding three other people.
The IMF’s Interim Committee announces a new effort to aid those impoverished nations whose economies are threatened by the Mideast crisis. . . . Although it is not immediately reported, the UN passes a resolution on a procedural matter that stresses that only the UN’s special sanctions committee has the power to permit humanitarian shipments to Iraq or Kuwait. . . . East Germany formally withdraws from the Soviet-led Warsaw Pact.
The Soviet parliament votes to give Pres. Gorbachev new powers to rule by decree.
Iranian authorities announce that they seized two bands of 29 people trying to smuggle food across a remote border area into Iraq. . . . The Israeli army demolishes at least 15 homes and stores in the Gazan camp. . . . Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Shamir warns that his country is ready to “repay” Iraq for any attack. . . . Delegations from the Angolan and U.S. governments reach an agreement to ship emergency food and medicine to central and southern Angola.
A U.S. DEA agent is wounded by Bolivian drug traffickers in an ambush, described as the most serious confrontation between drug traffickers and Bolivian police and DEA officials in three years.
A group of leaders of Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party visits North Korea. . . . Communist rebels announce an end to a cease-fire in Manila and three northern Philippine provinces that were heavily damaged in a July earthquake.
The IMF and the World Bank discuss ways to help nations most severely affected by the Persian Gulf crisis. . . . The UN Security Council votes to extend its land and sea blockade of Iraq to include an embargo on air traffic.
The ruling Bulgarian Socialist Party reelects Alexander Lilov as its chairman after much debate.
Syrian president Assad and Iranian president Rafsanjani conclude their talks with “full agreement” on opposing Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait as well as the buildup of U.S.-led foreign forces in the Persian Gulf. . . . The Israeli Supreme Court approves the bulldozing of 30 Arab buildings around the site of the attack.
Canadian prime minister Mulroney sets forth his government’s agenda for dealing with Indian issues.
Eleven people are killed when a bus carrying them to New South Wales, Australia, from the mountains of the Gold Coast plunges 30 meters over a cliff. . . . In India, violence over job quotas peaks when at least 22 people are killed as stone-throwing students battle police throughout the north.
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Includes developments that affect more than one world region, international organizations, and important meetings of major world leaders.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.
September 20–25, 1990—101
U.S. Politics & Social Issues
U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense
Attorneys general in Alabama and Illinois file suit to stop a deceptive Republican fund-raising tactic. . . . The NAACP contends that Supreme Court nominee David Souter “failed to articulate that level of concern for fairness, equality and justice for all citizens that should be present in any individual taking a seat on the court.” The Alliance for Justice also urges the Senate to reject the nomination.
U.S. Economy & Environment
Science, Technology, & Nature
Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle
The Federal Reserve ends a longtime ban on trading in securities by commercial banks by allowing J. P. Morgan & Co. Inc. to establish a division to underwrite corporate stocks.
NASA removes Columbia from the launch schedule entirely after a series of delays.
The Olympic Council of Asia bars Iraq from the Asian Games because of its invasion of Kuwait.
Philadelphia Mayor W. Wilson Goode (D), acting to forestall impending bankruptcy of the city, announces plans to freeze city hiring, to defer $90 million in pension payments, and to reschedule payment of a $25 million court settlement over real-estate transfer taxes. . . . The FDIC files a $200 million civil suit against Neil Bush and the other directors of Silverado Banking, Savings and Loan Association.
Two teams of scientists report a major step toward developing a therapy for cystic fibrosis. Researchers find that diseased cells can be “fixed” by replacing a defective part of the cell’s genetic material with doctored cells.
A California superior court judge awards temporary custody of a baby born to a surrogate mother to the baby’s genetic parents. The case is one of the first surrogacy lawsuits involving a baby who is not genetically related to the surrogate, who had been implanted with a fertilized egg. . . . John Anthony Danaher, 91, Republican senator from Connecticut, 1939–45, and U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals judge, 1954–69, dies in West Hartford, Connecticut.
Sept. 21
The 11th Asian Games, an Olympictype competition for athletes from Asia, open in Beijing.
U.S. District Judge E. B. Haltom imposes the maximum fine—$4.1 million—on the USX Corp. and gives jail terms to two union officials for violating federal labor law in connection with a 1983 labor contract. According to the U.S. State Department, more than 1,900 Americans and their families were evacuated from Iraq and Kuwait during “freedom flights” that started Sept. 7. . . . Pres. F. W. de Klerk meets with Bush in the first visit to the U.S. by a South African head of state in 45 years. . . .Pres. Alfredo Cristiani seeks to persuade Congress to continue providing El Salvador with military aid. He also announces a plan to create a panel of U.S. judges to evaluate the Jesuits’ murder case. Pres. Bush signs into law a $1.6 billion bill designed to improve vocational education classes at high schools across the U.S . . . . A federal district judge in Sacramento, California, strikes down limits on campaign contributions that were approved by voters in 1988.
Sept. 22
Sept. 23
The Senate votes, 94-1, to prohibit employers from discriminating against older workers in providing pensions and disability payments.
The Senate fails by three votes to cut off debate on a bill that would tighten the fuel-economy rules for cars. . . . The Senate votes, 98-0, to ratify two 1970s treaties that limit underground nuclear explosions to 150 kilotons or less. . . . The price of crude oil on the New York Mercantile Exchange reaches $38.67 a barrel, more than double its price in July.
Sept. 20
The Senate approves a measure that requires TV broadcasters to cut back on the amount of advertising shown during programming aimed at children. It is a reconciliation of measures passed by the House and Senate in July.
Radar images of Venus taken by the robotic U.S. spacecraft Magellan reveal a surprisingly active planet with traces of volcanoes, craters, and a strange crisscross pattern of intersecting fracture lines. Some of the craters are the deepest ever detected in the solar system—twice as deep as the Grand Canyon.
Sept. 24
Sept. 25
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Includes elections, federal-state relations, civil rights and liberties, crime, the judiciary, education, health care, poverty, urban affairs, and population.
Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)
Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.
Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.
Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.
102—September 26–30, 1990
Sept. 26
Sept. 27
World Affairs
Europe
The World Bank releases a list of the 10 nations that it predicts will be most seriously affected by the Persian Gulf crisis: Egypt, Jordan, Turkey, Morocco, Pakistan, the Sudan, Bangladesh, India, the Philippines, and Sri Lanka.
Alberto Moravia (born Alberto Pincherle), 82, Italy’s best known and most widely read contemporary author, dies of a heart attack in Rome.
The attendance of the first official Soviet delegation at meetings coincides with new pledges of technical assistance from the IMF and the World Bank. . . . The European Community pledges 20 million European currency units ($26.2 million) to help clean up East Germany’s environmental problems.
The Polish government begins to transform six state-owned enterprises into joint stock companies, taking the first step in its privatization program. . . . The Social Democratic parties of East Germany and West Germany merge at a conference in West Berlin.
Sept. 28
Sept. 29
Sept. 30
Seventy-one world leaders attend the first World Summit for Children at the UN General Assembly in NYC. . . . Reports confirm the World Bank approved new loans to China, reversing an earlier policy that resisted loans to China because of its 1989 repression of the prodemocracy movement. . . . The foreign ministers of the four victorious World War II Allied powers formally suspend their remaining rights over the two Germanies.
Africa & the Middle East
The Americas
Asia & the Pacific
In Nicaragua, 2,000 school teachers stage a one-day strike and attempt to march on the National Assembly while legislators debate a proposed law that would replace school directors. . . . The last of the Mohawk Indians engaged in an 11-week standoff behind barricades near Oka, Quebec, surrenders. . . . A 72hour strike in the Dominican Republic starts and gains an unexpected level of support.
The Sri Lankan government announces that it will abandon a key fort in Jaffna because the extreme difficulty of defending the fort outweighs its limited strategic value. . . . Indian prime minister Vishwanath Pratap Singh asks students to stop their protests over job quotas and meet with him face to face.
Ahmed Ben Bella, Algeria’s first president, returns to the country after 10 years in exile in France and Switzerland.
During the strike in the Dominican Republic, violent incidents occur, in which at least one person dies. Several people are injured and at least 300 arrests are reported. . . . Reports suggest that Canadian prime minister Brian Mulroney is employing an obscure constitutional provision that has never before been used, in an effort to pack the Senate with members of his Progressive Conservative Party to ensure passage of the government’s unpopular goods-and-services tax plan.
Indian student leaders dismiss P.M. Singh’s Sept. 26 proposal, vowing that they will not agree to talks until the job plan is abandoned.
The Slovene parliament asserts the primacy of Slovenia’s laws over federal laws and Slovenian control of the territorial defense forces in the republic. . . . The Serbian parliament legalizes multiparty elections. It also strips the Kosovo region of its status as an autonomous province of Serbia, in effect completing its annexation of Kosovo. . . . The Kazakhstan government urges the Kremlin to declare an ecological disaster zone around Ust-Kamenogorsk after an explosion on Sept. 12.
In Liberia, a cease-fire collapses when Prince Yormie Johnson’s forces attack the presidential palace, trapping up to 1,000 Doe loyalists. . . . In Lebanon, Pres. Elias Hrawi’s government imposes a siege on the territory controlled by Gen. Michel Aoun, which is about one-third of the 300-square-mile Christian enclave.
The government vows to lower utility bills for poor Nicaraguans and distribute food in a bid to head off nationwide protests threatened by Sandinista unions. . . . The leader of the Mohawks during the protest that started July 11, Loran Thompson, apparently escaped during the confusion that surrounded the Mohawks’ surrender, and a warrant is issued for his arrest in Canada.
Three military officers and 13 other Philippine soldiers are convicted for the 1983 murder of opposition leader Benigno S. Aquino Jr. and sentenced to life in prison. . . . Leaders of Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party and North Korean officials sign an agreement to take steps to normalize relations between the two countries
Croatian paramilitary riot police institute house-to-house searches for illegal weapons in the predominantly Serb towns in the republic. There are clashes in several areas, and more than 200 Serbs are arrested.
Lebanese president Hrawi travels to Syria and meets with Pres. Hafez alAssad, apparently to request help in confronting Gen. Aoun. . . . A spokesman for Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Shamir announces that direct flights between the USSR and Israel will begin in October.
U.S. secretary of state Baker meets with Vietnamese Foreign Minister Nguyen Co Thach in the highestlevel meeting between the two nations since the Vietnam War.
Azerbaijan multiparty local elections are held for the first time since a military crackdown in January. . . . Tens of thousands of people in the Ukraine demand independence from the USSR, demonstrate against the Communist Party and denounce the union treaty proposed by Pres. Mikhail Gorbachev. . . . A group in Knin, the center of the Serb autonomy movement in Croatia, form the Serbian National Council, a self-proclaimed parliament. Serb nationalists erect barricades to keep Croatian police out of Knin.
A rebel army of refugee tribesmen invade the tiny central African country of Rwanda from Uganda in a bid to topple its government. . . . In Liberia, Prince Johnson declares all-out war on the remnants of Samuel Doe’s army and Charles Taylor’s forces.
The Soviet Union and South Korea establish full diplomatic relations.
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Includes developments that affect more than one world region, international organizations, and important meetings of major world leaders.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.
September 26–30, 1990—103
U.S. Politics & Social Issues
U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense
U.S. Economy & Environment
Science, Technology, & Nature
Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle
In its annual report on household income in the U.S., the Census Bureau reports that the median family income rose in 1989, while the poverty rate declined slightly. The bureau notes that the gap between rich and poor Americans widened over the past 20 years.
Secretary of State James Baker confirms that Iraq asked diplomats at the U.S. embassy in Baghdad to name the nondiplomats who took refuge at the embassy. He states that Iraq threatened to execute diplomats if they continue to harbor refugees. . . . Iraqi president Saddam Hussein’s reply to a Bush speech aired on Iraqi television, a 75minute speech, in Arabic with English subtitles, is shown in full only by CNN at 1:00 A.M.
Pres. Bush announces that he authorized the release of 5 million barrels of oil from the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve as a “test” to see if the action would dampen surging oil prices.
An earthquake that hits southeastern Missouri registers 4.5 on the Richter scale, making it a relatively minor quake.
Jack Valenti, president of the Motion Picture Association of America, announces that the MPAA will eliminate its “X” rating for films and replace it with a rating called “NC-17,” meaning that no one under age 17 will be admitted.
A gunman with a history of psychiatric problems holds 33 people hostage at a hotel bar in Berkeley, Calif. The gunman, Mehrdad Dashti, shoots one student to death and wounds seven others. Police storm the bar and distract Dashti so the hostages escape. Dashti is shot and killed. . . . Public officials at the annual conference of the Congressional Black Caucus in Washington, D.C., charges that law enforcement officials are selectively targeting black politicians for investigation and prosecution. Rep. John Conyers Jr. (D, Mich.) promises that the House Government Operations Committee he chairs will investigate the reports made by the Black Congressional Caucus on Sept. 27.
The House passes legislation to compensate victims of radiation from open-air nuclear tests in the 1950s or from the mining of the uranium used in nuclear weapons. . . . FDIC Chairman L. William Seidman reports that the FDIC is likely to post losses exceeding $3 billion in 1990, about 50% more than estimated.
The four performance artists whose applications for grants from the NEA were rejected in June after being approved by the agency’s review panels file a lawsuit against the NEA in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles.
Rep. Les Aspin (D, Wis.), the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, reports that U.S. intelligence believes that Iraq has developed biological weapons and will be able to deploy them by early 1991.
Four Past Midnight by Stephen King tops the bestseller list.
Sept. 26
Sept. 27
Sept. 28
Sept. 29
The White House and congressional leaders of both parties present a five-year deficit-reduction plan. . . . At the end of fiscal 1990, the deficit is $220 billion.
Comiskey Park, home of the Chicago White Sox since July 1910, closes after the Sox’s final home game of the season, a 2-1 win over Seattle in front of a capacity crowd of 42,849 fans. . . . Patrick Victor Martindale White, 78, Australian novelist who won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1973, dies of unreported causes in Sydney, Australia.
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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)
Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.
Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.
Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.
Sept. 30
104—October 1–5, 1990
Oct. 1
Oct. 2
Oct. 3
World Affairs
Europe
U.S. president Bush addresses the opening session of the UN General Assembly by telling the gathering that he hopes for a diplomatic solution to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait.
Regional authorities in Kazakhstan ban nuclear blasts at the USSR’s underground testing range at Semipalatinsk. . . . The Supreme Soviet passes a landmark law guaranteeing religious freedom to all citizens. . . . Vuk Draskovic, the head of Serbian Renewal Movement, threatens to mobilize a volunteer armed force to aid Serbs in Croatia. The Serb minority in Croatia declares itself autonomous, citing the results of an unauthorized referendum in which 99% of voters backed self-rule. . . . The Yugoslav federal collective presidency opens a crisis meeting on escalating nationalist tensions and ethnic unrest. . . . French officials strongly deny speculations that France negotiated with Iraq over the Kuwait conflict. . . . Poland’s president, Gen. Wojciech Jaruzelski, signs into law a measure that names Nov. 25 as the date for the presidential election. . . . Ukrainian workers stage protest strikes in support of sovereignty.
At the UN General Assembly, Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister, Prince Saud al-Faisal Al Saud, urges Iraq to withdraw from Kuwait for the sake of Palestinians who claim a homeland in territory occupied by Israel. . . . French, British, and U.S. military commandants in West Berlin close the last meeting of the Allied Kommandatura headquarters in West Berlin. . . . The Council of Europe unanimously approves a membership application by Hungary, so it becomes the first Warsaw Pact nation to join a Western political organization.
Germany becomes a united nation for the first time since the end of World War II, 45 years ago. . . . U.S. secretary of state Baker and Soviet foreign minister Eduard Shevardnadze announce they reached agreement on the main points of a Conventional Forces in Europe treaty. . . . In Liberia, the ECOWAS force drives Taylor’s forces out of central Monrovia to the eastern suburbs. The operation is staged in cooperation with Doe loyalists and Johnson’s forces.
Oct. 4
Oct. 5
Iraq delivers a speech to the UN General Assembly in which it blasts the U.S. for sending troops to the Persian Gulf in reaction to Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait, and accuses the U.S. of seeking a new era of “Western imperialism” in the gulf region.
Africa & the Middle East
The Americas
Asia & the Pacific
Iraqi president Saddam Hussein orders the release of nine French citizens who were held as human shields at strategic sites to deter an armed attack. . . . After much debate in the government, Israel announces that it will distribute gas masks to the country’s entire civilian population because of Iraq’s threat to attack Israel with chemical weapons in the event of war. . . . In Lebanon, Gen. Aoun vows to resist the siege, and thousands of his supporters stage a protest against the blockade. Unknown gunmen open fire on the rally, killing at least 25 civilians and wounding more than 80. The government denies any affiliation with the gunmen.
The U.S and Chile sign an agreement establishing a joint council to monitor and expand commerce between the two nations. . . . Loran Thompson, the unofficial leader of Mohawk Warrior Indians in the standoff with the Canadian police and the army, turns himself in. . . . Cuban government officials announce that 38,000 of Cuba’s 50,000 troops have been removed from Angola in accord with a treaty negotiated in Dec. 1988.
The Indian Supreme Court orders the government to delay implementation of a controversial plan to reserve an additional 27% of civilservice jobs for low-caste Hindus.
The Kremlin opens preliminary talks with the leadership of Lithuania in preparation for full-scale formal discussions on independence. . . . In the Ukraine, thousands of students, frustrated by Parliament’s inaction, erect a tent city in Kiev during proindependence demonstrations.
U.S. secretary of state James Baker claims that in exchange for $400 million in loan guarantees for Soviet immigrant housing, Israeli foreign minister David Levy confirmed in a letter that “it is the policy of Israel that immigrants will not be settled beyond the green line,” Israel’s boundaries before the 1967 war. . . . Uganda issues a statement that denies any affiliation with the group of rebel refugees that attacked Rwanda.
In Nicaragua, the National Workers’ Front agree to join a national dialogue with the government and business that started Sept 20. Separately, 200 rebels seize the northern town of Waslala following weeks of unrest. Ten people are killed. . . . Carlos Nu~ nez Tellez, 39, one of the leaders of the Sandinista revolution that overthrew dictator Anastasio Somoza Debayle in 1979, dies of heart failure in Havana, Cuba.
A judicial hearing against ousted Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto is postponed after thousands of her supporters storm the courtroom. . . . In Japan, rioting begins after a man is arrested and reports suggest that a policeman accepted bribes from gangsters. . . . The Japanese stock market soars 13.2%, breaking a year-long slump. . . . At least 132 people are killed and 50 injured when a hijacked Chinese passenger jet crashes into two planes while attempting to land at Baiyun Airport. The crash is one of the worst aviation disasters ever to occur in China.
On the first day of German unity, authorities arrest Werner Grossmann, the last chief of counterespionage in Stasi. . . . At Berlin’s unification celebration, violence breaks out when 9,000 opponents of unity including anarchists known as Autonome, break windows, burn cars, and clash with riot police. Police arrest 246 people.
Iraqi president Saddam Hussein makes his first known visit to Kuwait since the invasion. . . . French president François Mitterrand becomes the first Western leader to visit the Persian Gulf since Aug. 2 when he meets with Sheik Zayid bin Sultan Al Nuhayyan, the president of UAE.
Colombian president Cesar Gaviria Trujillo convenes a meeting of the National Security Council to coordinate action “to neutralize the worrying increase in kidnappings in the country and especially in the metropolitan area of Medellin.”
China and Singapore establish diplomatic relations for the first time.
Federal military police seize the headquarters of Slovenia’s territorial militia in the republic’s capital, Ljubljana. The building apparently had been vacated prior to the takeover, but Slovenia nevertheless complains to the federal government. . . . Marshal Sergei F. Akhromeyev, an adviser to Soviet president Gorbachev and former military chief of staff, predicts that the Warsaw Pact will disband as a military alliance in 1991.
French president Mitterrand meets with King Fahd of Saudi Arabia. . . . France announces it will send to Rwanda 150 Foreign Legion paratroopers to protect its embassy and 670 nationals. Belgium states it will send 500 paratroopers and military equipment to Rwanda to protect over 1,600 Belgian citizens there.
Reports indicate that three legal challenges to Canadian prime minister Brian Mulroney’s creation of eight new Senate seats have been filed in court.
In Afghanistan, rebels capture Tarin Kot, the capital of Uruzgan Province. . . . In the Philippines, 200 rebel soldiers capture a military outpost at Butuan, 480 miles south of Manila. Another 300 rebels capture a base at Cagayan de Oro, 65 miles southwest of Butuan. The seizures are effected without combat, and no one is reported killed.
The new all-German Bundestag, meeting in Bonn, sets new elections rules for the December general elections. . . . Great Britain announces that it will join the exchange rate mechanism of the European Community’s European Monetary System.
In Rwanda, fighting breaks out briefly in Kigali after rebels infiltrate the capital. . . . Separately, France sends another 150 soldiers to Rwanda. . . . Zaire, acting under a mutual defense treaty, also sends 500 troops to Kigali.
The New York Times reports that the Guatemalan army detained five soldiers for involvement in the killing of an American civilian, Michael DeVine. . . . The New York Times discloses that the Brazilian government in early September uncovered a 15-year-old secret military project to develop an atom bomb. Science and Technology Minister José Goldemberg states that Pres. Fernando Collor de Mello ordered the project halted.
Philippine air force jets force the rebels out of the Butuan base with a series of bombing runs. One pilot is killed in a crash. . . . Riots continue in Osaka, Japan, even after an earlier arrest of two gangsters and the dismissal of the police officer for bribery.
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Includes developments that affect more than one world region, international organizations, and important meetings of major world leaders.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.
October 1–5, 1990—105
U.S. Politics & Social Issues
U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense
U.S. Economy & Environment
The Supreme Court opens its new term with eight justices. . . . The U.S. Department of Education announces that an investigation conducted by its Office of Civil Rights found that UCLA discriminated against Asian Americans in admissions in its graduate mathematics program. Another 75 departments at UCLA were cleared of discrimination charges, however. . . . The House gives final congressional approval to a bill that requires all television sets sold in the U.S. after July 1, 1993 to contain a microchip to decode closed-caption signals for the hearing-impaired.
The House approves, 380-29, a joint resolution that supports the actions “taken by the president with respect to the Iraqi aggression in Kuwait.” . . . Gen. Curtis Emerson LeMay, 83, U.S. Air Force chief of staff, 1961–65 who directed the U.S. bombing of Japan during World War II, dies of a heart attack at March Air Force Base in California.
Pres. Bush signs a stopgap spending bill that expires at midnight Oct. 5 to keep the government running until a new budget is put in place. . . . The Education Department chooses the Student Loan Marketing Association (Sallie Mae) to take over the $8.8 billion student loan portfolio of the failing Higher Education Assistance Foundation.
The Senate confirms Pres. Bush’s appointment of David H. Souter to the Supreme Court by a vote of 90-9.
The Senate approves, 96-3, a resolution that supports action “to deter Iraqi aggression and to protect American lives and vital interests.”
The Committee for the Study of the American Electorate reports only 19% of those eligible to vote cast a ballot in a state primary in 1990.
Science, Technology, & Nature
Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle A female journalist is barred from the locker room of the Cincinnati Bengals after the Sept. 17 incident with the New England Patriots. The decision to ban a female reporter instead of disciplining and educating team members about sexual harassment is met with outcries. . . . The House clears a conference committee’s reconciliation of legislation regarding the reduction of advertising and children’s programming passed by the Senate Sept. 24.
Oct. 1
Oct. 2
Alan Greenspan, chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, states at a congressional hearing that budget negotiators have “crafted what appears to be a credible, enforceable reduction in the budget deficit stretching over a number of years.”
The Journal of the American Medical Association finds that asthma deaths rose markedly among young Americans between 1978 and 1987, taking the worst toll among children ages five to 14.
The USA Basketball Council approves the inclusion of professional players in the U.S. men’s team at the 1992 Olympics.
The State Department announces it has withdrawn the nomination of Frederick Vreeland as ambassador to Myanmar since the Myanmar government decided it would not accept Vreeland due to statements he made that were critical of the regime.
Oct. 3
Oct. 4
A five-year deficit-reduction plan is rejected by the House, 254-179, causing much debate and resentment. . . . Another stopgap measure to continue funds to the government is passed by the House and the Senate. . . . Pres. Bush vetoes legislation that restricts textile, apparel and shoe imports.
Cincinnati’s Contemporary Arts Center and its director, Dennis Barrie, are acquitted of obscenity charges involving an exhibit of photographs by the late artist Robert Mapplethorpe. The trial is the first in the U.S. in which a museum and its director faced criminal charges over a display of artwork.
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Includes elections, federal-state relations, civil rights and liberties, crime, the judiciary, education, health care, poverty, urban affairs, and population.
Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)
Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.
Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.
Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.
Oct. 5
106—October 6–11, 1990
World Affairs
Oct. 6
Oct. 7
Oct. 8
Oct. 9
The U.S. asks the UN Security Council to approve a U.S.-drafted resolution condemning Israel for the Oct. 8 killings in Jerusalem. The extremely rare U.S. move against its ally is prompted by fear that it might lose the support of Arab countries in the U.S.-led international consensus against Iraq.
Oct. 10
Oct. 11
The IMF agrees in principle to grant a $2.016 billion standby loan to Brazil.
Africa & the Middle East
The Americas
Asia & the Pacific
Former members of the interior ministry, which ran Poland’s security services, are arrested on corruption and murder charges. The suspects served under the Communist regimes from the 1960s through the 1980s. . . . More than 500 teenagers, many of them of North African origin, riot in Vaulxen-Velin, a Lyon suburb because of treatment by French police.
Pres. Mobutu Sese Seko pledges to institute “a full multiparty system” in Zaire. . . . Belgium and France take up positions around the airport in Rwanda to guard their evacuation of hundreds of foreign citizens.
Juan José Arévalo Bermejo, 86, president of Guatemala, 1945–51, whose civilian government is regarded as a bright spot in the country’s modern history of military dictatorships, dies of unreported causes in Guatemala City.
The leader of dissident soldiers in the Philippines surrenders to police after his men occupied two army outposts for 48 hours. After Col. Alexander Noble’s surrender, Philippine authorities round up rebels and arrest more than 150. . . . In Osaka, Japan, reports confirm that more than 2,500 police have been called in to face rioters numbering about 1,500.
The Sunday Times of London reports that Leningrad is a center of organized crime in the USSR. . . . The Socialist Party of Chancellor Franz Vranitzky polls the most votes in the Austrian general elections. The right-wing Freedom Party makes significant gains at the expense of the traditional conservative group. . . . Vasil Mohorita, the first secretary of the Czechoslovak Communist Party, calls for workers to resist the impending privatization of state enterprises.
The Washington Post reports that the UN and Jordanian relief agencies found that nearly 700,000 nonWestern refugees who had fled to Jordan have been evacuated to their home countries. . . . Sheik Rashid bin Said al Maktum, 76, cofounder and vice president of the United Arab Emirates and ruler of the sheikdom of Dubai, dies in Dubai after suffering a series of strokes in recent years.
In its first international treaty since unification, Germany agrees with Czechoslovakia to clean up pollution in the Elbe River. . . . The West German parliament completes ratification of the so-called two-plus-four treaty on German sovereignty. . . . More former members of the interior ministry, which ran Poland’s security services under the communist regime, are arrested, bringing the total up to nine.
Israeli police open fire on stonethrowing Palestinian protesters on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem’s Old City, killing at least 19 Arabs and wounding more than 100 others. The incident causes great uproar. . . . In Rwanda, the government declares a state of emergency while fierce fighting reportedly continues in the northeast part of the country. . . . Zaire’s news agency reports that its troops fought a twohour battle with the rebels near the town of Gabiro in Rwanda.
South Korean president Roh Tae Woo fires two senior officials after evidence of widespread domestic spying by the military is revealed. Kim Dae Jung, the leader of the South Korean political opposition, begins a hunger strike in response to the evidence. . . . Pakistan president Ghulam Ishaq Khan assures Bush that Pakistan’s nuclear program is strictly for creating energy. . . . The Australian cabinet decides to permit logging in 40% of the forest region of southeast New South Wales.
British security forces claim that they killed Desmond Grew, reputed to be one of the IRA’s most dangerous killers, during a raid. They say IRA member Martin McCaughey was also killed, and three other people were arrested. . . . The Supreme Soviet passes a law that places all political parties on an equal legal footing with the Communist Party. . . . Austrian president Kurt Waldheim asks Franz Vranitzky to form a new government.
Iraqi president Saddam Hussein, responding to the Oct. 8 killings in Jerusalem, repeats his prior threats to attack Israel to defend Iraq and the Palestinian cause. . . . Israel is strongly criticized by anti-Iraqi Arab countries, such as Egypt, Syria, and Saudi Arabia. Anti-Israel protests are staged in Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon and Jordan. . . . There are scattered clashes along with funerals in east Jerusalem, in Arab communities in Israel and in the territories.
Forty-seven people are killed in India when one car of a moving train is set afire by terrorists protesting an injunction against a proposed government affirmative-action plan. . . . P.M. D. B. Wijetunge announces that Sri Lankan banking laws will be amended to allow secret numbered bank accounts for foreigners.
In the Ukraine, about 100,000 people take part in a week of street and campus protests in Kiev to support the tent-city residents and the 200 students who are on hunger strikes.
In response to the international outcry, P.M. Yitzhak Shamir appoints a commission to investigate the Oct. 8 Jerusalem clash. . . . About 360 people, mostly U.S. men of Arab descent, are allowed to leave Kuwait. . . . In Rwanda, reports show that more than 1,500 suspected rebel sympathizers have been arrested. Tutsi refugees flee into Uganda and claim that Rwandan soldiers shot and killed hundreds while civilians armed with spears and machetes cut down women and children as they tried to escape.
A rash of antigovernment protests in Bangladesh begins.
Former British prime minister Edward Heath plans to travel to Iraq in an attempt to win the release of sick British hostages held there since Aug. . . . The Soviet coast guard announces the seizure of a Greenpeace ship protesting the planned nuclear tests at Novaya Zemlya. . . . Thousands of workers stage an anticommunist rally in Prague.
The Rwandan government denies massacre claims and states all those killed were rebels. . . . Reports indicate that Lebanese president Hrawi officially asked for Syrian military intervention to end Gen. Michel Aoun’s rebellion.
In Afghanistan, rebels led by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, an Islamic fundamentalist, begin a two-pronged attack on Kabul. . . . The Australian federal cabinet agrees to set standards to lower emissions of gases that contribute to the greenhouse effect. . . . North Korea releases two Japanese sailors who were arrested as spies in 1983.
Europe
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Includes developments that affect more than one world region, international organizations, and important meetings of major world leaders.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.
October 6–11, 1990—107
U.S. Politics & Social Issues
U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense
U.S. Economy & Environment
Science, Technology, & Nature
Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle
Pres. Bush vetoes the stopgap measure passed by the Senate and House Oct.5 because “it disciplines the United States Congress,” which, he claims, repeatedly evade budget decisions by passing interim spending authority. A shutdown of federal operations begins immediately, but it does not affect most departments since it is Saturday.
The space shuttle Discovery is launched from Cape Canaveral to begin a four-day mission to deploy the Ulysses spacecraft for a surveying project to the Sun’s polar regions.
The Collingswood Magpies win the Australian rules football championship, its first title since 1958.
The Justice Department reports that the number of inmates in state and federal prisons across the U.S. reached a record high of 755,425 in the first half of 1990, an increase of 6% since the end of 1989. . . . Scott Milne Matheson, 61, Democratic governor of Utah, 1977–85, dies of bone marrow cancer in Salt Lake City, Utah.
The United Auto Workers and Ford Motor Co. reach a tentative agreement on a new three-year labor contract covering 100,000 workers.
Two papers published in the science magazine Priroda (Nature) are reported in the West. They contradict the long-held Western belief that the Soviet Union developed a deliverable hydrogen bomb in 1953. The study contends that the USSR did not achieve a deliverable Hbomb until 1955.
David H. Souter is sworn in as the nation’s 105th Supreme Court justice.
Coerced by the shutdown of the government, the House passes a new budget resolution which has the same goals as the first agreement but leaves the details, particularly on the contentious subject of taxation, to congressional committees to fill in. New stopgap legislation passes as well.
The 1990 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine Prize is awarded to two American doctors, Joseph E. Murray and E. Donnall Thomas, for their pioneering work in organ and cell transplants.
At the Supreme Court building, David Souter takes the judicial oath, administered by Chief Justice William Rehnquist, and assumes his seat at the end of the bench.
Four Annapolis studies are made public that conclude sexist perceptions at military academies lead to sexual harassment and cruel pranks by male cadets. The panels recommend that instruction on discipline and the limits of acceptable behavior be bolstered at the academy. . . . Richard W. Miller, a 20-year veteran of the FBI, is convicted of espionage in his dealings with Soviet agent Svetlana Ogorodnikova. Miller is the only FBI agent ever convicted of spying.
The House approves a Health and Human Services Department reauthorization bill that includes authorization for the largest expansion of the Head Start program since it was created 25 years earlier.
Leaders of American Jewish groups condemn the U.S. move to criticize Israel at the UN as “harsh and hypocritical.”. . . The House of Representatives approves a bill calling for a referendum in Puerto Rico in 1990 to decide on the political future of the island. . . . The U.S. freezes economic and military aid to Pakistan because it suspects Pakistan is developing nuclear weapons.
Oct. 6
Oct. 7
Oct. 8
The Senate adopts the budget resolution passed by the House on Oct. 8. It also approves the new stopgap legislation. Bush signs the stopgap, extending federal borrowing and spending power until Oct. 19.
Oct. 9
Discovery touches down at Edwards Air Force Base in California after successfully deploying the Ulysses spacecraft.
The University of Miami accepts an invitation to become the 10th member of the Big East Conference.
The New England Journal of Medicine reports that drinking caffeinated coffee does not appear to increase the risk of heart disease or stroke among men.
The Swedish Academy of Letters awards the Nobel Prize in Literature to Octavio Paz, a Mexican poet, novelist, and essayist. He is the first Mexican writer to win the Nobel literature award.
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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)
Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.
Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.
Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.
Oct. 10
Oct. 11
108—October 12–17, 1990
Oct. 12
Oct. 13
Oct. 14
Oct. 15
Europe
The UN adopts a U.S.-backed resolution that criticizes Israel for the killing of 21 Palestinians during an October 8 riot in Jerusalem and calls for an investigation.
German interior minister Wolfgang Schaeuble is shot and seriously wounded after a political meeting in southwest Germany. . . . In the first case of its kind in the Soviet Union, a Moscow judge sentences a leader of Pamyat, Konstantin SmirnovOstashvili, to two years in prison for inciting anti-Semitism.
The speaker of the Egyptian parliament, described as the second most powerful politician in Egypt, Refaat Mahgoub, is assassinated in Cairo by four men wielding machine guns. . . . As Gen. Michel Aoun addresses thousands of his supporters, a Shiite Muslim from southern Lebanon opens fire with a pistol. The shots wound an aide before the assailant is captured, beaten, and reportedly confesses to that he was sent by the Lebanese Communist Party.
The government of Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Shamir expresses its “anger and dismay” over the UN vote of Oct. 12. . . . Reports begin to surface that show the UN economic sanctions are starting to have an effect on Iraqi industry, and possibly even on its military forces.
Poland signs a draft agreement establishing diplomatic relations with the neighboring Soviet republic of the Ukraine. It is the first such agreement between a Soviet republic and a foreign nation.
Gen. Michel Aoun, the renegade Christian army commander who defied the Syrian-backed Lebanese government for more than two years, surrenders in the face of a Syrian-led military attack. He is granted asylum at the French embassy, where his presence sparks a diplomatic row between the Lebanese and French governments.
The Israeli cabinet votes unanimously to condemn the UN’s decision to send a delegation to investigate the Jerusalem killings as interference in Israel’s internal affairs, and vows not to cooperate with it.
Hungary’s ruling coalition, led by the Democratic Forum, makes a weak showing in local elections. . . . Voters in the five German states created out of the old East Germany go to the polls, and the Christian Democratic Union of Chancellor Helmut Kohl tops the voting in four of the five states, winning the overall vote by more than 15 percentage points.
The Norwegian Nobel Committee awards the Peace Prize to Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev for promoting greater openness in the Soviet Union, helping to end the cold war with the U.S., and allowing former Soviet satellite states in Eastern Europe to regain their independence. Gorbachev, 59, is the first communist head of state to win the peace prize. . . . U.S. negotiators at the General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs (GATT) Uruguay Round of multilateral trade negotiations offer concessions in the hope of meeting a Dec. 31 deadline for a farm trade agreement.
Reports emerge that ethnic Russians and Gagauz (Turkic-speaking Orthodox Christians) in Moldavia have formed their own unofficial republics and declared sovereignty.
French and Lebanese officials meet to ease tensions created when Gen. Aoun found asylum in the French embassy. . . . The Israeli cabinet approves the construction of new housing for immigrants in annexed East Jerusalem. . . . The New York Times reports that pro-Syrian Christian militiamen clashed with pro-Iranian Hezbollah gunmen in Lebanon.
Janez Drnovsek, Slovenia’s representative in the federal collective presidency, storms out of a meeting during a debate over a draft federation plan for the country. . . . U.S. defense secretary Dick Cheney makes his first visit to the USSR.
Jerusalem mayor Teddy Kollek, breaking with other Israeli officials, states he is willing to meet with the UN mission to investigate the Oct. 8 riot. “Not to do this doesn’t portray strength, it portrays weakness,” he explains.
The premier of the Ukraine, Vitaly A. Masol, tenders his resignation in response to nationalist protests in Kiev. Masol, 62, is believed to be first high-ranking Soviet official ever to step down as a direct result of public pressure.
Rwanda’s president Juvenal Habyarimana holds talks with Uganda president Yoweri Museveni and Pres. Ali Hassan Mwinyi of Tanzania in Tanzania.
Oct. 16
Oct. 17
Africa & the Middle East
World Affairs
The EC offers $7.7 million in emergency assistance for Romania’s 100,000 orphans.
The Americas
Asia & the Pacific
Le Duc Tho (born Phan Dinh Khai), 78, North Vietnamese Communist official who directed the final military offensive by North Vietnam in 1975 that brought the fall of the South Vietnamese government and the merger of the two nations under communist rule, dies of cancer in Hanoi.
In Nicaragua, former contras take over the Sandinista headquarters in Quilali. . . . The New York Times reports that 40 street children were killed in a 1990 crackdown by police in Guatemala.
In Pakistan, P.M. Benazir Bhutto’s ouster is upheld by a state court.
Three Australian environmental organizations react to the Oct. 8 decision on logging with a boycott. . . . The New York Times reports that a national census found the population of China is at 1.13 billion. . . . The Japanese cabinet approves a plan to send noncombat soldiers to the U.S.-led force in the Persian Gulf. Parliament begins debate on the plan, which, if implemented, will bring the first deployment of Japanese troops abroad since World War II. Leftist rebels of the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN) attack the army’s main air base at Ilopango on the outskirts of San Salvador. . . . Pres. Carlos Saúl Menem issues a decree severely limiting the right of Argentina’s workers in essential services to strike.
Reports indicate that Khmer Rouge and other Cambodian rebel forces are pillaging the ancient Angkor Wat ruins in northern Cambodia. . . . The premiers of North Korea and South Korea fail to reach any significant agreements at talks in Pyongyang.
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Includes developments that affect more than one world region, international organizations, and important meetings of major world leaders.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.
October 12–17, 1990—109
U.S. Politics & Social Issues
U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense
The Senate approves a measure to revise the Orphan Drug Act of 1983 so it requires drug manufacturers to share marketing rights with other companies that are developing the same drugs. . . . The Senate passes legislation to reauthorize a 1986 program that provides federal funding for childhood vaccines. . . . The Illinois Supreme Court upholds a lower-court decision barring a thirdparty slate of candidates from the November election ballot in Cook County.
Lawrence E. Walsh, the independent counsel prosecuting the Irancontra cases, announces that he is dropping his efforts to prosecute former CIA Costa Rica bureau chief Joseph F. Fernandez.
Congressional and White House negotiators reach a compromise on a package that includes a combination of direct grants and childcare tax credits, for child-care. The measure is the federal government’s first comprehensive childcare program since World War II.
U.S. officials estimate that Iraqi forces in the so-called southern theater rose to 430,000.
U.S. Economy & Environment
Science, Technology, & Nature
Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle
Oct. 12
The New York Times reports that after a Florida savings and loan became insolvent in 1988, the federal government repaid most of a loan taken out by a partnership that included Jeb Bush, Pres. Bush’s son.
A New York Times/CBS News poll finds that support for Pres. Bush’s handling of the Persian Gulf crisis dropped to 57% from an initial high of 75%
The House approves a measure that reauthorizes a 1986 program to provide federal funding for childhood vaccines. . . . William Edward Minshall, 79, Republican U.S. representative from Ohio, 1955–74, dies in Chevy Chase, Maryland.
Pres. Bush signs legislation to compensate victims of radiation from open-air nuclear tests in the 1950s or from the mining of the uranium used in nuclear weapons.
Pres. Bush signs the Older Workers Benefit Protection Act. . . . The Senate approves a new version of a major civil rights bill designed to modify or reverse recent Supreme Court rulings that make it more difficult to win job discrimination suits. . . . According to a Washington Post/ABC News poll, Pres. Bush’s approval rating has dropped to the lowest point of his administration.
The Swedish Academy of Sciences awards the Nobel Prize in Economics to three American economists—Harry M. Markowitz of Baruch College at the City University of New York, Merton H. Miller of the University of Chicago, and William F. Sharpe of Stanford University. . . . Pres. Bush signs two bills that increase the regulatory authority of the SEC. . . . A revision to the farm bill scraps a ban on the export of hazardous chemicals used as pesticides.
Peter MacDonald Sr., the suspended leader of the Navajo Nation, the U.S.’s largest Indian tribe, is convicted in Navajo Tribal Court in Window Rock, Arizona, of bribery, conspiracy and violating the tribe’s ethics laws. . . . The House gives final approval to a major civil rights bill designed to modify or reverse recent Supreme Court rulings that make it more difficult for women and minorities to win job-discrimination suits.
Douglas Edwards, 73, the first American television news anchorman, dies in Sarasota, Florida, of cancer.
Oct. 13
Leonard Bernstein, 72, one of the most talented conductors and composers in American musical history, dies of a heart attack in NYC.
Oct. 14
Oct. 15
A. S. (Antonia) Byatt wins the Booker Prize, Great Britain’s most prestigious literary award, for her novel Possession.
The first known entry of Africanized honeybees, or “killer bees,” into the U.S. is reported by the Agriculture Dept. . . . The Royal Swedish Academy awards the Nobel Prize in Chemistry to Elias James Corey for his work in synthesizing chemical compounds. The Nobel Prize in Physics goes to Richard Taylor, Jerome Friedman, and Henry Kendall for their work in the 1960s and 1970s that proved the existence of the quark.
Oct. 16
Oct. 17
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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)
Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.
Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.
Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.
110—October 18–22, 1990
Oct. 18
Oct. 19
Europe
A ministerial meeting of the Arab League, meeting in Tunis to condemn the Oct. 8 Temple Mount killings, accentuates the inter-Arab split caused by the Persian Gulf crisis when a PLO-drafted resolution condemning the U.S. as well as Israel is defeated, 11-10. . . . The UN General Assembly votes unanimously to send poll watchers to Haiti. It is the first time the UN agrees to verify an election at the invitation of a member state. . . . France asks UN secretary general Javier Perez de Cuellar to investigate reports that Syrian forces executed Michel Aoun loyalists after capturing them.
Premier Petre Roman presents to Parliament a legislation aimed at a Swift transformation of the Romanian economy into a market system. . . . The Conservative Party of British prime minister Margaret Thatcher is upset in a parliamentary by-election in Eastbourne, East Sussex. It is considered one of the severest defeats for Thatcher since 1979, since Conservatives held that seat for more than 80 years. . . . Students in the Ukraine greet Premier Vitaly A. Masoi’s resignation with jubilation, especially after hearing that Parliament promised to take action. They end the hunger strike and disband the tent city, but warn that protests will resume if parliament reneges on its promises.
Soldiers shoot and wound 35 Palestinians in fierce clashes in the Rafa refugee camp in the southern Gaza Strip. . . . The New York Times reports that at least 750 people died in the eight-hour battle in Lebanon Oct. 13. . . . Pres. F. W. de Klerk lifts the four-year-old state of emergency in Natal province, the last place in South Africa where it was still in effect. Both the ANC and Inkatha welcome the move, which meets a key condition for continued negotiations with the government. . . . Rwanda’s Pres. Juvenat Habyarimana meets with French president François Mitterrand and accepts a Belgian plan for neutral troops to monitor a cease-fire between his army and the rebels. Habyarimana also calls for the UN Security Council to meet on the crisis and states he will agree to open Rwanda’s borders to all refugees.
UN general secretary Perez de Cuellar tells the council that he will not send a delegation to Jerusalem unless he is assured of Israeli cooperation.
The Supreme Soviet of the USSR adopts a long-awaited plan to reform the nation’s economy. . . . Stipe Mesic, a Croat who is strongly anti-Serbian, is sworn in as the Yugoslav vice president. . . . A military court in Bucharest suspends for lack of evidence the trial of Gen. Iulian Vlad, the former head of the Securitate. Vlad was charged with complicity in the deaths of the more than 1,000 Romanians during the 1989 revolt. . . . Hungary’s State Property Agency opens all stateowned enterprises for privatization.
In the Khan Yunis camp, 10 Gazans are wounded during a violent protest. . . . Police in East Jerusalem use water cannons to disperse Muslims protesting being barred from prayer services at the Temple Mount’s Al Aksa mosque for the second straight week. . . . Koigi wa Wamwere, a former member of the Kenyan parliament and an opponent of Pres. Daniel arap Moi, returns to Kenya after exile in Norway and is charged with treason. . . . Canada announces that it is shutting its embassy in Kuwait.
Protests against the poll tax flare up again, and nine people are injured and 91 arrested during a violent demonstration in London. . . . Some 500 neo-Nazi demonstrators march in Dresden shouting racist slogans and making Nazi salutes. . . . More than 2,000 people attend the first congress of Democratic Russia, an umbrella group of fledgling political parties based in the Russian Federation.
Oct. 20
Oct. 21
Africa & the Middle East
World Affairs
Australia’s Foreign Affairs Minister Gareth Evans discloses that his country will back an UN Security Council resolution approving the use of military force against Iraq.
Oct. 22
Norwegian finance minister Arne Skauge announces that the value of the nation’s currency, the krone, will be linked to the EC’s European Monetary System.
Gunmen posing as Lebanese soldiers assassinate Dany Chamoun, head of one of the most prominent Maronite Christian clans and a firm backer of Gen. Michel Aoun. . . . Two Americans who were hiding in Kuwait are arrested and taken to Iraq as hostages. About 1,000 Americans are believed to be trapped or in hiding in Iraq and Kuwait, about 100 of whom are held as human shields. . . . In the worst of a series of attacks by Arabs seeking revenge for the Oct. 8 killings, a Palestinian laborer stabs three Israelis to death in West Jerusalem.
The Supreme Soviet stiffens penalties for “speculation,” or black-market activities. . . . Vasil Mohorita, the first secretary of the Czechoslovak Communist Party, is expelled from the upper house of the Federal Assembly after remarks made on Oct. 7. . . . The New York Times reports that homelessness, once rare in Hungary, is now a growing problem.
Iraqi president Saddam Hussein vows to free all French hostages for its pro-negotiations stance in the Persian Gulf crisis. . . . Paramilitary police are stationed in Jerusalem, and Arabs from the occupied territories are barred from the city. Still, a Palestinian stabs and wounds a Jewish man, two soldiers are wounded in knife and ax attacks, and troops shoot and kill a youth during a protest. . . . . Kenya breaks off diplomatic ties with Norway, accusing it of supporting writer and human-rights activist Koigi wa Wamwere.
The Americas
Asia & the Pacific
The U.S. and the Soviet Union urge the Salvadoran government and the FMLN to refrain from military activity and intensify peace negotiations in their first combined effort to end the civil war in El Salvador. . . . Former U.S. president Jimmy Carter announces that he wrote a letter to Pres. Vinicio Cerezo asking for an investigation into the kidnappings of two Guatemalan human rights workers, one of whom has already been found dead.
In Pakistan, P.M. Benazir Bhutto’s ouster is upheld in a second state court.
Gen. Efraín Ríos Montt is disqualified from the presidential race by Guatemala’s Court of Constitutionality. The court rules that Ríos Montt’s bid violates a constitutional ban on presidential office for anyone who previously come to power in a coup.
China and South Korea agree to open trade offices in each other’s capital cities. . . . Reports indicate that the South Korean government released a dissident churchman, Rev. Moon Ik Hwan, who was jailed after making an unauthorized trip to North Korea in 1989. . . . Kim Dae Jung, the leader of the South Korean political opposition, ends a 12-day hunger strike when government leaders appear willing to compromise on some of his demands. Malaysian prime minister Mahathir Mohamad is reelected to a third term in national elections.
Argentine authorities arrest a rebellious colonel, Mohamed Ali Seineldin, who warns of widespread discontent within the armed forces. . . . Canadian federal government officials apply for a court order in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, to halt construction on the nearly completed Rafferty Dam on the Souris River, pending completion of an environmental impact study.
In Myanmar, the monks who refused to minister to government soldiers or their families to protest the killing of two monks and two students by government troops at a protest march in August face a military raid at dozens of monasteries. At least 40 monks are detained by military police.
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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.
October 18–22, 1990—111
U.S. Politics & Social Issues
U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense
U.S. Economy & Environment
An Agriculture Department study concludes that the government’s Special Supplemental Food Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC) is highly effective in lowering Medicaid costs and raising birth weights of babies. . . . The Senate clears a Health and Human Services Department reauthorization bill that will result in the largest expansion of the Head Start program in 25 years earlier. . . . Pres. Bush signs a bill into law requiring television broadcasters to reduce the amount of advertising shown during programming aimed at children.
Pres. Bush signs the so-called twoplus-four treaty on German sovereignty. . . . Hungarian premier Jozsef Antall confers with Pres. Bush and other officials and receives aid. . . . U.S. Rep. Joe Moakley (D, Mass.) charges that U.S. officials withheld information from Salvadoran officials investigating the 1989 killings of six Jesuit priests, their housekeeper, and her daughter.
An emergency measure to continue federal spending authority through October 24 is passed in the Senate. . . . The Commerce Department reports the U.S. merchandise trade deficit rose in August to its highest level since January. . . . A federal district court judge lowers the bail set for Charles H. Keating Jr., the former owner of the failed Lincoln Savings and Loan Association, to $300,000 from $5 million.
The Navajo Nation Council votes to disqualify Peter MacDonald Sr. from running for tribal president in an upcoming election after he was convicted of bribery, conspiracy and violating the tribe’s ethics laws. . . . Congress clears a bill to prohibit trucks and rail cars from hauling garbage and other toxic materials on an outward journey and food and drink on the way back.
The Senate cuts an aid bill to El Salvador that will withhold half of the $85 million in military aid for 1991 unless the rebels refuse to negotiate to end the civil war or launch a major military offensive. All the aid will be lost if the Salvadoran government breaks off the peace talks and if it fails to investigate the case of six Jesuit priests allegedly murdered by army soldiers in November 1989. . . . The House passes a $8.36 billion appropriation for military construction in fiscal 1991.
An emergency measure to continue federal spending authority through October 24 is passed by the Senate, and Pres. Bush signs the extension. . . . The Senate approves a new budget package and sends it into conference with the House. . . . Both houses clear a $20.2 billion spending bill for energy and water projects for fiscal 1991.
In response to legislation that would offset recent Supreme Court decisions, making it difficult for minorities and women to win discrimination suits, Pres. Bush proposes an alternative bill that puts the burden on the individual to prove discrimination and allows more leeway for companies to defend their employment practices.
In the first organized nationwide protest against the U.S. intervention in the Persian Gulf, thousands of Americans stage antiwar marches in as many as 20 cities, including San Francisco; Washington, D.C.; Seattle; Atlanta; Boston; Cleveland; and Dallas. The biggest protest is in NYC with a crowd of 5,000 to 20,000.
Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D, Mass.), the prime sponsor of the congressional measure on civil rights rejected by Pres. Bush on Oct. 20, calls the new Bush proposal a “cynical attempt to appear to support civil rights while actually satisfying the anti-civil rights forces in his own party.” Many other civil rights activists decry the proposed plan as well.
Pres. Bush vetoes the Civil Rights Act of 1990. . . . Two leaders of a white supremacist group are found liable by a Portland, Oregon, jury for inciting the 1988 beating death of an Ethiopian immigrant. The Metzgers and their group are ordered to pay $12.5 million in punitive and compensatory damages. . . . A Superior Court judge in Santa Ana, California, awards permanent custody of a boy born to a surrogate mother to the child’s genetic parents.
Science, Technology, & Nature
Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle
Oct. 18
NASA scientist Arlin Krueger reports that the annual destruction of the ozone layer over the South Pole equals its historic maximum for the second straight year.
Oct. 19
The Cincinnati Reds stun the baseball world by beating the favored Oakland Athletics to win the World Series. . . . Three members of the black rap music group 2 Live Crew are acquitted of obscenity charges by a jury in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
During budget negotiations, the president’s aides—John Sununu, the White House chief of staff, Treasury Secretary Nicholas Brady, and budget director Richard Darman—walk out and accuse the Democrats of being unwilling to adjust to an accord.
Pres. Bush halts indefinitely the use of Kahoolawe, a barren Hawaiian island, as a Navy bombing range.
Oct. 20
Oct. 21
Federal regulators file civil charges against the chairman of Centrust Bank of Miami, a now-defunct savings and loan association, seeking $30.8 million in restitution. . . . The White House team resumes budget bargaining.
Oct. 22
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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)
Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.
Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.
Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.
112—October 23–27, 1990
World Affairs
Oct. 23
Oct. 24
The U.S. joins in a unanimous 15-0 UN Security Council vote to approve a resolution deploring Israel’s refusal to accept the UN fact-finding mission. . . . The foreign ministers of the six Balkan nations—Albania, Bulgaria, Greece, Romania, Turkey and Yugoslavia—hold a summit in Tirana, the capital of Albania.
Oct. 25
Oct. 26
Israeli officials express the hope that its commission’s report can be given to the UN by the U.S. to serve as a substitute for the proposed UN investigative mission. The U.S. State Department, though, stands by its position that the UN mission should proceed and receive the cooperation of the Israeli government.
Europe
Africa & the Middle East
The Americas
Asia & the Pacific
A 24-hour strike of legal workers paralyzes the French judicial system. . . . Edward Heath, the former British prime minister leaves Iraq with 33 released Britons, although he asked for 200 to be set free.
The Iraqi National Assembly approves the release of French hostages. . . . A car full of Gazan workers is fired on by Jewish civilians, killing one Palestinian and wounding two. A Gazan worker fractures the skulls of two Israelis with a hammer. An Arab stabs and wounds two unarmed female soldiers in Haifa, after which he is caught and severely beaten. In an effort to halt the attacks, Defense Minister Moshe Arens seals off the West Bank and the Gaza Strip and orders Palestinian day laborers in Israel to return home.
Pres. Alberto Fujimori announces a contraception program aimed at cutting Peru’s population growth by more than 50% by the year 2000. . . . Reports surface that an upsurge of kidnappings recently swept Colombia.
In Myanmar, at least 12 opposition officials are arrested, leaving all but three of the 16 members of the executive committee of the National League for Democracy in prison, even though the League won 80% of parliament’s seats in May. . . . Lal Krishna Advani, the Bharatiya Janata Party leader who campaigned for the construction of a temple in Ayodhya, a holy city, is arrested, precipitating the BJP party to withdraw from India’s coalition. . . . Japan announces a national plan to stabilize emissions of carbon dioxide by 2000.
The Supreme Soviet passes a law stating that, pending the completion of a new union treaty, no republic can claim primacy of its laws over national laws. In response, the Ukraine and the Russian Federation vote to defy that measure. . . . The IRA forces three men to drive car bombs to British security targets in Northern Ireland. Seven are killed, and 35 are injured. . . . The Soviets conduct their first underground nuclear test of 1990 in Novaya Zemlya. . . . The Yugoslav government reports a sharp economic downturn over the first nine months of 1990.
In Liberia, rebel leader Charles Taylor refuses to sign a proposal at peace talks held in the Gambian capital, Banjul.
The government of Panama files a $6.5 billion lawsuit against Manuel Noriega in a U.S. district court in Miami. The suit alleges that Noriega used Panamanian Defense Forces as a criminal enterprise that engaged in assassination, torture, diversion of government revenue, illegal sale of visas, and other abuses of official power.
The party of ousted prime minister Benazir Bhutto is decisively defeated by the nine-party Islamic Democratic Alliance (IDA) in Pakistani national elections. Bhutto charges that the government engaged in large-scale electoral fraud to prevent her from returning to power. . . . In India, at least 54 people are killed in clashes between Hindus and Muslims during a one-day nationwide strike called by the BJP. P.M. V. P. Singh asks for a vote of no-confidence to be held on Nov. 7. If Singh loses the vote, the government will fall and national elections will be held.
Czechoslovakia’s Slovak Republic passes a law that makes Slovak the official language of the republic. Until the law’s passage, the Czech and Slovak languages enjoyed equal status in both of Czechoslovakia’s republics. . . . The parliament of Kazakhstan adopts a sovereignty resolution.
Iraqi president Saddam Hussein orders the release of 700 Bulgarians who were prevented from leaving Iraq. . . . The government of Lebanese president Elias Hrawi announces that three of the main Muslim and Christian militias agreed to withdraw from “greater Beirut.” The government begins consolidating its control over Beirut by ordering and supervising the departure of sectarian militias from the capital.
Reports state that, in Mexico, Pres. Carlos Salinas has proposed legislation to limit the use of confessions in court and to require that all interrogations be carried out by lawyers from the attorney general’s office, not by federal police.
In India, riots continue and result in several more deaths. . . . A postgraduate student is convicted of masterminding the 1978 terrorist bombing of a Sydney hotel where the heads of government of members of the Commonwealth of Nations were staying.
Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev issues decrees aimed at stimulating investment, boosting exports, and encouraging citizens to save. . . . A member of the National Democratic Party, Giorgy Chanturia, is wounded by a gunman at a political gathering in Tbilisi, Georgia’s capital. . . . Pres. Gorbachev becomes the first Soviet leader to visit Spain. . . . In Hungary, hundreds of taxi and truck drivers start a blockade of traffic to protest a 65% increase in gas prices.
A commission to investigate the killing of Palestinians by police during the Oct. 8 riot in Jerusalem issues its report. Although the threeman panel criticizes senior police commanders for failing to anticipate the riot, their report mainly supports the Israeli government’s account of the incident when it blames the Palestinians for starting it, justifying police gunfire.
While visiting Spain, Soviet president Gorbachev signs 16 bilateral trade, industrial, and investment agreements. Gorbachev and Premier Felipe González, in a joint statement, condemn Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait and call for a new Mediterranean security conference to extend the East-West arms control process to Europe’s southern flank and reduce naval forces in the area.
Oct. 27
In Pakistan, the Islamic Democratic Alliance follows up its landslide victory in national elections with a decisive victory in provincial elections. . . . Jim Bolger is elected prime minister of New Zealand when his opposition National Party sweeps a landslide victory in national elections.
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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.
October 23–27, 1990—113
U.S. Politics & Social Issues
U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense
U.S. Economy & Environment
Science, Technology, & Nature
Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle
The House clears compromise legislation that reauthorizes and revises the Orphan Drug Act of 1983.
The navy’s two top officials separately order steps to improve the lot of women sailors and to curb sexual harassment and rape in the service.
The Senate clears a $20.9 billion fiscal 1991 spending bill for the Treasury Department that contains a major overhaul of the federal pay system. . . . The Senate Ethics Committee votes to hold public hearings on five senators linked to indicted savings-and-loan executive Charles H. Keating Jr.
A 14-year-old youth is found guilty in Family Court in NYC for setting fire to an 11-year-old boy. The case drew nationwide sympathy for the burned boy. . . . Rep. Donald (Buz) Lukens (R, Ohio) resigns from Congress under the threat of an investigation into charges of sexual harassment.
The House adopts bill that requires notification to Congress of covert actions by other countries on behalf of the U.S. Direct covert actions by the U.S. are already required to be reported to Congress. . . . Congressional leaders urge further investigations of the condition of women in the navy. . . . The U.S. Senate grants Czechoslovakia mostfavored-nation trading status, which makes Czechoslovakia the first Eastern European country to gain MFN status in the so-called post–cold war era.
Congressional leaders reach agreement on a $140 billion tax plan designed to reduce the federal deficit by $40 billion in the first year and by $500 billion over five years. . . . Another stopgap measure is approved. . . . Congress clears a $19.3 billion fiscal 1991 spending bill for the Departments of Commerce, Justice and State and the judiciary. . . . The House clears the $20.9 billion fiscal 1991 spending bill for the Treasury Department passed by the Senate Oct. 23. . . . Elizabeth Dole, the only woman in the cabinet, resigns as labor secretary to become president of the American Red Cross.
Congress clears legislation to tighten security procedures at major airports. . . . The House passes a bill to reauthorize the CPSC that the Senate approved on Oct. 22. . . . The Supreme Court overturns an Illinois judgment and orders a third-party slate of candidates on the ballot in Cook County.
The Senate passes a bill, adopted by the House Oct. 24, that requires notification to Congress of covert actions by other countries on behalf of the U.S.
The Senate assents to final passage of a bill appropriating $78 billion for housing, environmental, space, and veterans’ programs for fiscal 1991. . . . A strike begins at the New York Daily News, precipitated by a minor incident involving a union driver.
Three former Northwest Airlines pilots who were convicted of flying a passenger plane while drunk are sentenced to a year in prison and are ordered to serve three years’ “supervised release.” . . . Washington, D.C., mayor Marion Barry (D) is sentenced to six months in prison for his conviction on a misdemeanor cocaine possession charge. He is released on his own recognizance until the appeal process is complete.
The navy formally decommissions the battleship Iowa at the Norfolk Naval Base, 18 months after a gunturret explosion killed 47 Iowa crew members. . . . The Senate clears a $288.3 billion defense authorization for fiscal 1991. . . . Congress clears an export-controls reauthorization bill to ease curbs on the transfer of high technology to the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe and other areas.
The House passes the housing, environmental, space, and veterans’ bill that the Senate approved on Oct. 25. . . . A $182.2 billion fiscal 1991 spending bill is cleared for the Depts. of Labor, Health, and Human Services and Education. . . . Congress passes laws to restrict logging in Alaska. . . . Congress sends to Bush a housing reauthorization bill reversing a 10-year trend toward reduced spending on housing.
William S. Paley, 89, chairman of CBS, dies in NYC of a heart attack related to pneumonia. . . . The Plains of Passage by Jean M. Auel, is at the top of the bestsellers list.
Congress clears an anticrime bill without its most controversial provisions, such as ones that would restrict appeals by death-row inmates, ban certain semiautomatic weapons, and allow death-row prisoners to appeal their sentence on the basis of racial discrimination. . . . The Senate confirms David Kessler as commissioner of the FDA.
Congress passes a House-Senate conference report approving a $15.39 billion foreign aid appropriations bill for fiscal 1991. . . . Congress sends to the president the first comprehensive overhaul of the immigration system in 66 years.
A grueling fight over a deficit-reduction package, begun on May 15, ends when Congress adopts a fiveyear plan. . . . A bill appropriating $12.9 billion for the Transportation Department is cleared. . . . Both houses clear a bill providing $2.16 billion for the legislative branch, an 11% increase from fiscal 1990. . . . A bill appropriating $11.7 billion for fiscal 1991 operations of the Interior Dept. is cleared. . . . The Senate approves the 1990 Clean Air Act.
Congress approves legislation to reauthorize the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) for three years. The reauthorization does not include a controversial provision that would have barred the NEA from supporting “obscene” art.
Oct. 23
Oct. 24
In a major advance, doctors have succeeded in inducing pregnancy in a woman who has gone through menopause, according to the New England Journal of Medicine.
Oct. 25
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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.
Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.
Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.
Oct. 26
Oct. 27
114—October 28–November 2, 1990
Oct. 28
Oct. 29
World Affairs
Europe
Africa & the Middle East
Leaders of the EC agree not to conduct separate hostage negotiations with Iraq and express support to the creation of a central bank for the community in 1994. Only British prime minister Margaret Thatcher opposes the bank plan.
In Hungary, a traffic blockade ends when the government announces it will scale back the price increase of gasoline to 35%. . . . The Soviet interior ministry sends troops to Moldavia to prevent clashes between ethnic Moldavians and the Gagauz minority. . . . The Georgian Round Table, a coalition of noncommunist pro-independence parties, triumphs in legislative elections in the Transcaucasian republic. . . . Pres. Mikhail Gorbachev arrives in Paris and signs agreements dealing with economic, scientific, and social exchanges.
Egyptian officials reveal that four Muslim extremists, taken into custody after the shooting of Refaat Mahgoub, confessed to the crime. . . . Amid charges of electoral fraud, Pres. Felix Houphouet-Boigny wins a landslide victory in the Ivory Coast. . . . Israeli authorities reopen the border, but reports suggest thousands of Palestinians were fired by Jewish employers. . . . The Israeli cabinet endorses the findings of the Oct. 26 commission but does not discipline police commanders criticized in the report.
The UN Security Council passes a resolution that makes Iraq liable for damages, injuries, and financial losses resulting from its invasion and occupation of Kuwait. The Security Council’s Military Staff Committee meets at the highest level in UN history to discuss the enforcement of sanctions.
P.M. Jan Syse and her center-right coalition government collapses in a dispute over Norway’s links to the EC. . . . Presidents Gorbachev and Mitterrand sign a friendship and cooperation treaty that pledges their countries to “harmonize their positions” during international crises.
Oct. 30
Oct. 31
Nov. 1
UN secretary general Javier Perez de Cuellar proposes that the 164 signatory nations of the Geneva Convention on protecting civilians in wartime should meet to discuss measures to safeguard Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. . . . The world’s largest industrial countries agree to phase out the dumping of industrial waste at sea by the year 1995 at a meeting in London.
The Americas
Asia & the Pacific
In an interview, Iraqi president Saddam Hussein blames Israel, British prime minister Thatcher and U.S. president Bush for pushing the gulf crisis toward war. . . . Reports surface that 26 blacks were killed in a renewal of factional violence, 16 of them in Soweto, South Africa. . . . Libya expels 145 members of the PLF, a radical faction of the PLO, and closes four training bases used by the guerrilla group.
A three-month-old strike by steelworkers at Toronto-based Stelco Inc. is settled.
Wang Ruowang, a prominent elderly Chinese dissident, is released after 16 months of detention. Wang, an essayist, was held by Chinese authorities since the June 1989 crackdown on the prodemocracy movement.
More than 260 French hostages are flown out of Iraq and arrive in Paris. . . . Memorial, a prodemocracy group, dedicates a monument in Moscow to all Soviet victims of totalitarianism. . . . Workers drill a small hole through 100 meters of chalk marl to connect the two sections of a tunnel between Britain and France under the English Channel.
In Israel, a policeman is stabbed in East Jerusalem, and a security guard is stabbed in the West Bank city of Nablus by an assailant who is then shot to death. A Palestinian is slain by troops, and another is killed and two more injured when a bomb they were assembling in a vegetable market near Tel Aviv explodes. . . . France evacuates its diplomatic personnel from Kuwait. . . . Ten U.S. sailors are killed in a steam-pipe explosion aboard the amphibious assault ship Iwo Jima in the Persian Gulf.
Colombia’s Medellín cartel threatens to execute seven kidnapped journalists. . . . In Canada, Philip Fontaine, the leader of the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs, announces he was sexually abused as a child by a priest at the Catholic-run school at the Fort Alexander Indian reserve. . . . The chief architect of Nicaragua’s economic program, Francisco Mayorga, resigns as central bank chief. . . . Nestor Perl, the governor of the Argentine province of Chubut, resigns after he is found guilty of embezzlement and maladministration.
Thousands of Hindus storm and occupy a Muslim mosque in the Indian holy city of Ayodhya before they are driven out by police.
About 3,000 ethnic Moldavians attack Soviet checkpoints at the Romanian border during a demonstration to protest the presence of the interior-ministry forces in Moldavia. . . . The German Constitutional Court unanimously rules that only Germans can vote in elections in Germany, striking down laws in Hamburg and Schleswig-Holstein.
Reports confirm that the ruling party of Pres. Omar Bongo held on to power in Gabon’s first multiparty election. . . . In Lebanon, Amal chief Berri and Hezbollah leader Sheik Soubhi Toufaili agree to a cease-fire.
The Canadian government, in an unprecedented action, states that it instructed Canadian subsidiaries of U.S. companies not to comply with a new U.S. law that prohibits them from trading with Cuba as part of an export-control bill.
In India, at least six rioters are shot by police, and violence in protests claim another 50 lives. . . . A high court in Nagoya rules that Japanese doctors are not required to inform patients they have cancer, which carries a great social stigma. . . . P.M. Hawke and the leaders of Australia’s eight states and territories agree to a plan for significant governmental reform.
The parliament of the Russian Federation implements a 500-day radical economic-reform program. . . . Sir Geoffrey Howe resigns from the British government in protest of P.M. Thatcher’s continued opposition to greater integration of the EC. . . . The Ukraine becomes the first Soviet republic to issue a form of currency of its own. The move is the result of a secret vote in the republic’s parliament, and the currency is in the form of crudely printed coupons.
The Ethiopian government announces that all Ethiopian Jews are free to leave for Israel. . . . A convoy of emergency food and medicine approved by delegations from the Angolan and U.S. government sets out for central and southern Angola.
Canadian prime minister Brian Mulroney announces the creation of a national commission to discuss the political future of Canada in the wake of the failure of the Meech Lake accord.
Militiamen in Moldavia kill six people and wound 30 others during an ethnic clash near Dubossary. . . . In Romania, thousands of workers demonstrate against price hikes, and unions in state-owned industries demand higher wages. Protesters block traffic in Bucharest for four days. . . . Pres. Gorbachev issues a decree ordering Soviet enterprises to surrender to the government 40% of any hard-currency earnings. The levy is, in effect, a new business tax.
Nov. 2
Two Japanese police stations are bombed, and one officer is killed. Officials believe the attack stems from leftist radical groups opposed to ceremonies planned for Emperor Akihito’s enthronement.
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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.
October 28–November 2, 1990—115
U.S. Politics & Social Issues
U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense
U.S. Economy & Environment
The 101st Congress adjourns, 23 days past its scheduled conclusion. . . . Twenty-seven members of the Ku Klux Klan stage a march in Washington, D.C. Klan members, protected by more than 3,000 police officers, are jeered at and pelted with rocks by 1,200 protesters. Fourteen people are injured, and 40 are arrested.
Congress adjourns without passing a controversial reauthorization of the 1950 Defense Production Act. . . . Before closing, Congress clears an $8.36 billion appropriation for military construction in fiscal 1991.
In the rush to adjournment, Congress fails to act on several pending measures, including funding to carry the S&L bailout through the end of 1990, legislation to shut down financial institutions convicted of money laundering, compromised legislation to reform the system of financing political campaigns, and legislation requiring mandatory inspection of fish and shellfish.
The Supreme Court lets stand a New York court ruling that bars public utilities from including their charitable contributions among business expenses charged to customers. . . . William French Smith, 73, U.S. attorney general, 1981–85, dies of cancer in Los Angeles
Pres. Bush and Secretary of State James Baker rail against Iraq’s treatment of foreign hostages and, openly hinting at the possibility of war, warn that Washington’s patience is wearing thin.
The Federal Reserve honors its pledge to loosen monetary policy if Congress passes a deficit reduction agreement.
A former winery worker from Sonoma County, California, Ramon Salcido Bojorquez, is convicted of murdering seven people during a killing spree in April 1989.
Pres. Bush meets with a bipartisan group of congressional leaders who question why the administration is now making a major issue of U.S. hostages after it downplayed that aspect of the crisis. A number of them express concerns that Bush is seeking to create a pretext for attacking Iraq, while some Democrats suggest that the White House is trying to divert voter attention away from the budget debacle.
Chrysler Corp. and the United Auto Workers reach an accord on a new three-year contract in line with earlier agreements between the union and General Motors Corp. and Ford Motor Co. . . . Separately, Ford Motor Co. reports its lowest quarterly earnings since 1982.
The College Board announces that it approved a series of changes to the SAT that puts less emphasis on multiple-choice questions and more on students’ analytical skills. . . . A former chief of the FDA’s generic-drug division, Marvin Seife, is found guilty on two perjury counts in Baltimore, Maryland, for lying during an investigation of the FDA.
Pres. Bush proclaims, “The American flag is flying over the Kuwait embassy and our people inside are being starved by a brutal dictator. . . . And what am I going to do about it? Let’s just wait and see. Because I have had it with that kind of treatment of Americans, and I know others feel the same way.”
General Motors Corp. announces a record loss in the third quarter of 1990.
The Democratic Party charges that Republicans attempted to intimidate black voters in North Carolina and Texas.
The EPA grants a permit for the Energy Department to start a fiveyear experimental program to bury nuclear waste in a New Mexico salt cavern. The Energy Department still needs approval from Congress. . . . McDonald’s Corp. announces it will phase out its use of polystyrene plastic-foam containers after pressure from environmental groups. . . . Although the House failed to approve funding to carry the S&L bailout through 1990, politicians find a loophole in the 1989 thrift bailout law that frees up funds to compensate for the lost appropriation. The White House announces that Pres. Bush will spend Thanksgiving with U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia.
Science, Technology, & Nature
Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle
Oct. 28
The NEA confirms that it will no longer require grant recipients to pledge that they will not use NEA money to create “obscene” art. . . A defunct satellite NYC TV company pleads guilty to obscenity charges in Montgomery, Alabama.
Oct. 29
Oct. 30
Oct. 31
The National Transportation Safety Board places primary blame on United Airlines for a 1989 DC-10 crash in Sioux City, Iowa, in which 112 people died. . . . The New England Journal of Medicine reports that female athletes are not more likely to have irregular menstrual cycles than less-active women.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia rejects a proposed “one-step” licensing procedure for future atomic power plants, a measure initiated by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The court rules the measure would violate the Atomic Energy Act.
New York Shakespeare Festival producer Joseph Papp informs the NEA that he refuses to accept two grants totaling $323,000 in protest of the NEA’s consideration of “general standards of decency” when awarding grants.
Eliot Furness Porter, 88, U.S. photographer whose his work was exhibited at the MOMA and NYC reproduced on calendars for the Sierra Club, dies of cardiac arrest in Santa Fe, New Mexico. . . . Ivana Trump announces that she is filing for divorce from real-estate developer Donald Trump.
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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)
Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.
Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.
Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.
Nov. 1
Nov. 2
116—November 3–8, 1990
World Affairs
The Americas
Asia & the Pacific The new 217-seat Pakistani National Assembly is sworn in.
Moldavian lawmakers pass a resolution that calls for armed groups to disband, and they set up a “conciliation committee” to discuss grievances. Since Moldavia was once a Romanian region, demonstrators in Bucharest call for the “formation of volunteer units to protect Moldavian integrity.”. . . Thirteen radical Soviet economists, including advisers to Mikhail Gorbachev, assail the president’s compromise economicreform program.
Soldiers assault a crowd forming for a political opposition meeting in Zaire’s capital, Kinshasa. Dozens of people are wounded and hundreds are arrested.
In France, tens of thousands of students, including 30,000 in Paris, begin a week-long demonstration for increased educational funding and increased security. . . . Reports indicate that there were more bank robberies in October in Eastern Germany than in the entire 40 years of the German Democratic Republic. . . . Sir Humphrey Vicary Gibbs, 87, last British governor of Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), dies of complications from influenza in Harare, Zimbabwe.
In Damascus, Syria, Amal chief Berri and Hezbollah leader Sheik Soubhi Toufaili sign a peace agreement to resolve the conflict in Lebanon. . . . Former West German chancellor Willy Brandt visits Iraq with $4 million worth of baby food and medicine donated by German companies and assembled by the Social Democratic Party. Officials deny that the supplies are intended as ransom, stating they are humanitarian items exempt from the UN embargo.
Native leaders in the Canadian province of Manitoba urge the federal government to conduct an inquiry into church-run schools for Indians, in the wake of allegations made since Oct. 30 that native children were sexually abused by priests. . . . Haiti’s Electoral Council bars 10 candidates, including three figures tied to the fallen Duvalier family dictatorships, from running in the presidential election.
Environmental ministers from around the world convene at the Second World Climate Conference in Geneva and commit to “active and constructive steps in a global response” to the environmental problems.
Reports indicate 1 million Poles, or 7.5% of the national workforce, are unemployed. . . . Norway’s Gro Harlem Brundtland announces a new budget program aimed at creating 30,000 jobs.
A gunman wearing civilian clothes, in a car with Israeli license plates, drives past a village in the occupied West Bank and shoots to death two elderly Palestinians. . . . About 50 Saudi women from Westerneducated families in Riyadh stage an unprecedented “protest drive” against the ban on women drivers.
Citing constitutional restrictions, Haiti’s Electoral Council states that Pres. Leslie Manigat, who was elected president in a 1988 vote widely considered fraudulent, cannot be reelected until five years after his initial term. . . . The provincial panel to examine Quebec’s political future after the failure of the Meech Lake accord begins formal hearings in Quebec City.
More than 130 countries agree to begin drafting an international plan to combat global warming at the Second World Climate Conference in Geneva.
A gunman is subdued by plainclothes security agents after firing two shots near Soviet president Gorbachev during the 73d annual Revolution Day parade in Moscow. . . . The German cabinet sets a goal of reducing carbon dioxide emissions by more than 25% by the year 2005. . . . Gorbachev aide Grigory Revenko reveals that the new Soviet Union treaty will permit the Baltic states to leave the USSR if they so choose.
Former West German chancellor Willy Brandt meets with Saddam Hussein, after which the Iraqi president orders the release of 177 hostages. This begins a series of visits by renowned figures from various countries who leave Iraq with hostages.
Two days of bilateral negotiations over the future of U.S. military bases in the Philippines begin, and negotiators announce that all U.S. fighter planes will be removed from the Philippines during 1991. . . . In Pakistan, P.M. Nawaz Sharif lifts a two-month national state of emergency instituted after the dismissal of Benazir Bhutto.
In Moscow, police arrest Aleksandr Shmonov, a 38-year-old unemployed metal worker from Leningrad with purported ties to two radical organizations, on charges of attempted assassination for the Nov. 7 attack. . . . Greek environment minister Stephano Manos announces a plan to fight air pollution.
An Israeli soldier and an Arab gunman are killed in a clash in the occupied West Bank when five Arab guerrillas cross the border to avenge the Oct. 8 Temple Mount attack. . . . Reports state that South African police arrested five Zulus in connection with the Sept. 13 train massacre; four are in Inkatha. . . . Israeli defense minister Moshe Arens declares that Israel will not let the Lebanese government regain control of the self-declared security zone Israel established in southern Lebanon.
Pres. Ghulam Ishaq Khan vows that Pakistan will survive without U.S. aid. . . . P.M. Bob Hawke announces that the Australian telecommunications industry will be opened to unlimited competition by 1997.
Nov. 4
Nov. 5
Nov. 7
Africa & the Middle East
The Moldavian parliament declares a state of emergency in the eastern part of the republic and orders an investigation of the Nov. 2 incident. . . . In Bulgaria, hundreds of demonstrators stage an anti-Socialist rally in central Sofia. . . . Labor Party leader Gro Harlem Brundtland is sworn in as Norway’s premier, succeeding Jan Syse. . . . In Germany, violence between rival soccer fans in Leipzig ends in death when police trying to control fans shoot and kill an 18-year-old, Mike Polley.
Nov. 3
Nov. 6
Europe
Nov. 8
In Pakistan, Benazir Bhutto, who was elected to parliament but boycotted ceremonies, is sworn in. . . . Former Japanese premier Yasuhiro Nakasone begins a visit to Baghdad, Iraq.
Nawaz Sharif is sworn in as prime minister of Pakistan in Islamabad, the capital city.
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Includes developments that affect more than one world region, international organizations, and important meetings of major world leaders.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.
November 3–8, 1990—117
U.S. Politics & Social Issues
U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense
Pres. Bush signs into law the Head Start expansion legislation and a bill on a new vaccine program.
Secretary of State James Baker departs for an eight-day tour of Arab and European nations to consult with U.S. allies and “lay the foundation” for the possible use of military action against Iraq.
U.S. Economy & Environment
Science, Technology, & Nature
Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle
More than 600 top scientists, meeting as part of the conference, issue a call for the world’s governments to cut emissions of carbon dioxide by at least half to avert disastrous climatic change.
Reports confirm that John F. Kennedy Jr., passed the New York State bar exam on his third try. . . . The Suns and the Utah Jazz open their basketball season at the Tokyo Metropolitan Gymnasium in the first U.S. professional major league regular-season game played outside North America.
Douglas Wakiihuri of Kenya wins the NYC Marathon. Wanda Panfil of Poland wins the women’s race.
Rabbi Meir Kahane, 58, founder of the militant Jewish Defense League and Israel’s extremist anti-Arab Kach party, is assassinated in NYC. His alleged killer, who is wounded and captured, appears to have acted on his own. . . . . In regard to a Republican mailing in North Carolina that allegedly intimidated African Americans, the Democratic National Committee files a complaint in federal court. However, a federal judge absolves the GOP in a mailing relating to a 1982 court order.
Reports indicate that U.S. hostages in Iraq are now free to telephone their families. . . . Bush signs the defense spending authorization for fiscal 1991. . . . The State Department dismisses Felix Bloch, a suspect of spying, on the grounds that he made “deliberate false statements or misrepresentations” to the FBI.
Pres. Bush signs the 13 appropriations bills Congress completed in the last eight days of the 101st session. He also signs a $492 billion, five-year deficit-cutting measure that was the focus of a year-long wrangle among the White House and congressional leaders of both parties. . . . The Wall Street Journal quarterly earnings review report shows that corporate earnings for the third quarter advanced over the year-earlier level for the first time since the second quarter of 1989.
Against predictions, incumbents win nearly all the races they contested in midterm elections. Of 31 senators running for reelection, only one is defeated when Sen. Rudy Boschwitz (R, Minn.) is edged out by Paul Wellstone (D). Only 15 incumbent members of the House are defeated. . . . The Supreme Court rules that maritime law allows an action for the wrongful death of a seaman, but it does not extend to recovery for loss of society or lost future earnings.
Thousands of Jews gather at an emotional funeral in Brooklyn for Rabbi Meir Kahane, assassinated Nov. 5. Rites are attended by leaders of mainstream American Jewish organizations at odds with Kahane’s extremism. . . . Reports state that Pres. Bush extended the service of Gen. Michael Dugan, who was fired as the air force chief of staff, so Dugan could receive a higher pension upon retirement.
Election returns on state measures show that major environmental initiatives have been defeated in at least five states, including California and New York. Proposals calling for state tax reductions or curbs on government spending are voted down in Nebraska, Massachusetts, Utah, and Colorado. . . . NYC’s commodity futures exchanges agree to build new headquarters in the Wall Street area.
The Mount St. Helens volcano in Washington State erupts in its largest blast since the U.S. Forest Service reopened the crater to the public in 1987, after the 1980 explosion. The latest blast hurls chunks of hot rock across the crater from a vent in the central lava dome but does not cause any serious damage. . . . California officials report that they are winning the battle against the Mediterranean fruit fly, but they also warn that the struggle needs to continue.
Herbert Berghof, 81, New York actor, theatrical director and teacher whose students include Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, Anne Bancroft, Matthew Broderick, and Geraldine Page, dies of heart failure in NYC.
Dave Justice of baseball’s Atlanta Braves is the near-unanimous choice as the National League’s rookie of the year.
The Justice Department charges Walter Leroy Moody Jr., with murder in the 1989 mail-bomb killings of a federal appeals court judge and a civil rights lawyer. . . . A fire destroys 20% of the sets at Universal Studios in L.A., and police arrest a studio security guard for arson. . . . The FBI arrests 14 members of a Miami-based black religious sect known as the Nation of Yahwehs on 18 counts of racketeering that include 14 killings, extortion and arson. The CDC reports that the death rate from Alzheimer’s disease increased tenfold between 1979 and 1987. . . . The Alan Guttmacher Institute finds that sexual activity among teenage girls rose substantially in the 1980s. . . . William J. Bennett, the nation’s first director of national drug control policy, announces that he will leave his post at the end of the month.
Nov. 3
Nov. 4
Nov. 5
Nov. 6
Nov. 7
Pres. Bush orders as many as 200,000 more troops to be sent to the 230,000 already in and around Saudi Arabia as part of Operation Desert Shield in order to give U.S. forces “an adequate offensive military option” against Iraq. The battleship Missouri is also ordered to the Persian Gulf region.
Pres. Bush promises that he will never again renege on the pledge of “no new taxes” made during his 1988 election campaign.
In an article published in the New England Journal of Medicine, 22 of the world’s leading statisticians propose a new strategy for testing AIDS drugs by using nonhomogenous trials rather than focusing on homogenous groups.
Nov. 8
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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)
Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.
Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.
Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.
118—November 9–14, 1990
Nov. 9
World Affairs
Europe
German chancellor Helmut Kohl, initially opposed to Willy Brandt’s trip to Iraq, changes his opinion after it becomes apparent that Brandt has widespread support. However, Britain, Italy, the Netherlands, and Belgium criticize Germany’s endorsement of Brandt’s trip, arguing it violated the EC’s agreement not to conduct separate hostage negotiations with Iraq.
Mary Robinson, a leftist lawyer and former member of the Irish Senate, is declared the upset winner in Ireland’s presidential election. Robinson, 46, is the first woman elected president of Ireland and the first president since 1945 who is not supported by the Fianna Fail political group. . . . Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev becomes the first foreign leader to pay a state visit to Germany since its reunification. Gorbachev and Chancellor Helmut Kohl sign a series of treaties in Bonn, including a nonaggression pact.
The Americas
Asia & the Pacific
Israeli troops attack targets north of Israel’s security zone. No Israelis are killed or wounded in the raids, and no information is provided on Hezbollah casualties. . . . Former New Zealand prime minister David Lange visits Iraq.
Reports confirm that former Peruvian president Alan García narrowly avoided criminal charges for his role in a 1986 prison massacre.
King Birendra approves a new constitution for Nepal that establishes a multiparty democracy, curtails the king’s power, and guarantees fundamental civil liberties. . . . The Immigration Review Tribunal rules methods used to limit visitors to Australia from certain countries are illegal. . . . Transcripts of a 1946 tape are published which suggest Emperor Hirohito believed that if he had tried to stop the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor, Japan would have faced a civil war.
Reports confirm that 26 people were killed since Oct. 1 in sectarian violence in Northern Ireland. Those killings bring the Ulster death toll related to such violence to 70 for the year.
In Lebanon, Muslim militias begin their withdrawal of men and weapons. . . . Idriss Deby, a renegade general, and his guerrillas launch another attack against Chadian army positions in eastern Chad for the fifth time in two years.
In Colombia, police and army troops drive back an attack launched by 1,000 members of two guerrilla groups, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia and the National Liberation Army, seeking to take strategic points in the northern towns of Taraza and Caceres. . . . The Washington Post reports that, since late August, at least nine politicians were slain by groups with various motives in Guatemala.
Chandra Shekhar, 63, is sworn in as India’s eighth prime minister, replacing Vishwanath Pratap Singh. Shekhar’s Janata Dal party, though, only controls 60 of the 543 seats in the Lok Sabha (legislature). . . . Japan’s Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) withdraws a proposal to send noncombat soldiers to the Persian Gulf. Instead, LDP and opposition leaders agree on a plan to send a civilian corps of medical and technical personnel.
A UN treaty on drug trafficking, known as the Convention Against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances, takes effect.
Macedonia holds multiparty elections for the first time. The ruling League of Communists of Macedonia is voted out of power but runoff elections are still on the schedule.
Libya describes the latest fighting in Chad as “nothing but a tribal and civil war” and states that Libya is still committed to the accord with Habre’s government to submit their territorial dispute over the Aozou Strip along the Chad-Libyan border to international arbitration.
Government statements verify that the Nov. 10 offensive by leftist rebels resulted in the deaths of 40 Colombians. . . . Jorge Carpio Nicolle and Jorge Antonio Serrano Elías emerge as the top two winners in the first round of Guatemala’s presidential elections and advance to a runoff.
A New York Times reporter, Stephen Erlanger, reports widespread criticism by Indonesians of the success of the children of President Suharto in gaining government contracts.
The government of Israel offers to accept a single emissary from the UN Secretary General’s office to study Arab-Israeli tensions, if the Security Council halts debate on the Palestinian situation. . . . Foreign ministers of the 12 EC nations meet in Brussels with their counterparts from Algeria, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, and Tunisia. The EC ministers express the hope that the North African states will “use their good relations with Iraq” to intercede on behalf of the European hostages. The EC also vows to discourage further missions like Willy Brandt’s to Iraq.
Kirghizia declares itself an “independent and sovereign state” and asserts the primacy of Kyrgyzstan laws. It is the last of the 15 Soviet constituent republics to declare sovereignty. . . . A protest by students in Paris turns violent with looting and clashes with police. Pres. François Mitterrand invites students to discuss demands with him. . . . The British government releases its report on the 1988 explosion on the Piper Alpha North Sea oil platform that killed 167 men. The report criticizes Occidental Petroleum Corp., the platform’s owner, for “unsafe practices.”
Prince Letsie David Mohato is sworn in as the new king of Lesotho after his father, King Moshoeshoe II, was exiled from the country in March. . . . Israeli police announce the promotion of an officer primarily responsible for the deployment of police in the October 8 Temple Mount killings.
In response to recent election disqualifications, Duvalierists set up barricades of burning tires in residential neighborhoods of Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince.
Emperor Akihito is formally enthroned. According to Japanese historians, he is the 125th monarch to sit on the Chrysanthemum Throne of Japan. His wife, Empress Michiko, is enthroned in the same ceremony.
Gorbachev warns that a “bloodbath” will result if Soviet republics resort to their own economic systems or establish their own armies. . . . Upon his resignation, Sir Geoffrey Howe attacks P.M. Margaret Thatcher’s stance on Europe during an unusually vitriolic speech in the House of Commons. . . . The first Soviet stock exchange is founded in Moscow by 187 Soviet enterprises and banks. It is unclear when trading will begin.
In South Africa, the commission to investigate charges of governmentsponsored death squads sparks an uproar because its report draws circumspect mild conclusions and is called a whitewash. . . . A 16year-old Palestinian murders an Israeli reserve soldier and is captured. . . . Israeli military authorities jail three Palestinian leaders without trial. . . . The Saudi government upholds the ban on women drivers and threatens protesters with unspecified punishment.
A group of Ukrainian Canadians begins negotiating with P.M. Brian Mulroney to win a government apology and up to C$30 million in compensation for internment during World War I. . . . In Mexico, the government, labor and business agree to extend through the end of 1991 an anti-inflation economic solidarity pact in effect since Dec. 1987.
In Singapore, P.M. Lee Kuan Yew and U.S. vice president Dan Quayle sign an agreement providing for expanded U.S. use of military bases.
In Nicaragua, four policemen are killed in a clash the between police and 300 former contras blocking a bridge on the Pan American Highway at Sebaco.
Pres. Suharto becomes the first Indonesian leader to visit China since 1964. . . . A gunman, David Gray, is shot and killed after he goes on a 24-hour rampage that kills 13 people in New Zealand. It is the worst mass killing in the country’s history. . . . Australia’s opposition Liberal Party reverses a longheld position and announces that it now backs lower immigration rates.
Nov. 10
Nov. 11
Nov. 12
Africa & the Middle East
Nov. 13
Germany and Poland sign a treaty guaranteeing their nations’ current borders. . . . In England, three detectives involved in the case of the Guildford Four are charged with conspiracy to pervert the course of justice. . . . In Germany, the police evict hundreds of young squatters from East Berlin tenements. The confrontation results in more than 450 arrests and 260 injuries. . . . Zviad Gamsakhurdia, is elected president of Georgia.
Nov. 14
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Includes developments that affect more than one world region, international organizations, and important meetings of major world leaders.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.
November 9–14, 1990—119
U.S. Politics & Social Issues
U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense
Pres. Bush signs a bill into law regarding the labels on packaged foods. . . . Pres. Bush signs into law a bill that requires colleges and universities to publish annual statistics on their graduation rates, crime rates, and security procedures, known formally as the Student Right-to-Know and Campus Security Act. . . . Pres. Bush exercises a “pocket” veto by refusing to sign legislation that would have amended the Orphan Drug Act of 1983.
U.S. Economy & Environment
Science, Technology, & Nature
Freedom National Bank in NYC, one of the largest black-owned banks in U.S., is declared insolvent by federal regulators. . . . Philadelphia Mayor W. Wilson Goode (D) and other city officials unveil a plan to keep the city out of bankruptcy.
The Texas State Board of Education votes to approve a new series of biology textbooks that discuss evolution extensively while ignoring “creationism.”
U.S. secretary of state James Baker completes a tour of Arab and European nations and hails the “extraordinary unanimity and cohesiveness” of the international alliance against Iraq. . . . A delegation of five U.S. House members begin the first U.S. congressional visit China since the 1989 crackdown.
Lynne V. Cheney, the chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities, blasts current educational practices in U.S. schools and universities.
Bipartisan concerns mount in Congress and among citizens that Pres. Bush may unilaterally lead the country into a war against Iraq in the Persian Gulf.
Reports confirm that the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association, one of the largest health insurers, has agreed to finance an experimental treatment for breast cancer. Blue Cross expresses the belief that its decision marks the first time a private health insurance company will finance an experimental medical treatment.
U.S. Roman Catholic bishops, at their annual meeting in Washington, D.C., appeal for a peaceful solution to the Persian Gulf crisis.
The Supreme Court sets aside a ruling that orders antipsychotic medication to be administered to a death-row prisoner so that he can become sane enough to be executed. . . . Republican and Democratic senators elect leadership teams for the 102nd Congress. Senate minority leader Robert Dole (Kans.) and Minority Whip Alan Simpson (Wyo.) are reelected unanimously. Wendell H. Ford (D, Ky.) is unanimously selected by Senate Democrats as their majority whip.
When discussing justification for the military action in the Persian Gulf, Secretary of State Baker states, “To bring it down to the level of the average American citizen, let me say that means jobs. If you want to sum it up in one word, it’s jobs. Because an economic recession worldwide, caused by the control of one nation—one dictator, if you will—of the West’s economic lifeline [oil], will result in the loss of jobs for American citizens.”
The National Conference of Catholic Bishops produces a set of guidelines for sex education that includes a reassertion of the church’s official condemnation of contraception. . . . The New York Times starts a controversy when it claims that the National Institutes of Health delayed reporting news of an effective treatment for AIDSrelated pneumonia. Federal health officials angrily deny the accusation.
Pres. Bush, in an effort to head off the drive for a special session of Congress to discuss the Persian Gulf, meets with a bipartisan group of about two dozen senior lawmakers, led by Mitchell (D, Maine) and Foley (D, Wash.).
Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle A Harvard University divinity professor and chief editor of the Dead Sea Scrolls, John Strugnell, calls Judaism a “racist” and “very primitive” religion that “should have disappeared” in favor of Christianity in an interview.
The Phoenix Suns set an NBA record when they score 107 points in the first half of a game with the Denver Nuggets.
Stormie Jones, 13, a Texas girl who, in 1984, became the world’s first recipient of a heart-liver transplant, dies of heart failure in Pittsburgh.
Derrick Thomas of football’s Kansas City Chiefs sets an NFL record with seven sacks against the Seattle Seahawks in Kansas City, although Seattle still wins the game. . . . In the Soviet Union’s first men’s professional tennis tournament, Andrei Cherkasov wins the Kremlin Cup.
Eve Arden (born Eunice Quedens), 83, film and television actress nominated for an Oscar for Mildred Pierce (1945), dies of cancer in Beverly Hills, California.
The RTC and the FDIC file claims of $6.8 billion against defunct securities firm Drexel Burnham Lambert Group Inc. in connection with losses by savings and loan associations. . . . A show of solidarity for the strikers at the Daily News draws top union officials from across the country, including AFL-CIO president Lane Kirkland.
The FDA grants approval to an experimental treatment that uses genetically altered genes to treat cancer. The approval represents the final legal hurdle for the therapy, which was approved by the National Institutes of Health in 1989.
Bob Welch of baseball’s Oakland Athletics wins the American League’s Cy Young Award as the league’s top pitcher.
Aspirin appears to lower the body’s ability to break down alcohol in the stomach, according to a study in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Simon & Schuster Inc. cancels publication of American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis after Time alleges the novel contains “the most appalling acts of torture, murder and dismemberment ever described in a book headed for the best-seller lists.”
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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)
Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.
Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.
Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.
Nov. 9
Nov. 10
Nov. 11
Nov. 12
Nov. 13
Nov. 14
120—November 15–20, 1990
Nov. 15
Nov. 16
World Affairs
Europe
Western nations and Japan begin to formulate plans over the next four days to aid the USSR in its time of economic crisis. German chancellor Helmut Kohl pledges to increase his country’s food shipments to the Soviet Union if shortages develop during the winter, and British foreign secretary Douglas Hurd announces that his nation is establishing a 20 million (US$39 million) “Know-How Fund” to help Soviet managers make the transition to a market economy.
An estimated 50,000 people attend a nationalist rally against both Serbia and Macedonia’s ethnic Albanians. . . . The third anniversary of the 1987 workers’ riot in Brasov is marked with large antigovernment protests throughout Romania. . . . The Berlin government falls when the Alternative List party withdraws from the twoparty coalition because of police action on Nov. 14. . . . French premier Michel Rocard announces the government will spend an additional 4.5 billion francs to meet students’ demands.
Following the Nov. 15 pledges to the USSR, Joe Clark, Canada’s external affairs minister, announces a C$500,000 technical-assistance program to aid the Soviet economic transition, and Japanese banks decide to loan $400 million to the Soviet Bank for Foreign Economic Relations.
Reports state the Albanian parliament adopted decrees to protect foreign investment. . . . About 10,000 people, most of them women, march through Sofia, Bulgaria, in a demonstration against food shortages. . . . Soviet lawmakers give a cold reception to an address by Pres. Mikhail Gorbachev at a crisis session.
Nov. 19
Nov. 20
Gideon Hausner, 75, attorney general of Israel, 1960–63, who led the prosecution of Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann, dies of cancer in Jerusalem.
The Americas
Asia & the Pacific
Public-sector workers in Peru begin an indefinite national strike. . . . Separately, The New York Times reports the archbishop of Lima has warned that women who practice birth control run the risk of “not going to heaven.” . . . Aristides Sanchez, once a senior contra leader, is arrested in Managua, Nicaragua, after the Nov. 14 shootings.
In Australia, New Zealand P.M. David Lange asks, “Isn’t it a little odd to point a quarter of a million troops in the direction of Iraq, when [the U.S.] just in the last few years walloped Libya, invaded Grenada, stoushed Panama—you name it, they’ve been there. Isn’t it a bit odd that Liberia is an abattoir of carnage and human suffering and we don’t even pass a UN resolution about it?”
U.S. president George Bush pays his first visit to Czechoslovakia since the 1989 collapse of communism in that region. . . . The Supreme Soviet votes to give tentative approval to a proposal by Pres. Gorbachev for an emergency reorganization of the executive branch of the Soviet government.
Riot police clash with marchers in Johannesburg, South Africa, as activists demand the resignation of all black township councilors, who are widely viewed as collaborators with apartheid.
Like the aid packages beginning on Nov. 15, Italian premier Giulio Andreotti offers the USSR a $900 million line of credit.
Ethnic nationalists rout the ruling Communists in Bosnia-Herzegovina in elections, and runoffs are set for December. . . . Barclay’s Bank PLC reinstates 12 women who were forced to retire at age 60 after the Court of Appeal rules that the bank discriminated against women because it allows men to work through age 65. The ruling may affect at least 10,000 women. . . . A crowd of 70,000 and 120,000 hold a peaceful antigovernment rally in Sofia, Bulgaria.
Iraq offers to release all of its remaining foreign hostages over a three-month period beginning at the end of the year, providing there is no outbreak of war with the U.S.led military forces in the Persian Gulf region. . . . At least 126 people board an Iraqi Airways plane chartered by the U.S. government and fly from Baghdad to London. The evacuees are almost all women and children or men of Arab descent.
Nicaraguan president Violeta Chamorro sends a military convoy to clear barricades that for two weeks have blocked main roads in the cattle-ranching Chontales and Boaco provinces.
The leaders of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) hold a summit in Paris that formally marks an end to the cold war. The highlight of the summit is the signing of a treaty aimed at dramatically reducing conventional weapons in Europe. . . . U.S. president Bush joins efforts made by other nations since Nov. 15 when he confirms that the U.S. is considering sending emergency food aid to the Soviet Union if winter shortages develop.
The head of the Spanish Bishops’ Conference, Cardinal Angel Suquia, accuses the government of “abusing” its power by launching an $8 million advertising campaign encouraging the use of condoms. The attack is the fiercest by the Roman Catholic Church on the government during the eight years of Socialist rule. . . . Russian Federation president Boris Yeltsin attacks the proposed government reorganization.
The South African Institute of Race Relations reports that political violence claimed the lives of 3,038 people in the first 10 months of 1990, and a total of 8,577 since September 1984. . . . Iraq states it will add 250,000 troops to bolster the 430,000-strong army it has already deployed in occupied Kuwait and southern Iraq.
A two-day nationwide strike, organized by a coalition of unions and opposition parties, idles much of the Dominican Republic. . . . Mexico’s ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) is accused of using fraud when the party wins elections.
Afghan president Najibullah meets with rebel leaders in Geneva, Switzerland, for talks aimed toward a peaceful settlement of the country’s civil war. . . . The military government of Myanmar sentences two opposition leaders to 10 years in prison. The National League for Democracy won in May elections but has not been permitted to take power. . . . West Australia premier Carmen Lawrence bows to increasing public pressure by forming a royal commission to investigate political corruption in the state.
At the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe, Hungarian premier Jozsef Antall indicates that the Warsaw Pact will disband, at least as a military alliance, by 1992. At the same conference, leaders of Eastern European countries warn that economic disparities among nations on the continent are spurring ethnic unrest and undermining new democracies.
British prime minister Margaret Thatcher faces a serious blow when she fails to win reelection as Conservative Party leader on the first ballot of a contest against former cabinet minister Michael Heseltine. Falling just four votes shy of the 15% majority required for election on the first ballot, Thatcher vows to go forward into the second ballot. . . . An estimated 20,000 people hold a progovernment rally in Bucharest, Romania.
Israeli soldiers clash with PLO guerrillas near the Lebanese village of Ain Atta, about three miles north of the Israeli security zone. One soldier and four guerrillas are killed. . . . As part of a continued effort to split the international alliance against Iraq, the country states it will free all German hostages as a reward for German chancellor Helmut Kohl’s support for a peaceful end to the Persian Gulf crisis.
Leftist rebels of the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front launch a long-awaited fall campaign, attacking army positions in seven of El Salvador’s 14 provinces. . . . Bolivia’s lower house of Congress votes to impeach eight of the nation’s 12 Supreme Court Justices.
Riots that started on Nov. 17 in India leave 120 people dead. . . . The Australian government announces an agreement with national trade unions which provides workers with tax cuts in lieu of a wage increase.
Nov. 17
Nov. 18
Africa & the Middle East
A month-long rash of antigovernment protests in Bangladesh in which students demanded the resignation of Pres. Hossein Mohammed Ershad, threw stones, burned cars, and battled with police comes to a close. Reports show that the government shut down schools and universities, and at least eight people were killed. . . . A three-day flare-up in terrorist violence by Sikh militants in India’s Punjab province begins. . . . China devalues its currency for the second time in less than a year.
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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.
November 15–20, 1990—121
U.S. Politics & Social Issues
U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense
U.S. Economy & Environment
Science, Technology, & Nature
Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle
The FBI announces that it arrested or issued warrants for 30 members of a cocaine ring whose alleged and still-at-large leader, Ramon Torres Gonzalez, is believed to have buried millions of dollars on his farm in Puerto Rico.
In an interview with U.S. television news anchor Peter Jennings, Pres. Saddam Hussein stresses that Iraq wants to begin negotiations to reach a peaceful end to the gulf crisis. However, he also states that his government cannot accept the U.S. demand that Iraq first withdraw unconditionally from Kuwait. . . . Secretary of State Baker flies to Europe for five days of in-depth, country-by-country talks.
Pres. Bush signs into law the Clean Air Act of 1990, calling it “simply the most significant air pollution legislation in our nation’s history.”. . . The Senate Ethics Committee opens hearings in the case of five senators accused of pressuring federal bank regulators on behalf of a political contributor, S&L executive Charles Keating Jr. The senators, known as the Keating Five, are Democrats Alan Cranston (Calif.), Dennis DeConcini (Ariz.), John Glenn (Ohio) and Donald W. Riegle Jr. (Mich.), and Republican John McCain (Ariz.).
The Atlantis is launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida, to carry out a secret military flight.
The U.S. Golf Association, which organizes the U.S. Open, announces that it, like the PGA, will require clubs hosting its tournaments to bar discrimination against women and minorities. . . . The National Council of Churches calls for an immediate withdrawal of most of the U.S. forces from the Persian Gulf and urges that the remaining troops be put under the UN flag.
Pres. Bush signs legislation to protect Native American grave sites and to return remains and cultural artifacts to the tribes. . . . Pres. Bush signs legislation regarding the Consumer Product Safety Commission reauthorization and aviation security.
Former Panamanian leader Manuel Noriega makes his first public comments at a court hearing since January when he concludes, “I am now at the mercy of a totally unfair and unjust system who chooses my prosecutors and now chooses my defense lawyers.”
The Federal Reserve loosens monetary policy for the second time in three weeks, as economic statistics indicate that the country is entering a recession.
Scientists from the National Institutes of Health decide to halt experiments on the use of RU-486 as a treatment for Cushing’s disease because of uncertainty about obtaining the drug. . . . New photographs of the planet Venus reveal “features never seen before” on any planet, such as pancake-shaped domes and giant horseshoe-shaped formations.
Alfred A. Knopf publishers announce that Knopf will publish American Psycho under its Vintage Contemporary series.
Two days of antiabortion protests and counterdemonstrations by abortion rights supporters comes to a close. Police in Washington, D.C., made over 650 arrests. . . . William J. Bennett, former White House drug policy director, is selected as the chairman of the Republican National Committee, replacing Lee Atwater.
The FBI announces the arrests of two soldiers and two civilians in connection with a seizure of a huge cache of stolen military firearms and explosives. Army Special Forces Sergeant Michael Tubbs, Army Warrant Officer Jeffrey Jennett, John Tubbs and Stephen Fussell are arrested. The FBI contends that the four are involved in the whitesupremist movement.
Pres. Bush exercises a “pocket veto” of a bill reauthorizing regulatory controls on U.S. exports.
Robert Hofstadter, 75, physicist who won the Nobel Prize in 1961 for his research into the size and structure of the particles that formed the nucleus of the atom, dies of a heart attack in Stanford, California.
Nov. 15
Nov. 16
Nov. 17
The Supreme Court refuses to allow CNN to broadcast tape recordings of telephone calls between deposed Panamanian strongman Gen. Manuel Antonio Noriega and his defense attorneys.
Nov. 18
Eight teenage gang members are arrested in Boston for the rape and murder of a 26-year-old black woman as part of an alleged Halloween-night robbery spree. Police describe the slaying as the worst in the city in 15 years. . . . Rep. Ron Wyden (D, Oreg.), chairman of the House Small Business subcommittee on regulation and business opportunities holds a hearing into the FDA’s ban of RU-486. . . . Phillip Mitchell Landrum, 81, U.S. representative from Georgia, 1953–77, dies of heart failure in Jasper, Ga.
The rock duo Milli Vanilli is stripped of its 1989 Grammy for best new artist when it is revealed that its two stars, Rob Pilatus and Fabrice Morvan, do not actually sing on their best-selling debut album. It is the first time the academy has stripped an artist of a Grammy.
The FDA approves the request of an unidentified Virginia AIDS patient to use marijuana to help ease the pain of the disease. . . . The Navajo Nation, the U.S.’s largest Native American tribe, elects Peterson Zah to the new position of tribal president after former tribal chairman Peter MacDonald Sr. was convicted of accepting bribes.
The Department of Energy increases its cost projection for the Superconducting Super Collider to $8.24 billion from $7.8 billion. The Super Collider, a giant particle accelerator designed to study the nature of matter, has been under construction since 1987. . . . The Atlantis lands at Cape Canaveral, Florida.
Nov. 19
Nov. 20
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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)
Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.
Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.
Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.
122—November 21–26, 1990
Nov. 21
World Affairs
Europe
At the close of the CSCE summit, leaders sign a document called the Charter of Paris for a New Europe. The document proclaims an end to “the era of confrontation and division in Europe” and vows “a new era of democracy, peace and unity” on the continent. . . . A UN investigator reports that human-rights violations “occur frequently” in Iran.
Opposition protesters clash with thousands of supporters of P.M. Andrei Lukanov and police in Sofia, Bulgaria.
Margaret Thatcher, the longestserving British prime minister of the 20th century, announces that she will resign within a week, reversing an earlier decision. With Thatcher out of the race for Tory leadership, Foreign Secretary Douglas Hurd and Chancellor of the Exchequer John Major enter the contest against Michael Heseltine. . . . The Bulgarian Grand National Assembly debates a 1991 austerity budget proposed by Premier Lukanov while 20,000 anti-Socialist demonstrators chant for Lukanov’s resignation.
Nov. 22
Nov. 24
The five permanent members of the UN Security Council—the U.S., U.K., USSR, China, and France— complete a final version of a peace plan to send to Cambodian factions for approval.
Nov. 26
The Americas
Asia & the Pacific
Nicaraguan president Violeta Chamorro appeases a growing dissident movement within her National Opposition Union (UNO) coalition when she agrees to withdraw a military convoy. She also replaces the police chiefs in the two provinces and agrees to distribute 23,000 hectares of land, in addition to 100,000 hectares already given to former contra rebels. Amos Sawyer is sworn as the president of Liberia’s interim government.
In Bulgaria, the Grand National Assembly approves an amended version of the budget after much debate and many demonstrations. . . . Soviet president Gorbachev unveils his long-awaited plan for restructuring the relationship between the central government and its 15 republics. He reiterates that any republic that wishes to secede from the Soviet Union has to follow a cumbersome procedure that requires two referendums and a five-year waiting period.
Nov. 23
Nov. 25
Africa & the Middle East
Sikh separatists attack three buses near Chandigarh, the state capital and reportedly single out and shoot non-Sikh passengers, killing 25 civilians. . . . Hundreds of fires sparked by the high temperatures and strong winds of the Australian summer hit the state of New South Wales. Fires last for three days; between 180,000 and 200,000 sheep are killed and at least 160,000 hectares of grazing land burned. . . . A more private religious ceremony in Japan officially completes Akihito’s enthronement. In El Salvador, the rebels use an antiaircraft missile to down a military plane in Usulutan province. . . . The Washington Post reports that, in a concession to drug traffickers, the Colombian government has transferred Col. Oscar Pelaez, the director of the judicial police who drug cartels accused of abusing human rights, to a diplomatic post in Washington, D.C.
Boris Yeltsin publishes the draft of a new Russian Federation constitution that puts the republic at odds with the union treaty in several key areas. . . . Opposition protesters clash with thousands of Lukanov supporters in Sofia, Bulgaria.
The Israeli navy sinks a speedboat carrying at least five Palestinian guerrillas heading from Lebanon toward Israel. All of the guerrillas, who belong to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, are killed.
Tadeusz Mazowiecki finishes third in a field of six candidates in Poland’s presidential election. Lech Walesa and Stanislaw Tyminski finish in first and second place, respectively, and will face each other in a presidential runoff. . . . As Iraq promised, 100 Germans fly home, with the rest of the hostages to follow shortly. . . . Australia agrees to provide the Soviets with A$500 million (US$384 million) in export credits toward the purchase of Australian farm commodities.
An Egyptian gunman crosses into Israel and goes on a shooting spree, killing four people and wounding 26. The radical Muslim group Islamic Jihad claims responsibility. . . . A teenage girl approaches an Israeli patrol in southern Lebanon and blows herself up, wounding two soldiers and a civilian bystander. The National Syrian Socialist Party, a Lebanese group, claims responsibility.
Opponents of Pres. Fernando Collor de Mello’s monetarist anti-inflation program win governorships in Brazil’s most populous and wealthiest states in runoff elections.
Reports confirm that hundreds of people were killed in battles between the Indonesian army and separatist Islamic rebels in the westernmost province, Aceh. . . . In India, an attacker on a motorcycle kills 15 civilians. The assault is blamed on Sikh militants. . . . Fires strike Sydney, Australia’s largest city. At Sydney’s inner harbor, more than a hundred picnickers are rescued by helicopter or forced to swim out to boats to escape the fire.
In the largest job action since German unification, most of the 250,000 rail workers in eastern Germany strike. . . . In Bulgaria, Podkrepa, an anti-Socialist independent labor federation that represents more that 500,000 workers, launches a general strike to pressure the regime out of power. . . . Tadeusz Mazowiecki resigns as Poland’s premier after a poor showing in preliminary elections.
The main factions in Liberia’s 11month-old civil war meet for peace talks in Bamako, the capital of Mali.
The central bank devalues the Nicaraguan cordoba in the 44th devaluation since Pres. Chamorro took office. . . . Pres. Bush confers with Mexican president Carlos Salinas de Gortari on issues including a free-trade agreement between the U.S. and Mexico and the use of force in the Persian Gulf.
State authorities declare an indefinite curfew in the Punjab town of Jullundur in India. . . . Amnesty International reports that the army and police force of Papua New Guinea are guilty of human rights abuses on Bougainville island, where at least 19 people suspected of supporting the Bougainville Revolutionary Army were executed without trial in the last two years. . . . Lee Kuan Yew, Singapore’s prime minister for 31 years, announces he is resigning.
In India, state police arrest more than 500 Sikh religious and political leaders to prevent them from attending a meeting.
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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.
November 21–26, 1990—123
U.S. Politics & Social Issues
U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense
U.S. Economy & Environment
Pres. Bush goes to Saudi Arabia to celebrate Thanksgiving with U.S. troops deployed in the kingdom as part of Operation Desert Shield.
A U.S. District Court judge in NYC sentences Michael R. Milken, Drexel Burnham Lambert Inc.’s former “junk-bond” chief, to a 10-year prison term, the most severe sentence yet handed down in a series of Wall Street securities fraud cases dating from 1986.
Science, Technology, & Nature
Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle
Nov. 21
Pres. Bush makes a whirlwind tour of four different U.S. military sites in the region. As well as shaking hands and signing autographs, he eats Thanksgiving dinner with the troops at two of the stops and makes tough anti-Iraq speeches at all four locations.
Nov. 22
Archie Brown, 79, former West Coast leader of the International Longshoremen’s and Warehousemen’s Union who won a landmark Supreme Court decision in 1965 upholding the right of communists to serve as union officials, dies of lung cancer in San Francisco.
Roald Dahl, 74, bestselling British writer, known for Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and James and the Giant Peach, dies of unreported causes in Oxford, England. . . . The autobiography of former president Ronald Reagan, titled An American Life, is published by Simon & Schuster.
Severe flooding caused by two days of torrential rains forces more than 2,600 people from their homes in Washington State. One person is missing and presumed dead. . . . Astronomers atop Hawaii’s Mauna Kea make the first image with a new and innovative telescope that will, upon completion in late 1991, be the largest in the world.
Nov. 24
Astronomers announce a $14 million, 10-year-plus project to map 100 times as much of the universe as had ever been mapped before. The project, known as the digital sky survey, will entail building a new 100-inch telescope, using digital and computer technology atop New Mexico’s Apache Point.
The Supreme Court lets stand a ban on begging in the NYC subway system, refusing to hear arguments that panhandling is a form of free speech protected by the Constitution.
Nov. 23
Nov. 25
Alaska’s oil-spill coordinator reports that about 85% of the shoreline fouled with oil in the Exxon Valdez disaster in March 1989 has been sufficiently cleaned.
Nov. 26
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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)
Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.
Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.
Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.
124—November 27–December 1, 1990
World Affairs
Nov. 29
Africa & the Middle East
John Major wins 185 votes, two short of the absolute majority needed to win leadership of the British Conservative Party. Michael Heseltine takes 131 votes, and Douglas Hurd wins the backing of 56 Conservative members of Parliament. Hurd and Heseltine withdraw upon hearing the results.
Five Israeli soldiers are killed in a clash with Palestinian guerrillas in southern Lebanon. Two guerrillas are killed in the fighting near the town of Shabaa, in the self-proclaimed Israeli security zone. Hours later, Israeli jets bombard Palestinian bases in southern Lebanon.
The UN adopts a resolution that condemns both Iraq’s destruction of Kuwaiti civil records and its efforts to alter Kuwait’s demographic composition. . . . In talks attended by representatives of the Economic Community of West African States and by Amos Sawyer, the president of Liberia’s interim government, a peace agreement is signed by Charles Taylor, the leader of the National Patriotic Front; Prince Yormie Johnson, the leader of a second rebel group; and Major Wilmott Diggs, who represents the remaining Liberian army of slain Pres. Samuel Doe.
John Major becomes the new prime minister of Great Britain, succeeding Margaret Thatcher. . . . A railworkers strike ends when the German government agrees to consider the workers’ demands. . . . Britain restores ties with Syria. . . . In Bulgaria, striking workers shut down a major oil refinery on the Black Sea, and many Bulgarian airline workers walk off their jobs, forcing the nation’s largest airport, near Sofia, to suspend operations.
Ryan Crocker, the new U.S. ambassador to Lebanon, reopens the American embassy, closed since Sept. 1989.
The UN approves a resolution authorizing the use of force against Iraq if it does not withdraw from Kuwait by January 15, 1991. The resolution is considered a major diplomatic victory for the U.S.
The Confederation of Independent Trade Unions, Bulgaria’s largest labor organization, joins the general strike, and the country is at a virtual standstill. In response, P.M. Andrei Lukanov resigns along with his entire cabinet. . . . A Soviet transport plane leaves Hanover, Germany, for Moscow with 37 tons of German food, the first of hundreds of thousands of tons of planned aid.
When three major opposition parties boycott elections for the Egyptian National Assembly, the National Democratic Party of Pres. Hosni Mubarak wins a sweeping victory. . . . According to reports, more than 10,000 people were killed in Liberia’s civil war, most of them civilians. . . . Rebel leader Idriss Deby’s men overrun Abeche, the largest town in eastern Chad. . . . Reports confirm that the Persian Gulf states, led by Saudi Arabia, offered the USSR up to $4 billion in loans and emergency aid.
The parliaments of Lithuania, Estonia, and Latvia hold their first-ever joint session. . . . Pres. Mikhail Gorbachev issues a decree that authorizes the creation of vigilante committees to curb theft and speculation (black-market activities) in the Soviet food-distribution system, and he asks the KGB to form a special “economic-sabotage unit” to oversee the distribution of food in the USSR. . . . Austria vows to send 100,000 food parcels for the USSR.
The Mozambique legislature adopts a new constitution designed to establish a Western-style democracy.
In Leningrad, Nizhni Novgorod (formerly Gorky), Vorkuta, and Chelyabinsk, comprehensive programs of food rationing in the Soviet Union begin. . . . Construction workers from France and Great Britain meet in one of the three “Eurotunnels” being constructed under the English Channel.
Representatives of the Mozambican government and the Mozambique National Resistance, a rebel group known as Renamo, sign a partial cease-fire—the first ever—in their 14-year-old civil war. . . . Israeli war planes attack a Palestinian guerrilla base in Lebanon. . . . Israeli police shoot and kill a Palestinian woman after she tries to stab a policeman near Jerusalem’s Old City. . . . Chadian president Hissene Habre and thousands of residents flee to nearby Cameroon from Chad’s capital when the army is defeated in a three-week rebel offensive, and advance patrols of rebels enter the city.
Nov. 27
Nov. 28
Europe
Nov. 30
Dec. 1
The Americas
Asia & the Pacific The government of Indonesia bans a New York Times reporter, Stephen Erlanger, from the country, because of his critical Nov. 11 story. . . . In Bangladesh, Pres. Hossein Mohammed Ershad declares a state of emergency in an attempt to quell protests. . . . Reports show more than 430 people were killed in the violence in Punjab in the last month. . . . Tasmania premier Michael Field announces that a royal commission will probe political corruption in the state.
Members of the ruling Progressive Conservative Party in Canada’s House of Commons reverse their position and agree to hold public hearings into the 78-day standoff between law-enforcement officials and Mohawk Indians at Oka, Quebec. . . . The presidents of Brazil and Argentina sign an agreement renouncing both the use and the development of nuclear weapons.
In Bangladesh, thousands of protesters defy curfew and gather in Dhaka, battling police and army units with homemade weapons. Journalists stage a nationwide strike to protest press restrictions implemented as part of the emergency regulations. . . . The Indian government imposes direct rule over the northeastern state of Assam due to violent activity by the separatist United Liberation Front of Assam. . . . Goh Chok Tong becomes Singapore’s prime minister.
In Bangladesh, street battles worsen, and opposition leaders claim that 50–75 people were killed by police in the fighting, while the government acknowledges only six deaths. Thousands of demonstrators are reportedly arrested.
Honduran armed forces chief Gen. Arnulfo Cantarero resigns.
Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit, 90, former Indian ambassador to the USSR. and the U.S. and the first woman to serve as president of the UN General Assembly, dies in Dehru Dun, India.
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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.
November 27–December 1, 1990—125
U.S. Politics & Social Issues
U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense
U.S. Economy & Environment
Science, Technology, & Nature
Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle
The Supreme Court rules that federal law preempts state law in regulating self-funded employee-benefit plans that are not fully insured.
The National Organization for Women blasts Saudi Arabia’s “gender apartheid” and calls for a U.S. pullout from the Persian Gulf.
The Energy Department dedicates a $1.3 billion plant at Aiken, South Carolina, to process millions of gallons of highly radioactive wastes. . . . U.S. bankruptcy judge Burton R. Lifland clears Eastern Airlines’ emergency request for $135 million from escrow to continue flight operations through the winter season.
A special panel probing the project of the malfunctioning Hubble Space Telescope finds serious supervisory flaws within NASA.
The 1990 National Book Awards are presented in NYC. Charles Johnson wins the fiction prize for The Middle Passage, and Ron Chernow receives the nonfiction award for The House of Morgan: An American Banking Dynasty and the Rise of Modern Finance.
Pres. Bush signs into a law several bills, including ones regarding housing reauthorization; anticrime legislation; Tongass Forest protection laws; and the Food, Agriculture, Conservation and Trade Act of 1990. . . . The National Center for Health Statistics release figures that show the life expectancy gap between blacks and whites widened in 1988.
Nov. 27
Nov. 28
A CDC report finds that AIDS is spreading at a faster rate among U.S. women than among men.
Pres. Bush signs a bill on comprehensive immigration legislation.
The Illinois Supreme Court strikes down a school decentralization plan adopted by the city of Chicago in 1989. . . . Pres. Bush nominates outgoing Florida governor Bob Martinez (R) as the new director of national drug control policy.
Pres. Bush announces that he is ready to send Secretary of State James Baker to Baghdad and invite the Iraqi foreign minister to the White House in a last effort to reach a peaceful end to the Persian Gulf crisis. . . . Pres. Bush unexpectedly pocket-vetoes the 1991 budget authorization for intelligence agencies because it requires disclosure to Congress of covert operations.
Iraq accepts Pres. Bush’s Nov. 30 invitation to discuss a peaceful settlement of the Persian Gulf crisis.
Pres. Bush signs legislation to curb the growth of zebra mussels.
Nov. 29
The Plains of Passage, by Jean M. Auel tops the bestseller list. . . . Lynn Jennings wins the Athletics Congress’s Jesse Owens Award as the outstanding U.S. trackand-field performer of the year.
David Abner Morse, 83, former acting U.S. secretary of labor, 1948, and director general of the International Labor Organization, 1948–70, dies of complications from a heart attack in NYC.
Ty Detmer, the junior quarterback at Brigham Young University, wins the Heisman Trophy as the top collegiate football player of the year. . . . The U.S. wins its first Davis Cup tennis final since 1982. Andre Agassi, Michael Chang, and the doubles team of Jim Pugh and Rick Leach take the first three matches in St. Petersburg, Florida to capture the best-of-five-match series for the U.S.
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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)
Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.
Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.
Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.
Nov. 30
Dec. 1
126—December 2–6, 1990
World Affairs
Dec. 2
Dec. 3
Dec. 4
Africa & the Middle East
Iraqi president Saddam Hussein claims he will free all of the foreign hostages being held in Iraq and occupied Kuwait, an announcement met with cautious optimism by Western nations. . . . A 39nation conference on the environmental protection of Antarctica ends without an agreement.
The Americas
Asia & the Pacific
Chancellor Helmut Kohl and his Christian Democratic Union win an easy victory in the first general election in recently reunified Germany. . . . Ethnic nationalist parties rout the ruling Communists in Bosnia-Herzegovina runoff elections. . . . Reports estimate that 180,000 single people in Britain live in temporary shelters or on the street. . . . Nearly 1,200 French citizens and other foreign nationals citizens who fled Chad during the fighting land in Paris.
Violence resurges in South Africa, and at least 71 die. . . . The Histadrut, Israel’s national trade union stages a general strike to protest the government tax plan. . . . Three Palestinians board an Israeli bus near Tel Aviv and attack its passengers, fatally stabbing one and wounding three. One assailant is shot dead by police. The other two are wounded during capture. . . . Rebel leader Idriss Deby enters Ndjamena, Chad.
In Guatemala, four drunken soldiers allegedly shoot and wound a resident and try to abduct another. In response, 5,000 people, most of them indigenous Indians, march on the barracks. Soldiers rake the crowd with machine-gun fire, killing 14 and wounding others.
Five troops are beaten to death by a mob in the city of Namangan, in the republic of Uzbekistan. . . . Three policemen, all Azerbaijanis, are slain in a gun battle with Armenian guerrillas on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border. . . . Turkey’s top military officer, Gen. Necip Torumtay, resigns, the third senior Turkish official to resign less in than two months.
An Israeli military court sentences 12 Palestinian guerrillas to 30 years in prison for attempting a May 30 sea raid on Israeli beaches. . . . Zairean demonstrators protesting soaring food prices are attacked by police in Kinshasa. Four protesters are killed during the incident. . . . In Chad, rebel leader Idriss Deby frees at least 450 Libyan prisoners of war, some of them held since 1982. . . . The Lebanese Forces complete their withdrawal, although gunmen in civilian clothes are in key locations in east Beirut.
An uprising by several hundred Argentine army troops is quashed by forces loyal to the elected civilian government of Pres. Carlos Saúl Menem. The fighting results in 21 deaths. . . . Pres. Bush begins to tour five South America nations, making the most comprehensive swing through the continent of any U.S. leader since Pres. Eisenhower in 1960.
Faced with increasing public chaos in Bangladesh, Pres. Hossein Mohammed Ershad offers to resign 45 days before elections, set for June 1991, and to immediately end press censorship.
Hungarian premier Jozsef Antall describes the country’s economic situation as “extremely grave” and admits the Hungarian people have “every right” to be discouraged. . . . Baghdad announces that all 3,300 Soviet citizens in Iraq—most of them technicians in oil, industrial and military projects—will be permitted to leave if Moscow will “bear the responsibility for the impact of the breach of worker contracts.”
The ruling Kenyan African National Union closes a national conference and rejects the creation of a multiparty political system in the country. . . . In Chad, Idriss Deby declares himself president and promises a multiparty democracy. . . . In Lebanon, government troops began dismantling barricades that have long split Beirut, leaving the city free of private armies and with a unified central government for the first time since 1975.
Col. Eduardo Herrera Hassan escapes from prison. He and his rebels seize Panama’s national police headquarters. . . . Reports confirm that the Nov. 20 attack staged by leftist rebels of the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front in El Salvador left 170 people dead and 510 wounded. The fighting continues as the FMLN shoots down a Salvadoran air force jet.
Bangladeshi president Hossein Mohammed Ershad announces his resignation from office after eight weeks of violent protests and after leaders of the two major opposition parties reject the compromise offer made on Dec. 3. About 100,000 marchers celebrate wildly when his resignation is announced.
U.S. troops surround the headquarters of Panama’s national police and force the surrender of rebels who seized the building on Dec. 4. . . . In Haiti, five people are shot to death and at least 54 wounded when unidentified assailants attack supporters of Rev. Jean-Bertrand Aristide during a blackout minutes after a rally in Petionville.
Sheikh Hasina Wazed, head of the leftist Awami League, and Begum Khaleda Zia, leader of the more conservative Bangladesh National Party (BNP), select Chief Justice Shahabuddin Ahmed as the new president of Bangladesh. . . . Another round of bilateral negotiations over the future of U.S. military bases in the Philippines begins.
In Guatemala, Defense Minister General Juan Leonel Bolanos Chávez apologizes for the Dec. 2 incident and promises that soldiers will be withdrawn from the base, especially since residents have complained of a series of abuses by the army during the 11 years that the base has been in the town.
Financially troubled magnate Alan Bond is arrested by Australian authorities on one count of corporate misconduct. . . . Tunku Abdul Rahman Putra ibni Almarhum Sultan Abdul Hamid Halim Shah, 87, first prime minister of Malaysia, dies of intestinal bleeding and other ailments in Kuala Lumpur. . . . In Bangladesh, Pres. Ershad dissolves the national parliament, and interim president Shahabuddin Ahmed takes power.
The Soviet foreign ministry indicates its willingness to discuss the issue of monetary compensation for the termination of contracts suggested by Iraq on Dec 4, and Iraq begins processing Soviet exit visas.
Dec. 5
Dec. 6
Europe
In London, two men believed to be operatives of the outlawed Provisional IRA, Liam O’Dhuibhir and Damien McComb, are each sentenced to 30 years in prison after being found guilty of conspiring to cause explosions. . . . The Vatican restores diplomatic relations with Bulgaria.
In South Africa, as many as 30,000 ANC supporters march through Johannesburg, Pretoria, and Bloemfontein as the ANC launches its latest “mass action” campaign designed to pressure the government to move more quickly toward dismantling apartheid. Police keep a low profile, and the demonstrations proceed without incident.
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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.
December 2–6, 1990—127
U.S. Politics & Social Issues
The acquittal of six Miami police officers in the beating death of a Puerto Rican drug dealer sparks a riot in the city’s Hispanic Wynwood section. . . . House Republicans and Democrats reelect their respective incumbents for leadership teams. . . . The Supreme Court rules that federal pension law preempts state laws in adjudging an employee’s claim of “wrongful discharge.” . . . The Supreme Court broadens the Miranda warning when it rules out questioning once the suspect asks to speak with a lawyer, unless the lawyer is present.
In an interview, former surgeon general Everett Koop claims his successor and the Bush administration are not doing enough to educate the public about AIDS. . . . The American Medical Association votes to support reporting to public health authorities the names of people who test positive for the HIV virus. . . . A survey in the Journal of the American Medical Association finds that 22% of sampled hospitals do not require a patient’s consent before testing for HIV.
U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense
U.S. Economy & Environment
Defense Secretary Richard Cheney tells Congress that there is “no guarantee” that economic sanctions will force Iraq out of Kuwait, even “given five years.”
Continental Airlines Holdings Inc. files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection from creditors.
Months after Congress learned that the A-12 aircraft project is at least one year behind schedule, at least $1 billion over its development budget, and plagued by design problems, the navy announces that three senior officers have been punished for their roles in the scandal.
The Federal Reserve Board announces a reduction in reserve requirements for banks to stimulate the economy as many believe that it is in a recession.
Science, Technology, & Nature
Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle
The space shuttle Columbia takes off from Cape Canaveral, Florida, and, by doing so, sets a record for the number of people in orbit around the Earth. In addition to the seven astronauts aboard the Columbia, three men are also launched by the Soviet Union aboard a space capsule to rendezvous with space station Mir. The space station has two other cosmonauts aboard, making a total of 12 astronauts orbiting Earth.
Aaron Copland, 90, one of the best-known and most influential American composers of the 20th century, dies of respiratory failure in North Tarrytown, New York.
A Northwest Airlines passenger plane explodes and bursts into flames after colliding with another Northwest passenger jet on a fogshrouded runway at Detroit Metropolitan Airport. One flight attendant and seven passengers are killed and 21 are injured, two of them critically. . . . The pointing system on telescopes on the spacecraft Columbia fail, forcing the astronauts to try to lock manually onto targets with three ultraviolet Astro telescopes.
Dec. 3
Dec. 4
The U.S.-based relief agency CARE promises 50,000 food parcels for Moscow and Leningrad.
The CDC reports that the homicide rate among black males between the ages of 15 and 24 rose 68% between 1984 and 1988, making homicide the leading cause of death among black men in that age group.
Dec. 2
Salman Rushdie appears in public for the first time since his death was ordered in 1989 for blaspheming Islam in his novel The Satanic Verses. . . . Lucy Schildkret Dawidowicz, 75, historian and author whose book The War Against the Jews is considered a pioneering study of Nazi genocide, dies of unreported causes in NYC.
The Congressional Budget Office predicts a record federal budget deficit of $253 billion for fiscal 1991 and suggests it will increase to $262 billion the following year. The deficit reached $220 billion on Sept. 30, the end of fiscal 1990. . . . Reports confirm that the court-appointed monitor of the Teamsters union ordered the removal of Teamster vice president Jack Yager because of his “silence and incomprehensible passivity” about union corruption.
Pope John Paul II endorses a statement against anti-Semitism drawn up by Jewish and Roman Catholic representatives. . . . The National Hockey League awards new franchises to Ottawa and Tampa Bay, Florida, scheduled to begin play in the 1992 through 1993 season.
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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)
Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.
Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.
Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.
Dec. 5
Dec. 6
128—December 7–12, 1990
Dec. 7
Dec. 8
Africa & the Middle East
World Affairs
Europe
The General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs Uruguay Round of multilateral trade talks is suspended after negotiators fail to agree on a plan to reduce farm subsidies.
Bulgaria’s Grand National Assembly elects Dimitar Popov, a political independent, to the post of premier. . . . Recently resigned British prime minister Margaret Thatcher is awarded the Order of Merit by Queen Elizabeth II.
Iraq begins a five-day release of over 2,000 Western hostages trapped in Iraq and Kuwait for more than four months as Pres. Saddam Hussein carries through a pledge to release the captives as a humanitarian gesture and because they were no longer needed as “human shields.”
A car bomb kills six policemen and injures eight other people in the first fatal attack in a campaign to undermine the 1992 Olympic Summer Games in Barcelona. . . . Two days of cold weather and snow storms strike the U.K. and the Continent. In the course of the storms, 10 people die in Britain and 11 people are reported dead or missing due to cold weather on the European continent.
Chief Mangosuthu Gatsha Buthelezi, leader of the Zulu-based Inkatha Freedom Party, declares his group’s opposition to ANC’s mass action tactics. . . . Local elections in Nigeria, the first since 1983, are marred by a turnout of between 10% and 15% of registered voters. . . . A U.S. Air Force plane evacuates 400 Libyan rebels from Chad as part of a series of evacuations.
A Salvadoran judge orders the soldiers indicted in the Nov. 1989 slaying of six Jesuit priests, their housekeeper, and her daughter to stand trial on charges of murder and terrorism.
The ruling Serbian Socialist Party retains power. Runoffs are scheduled for Dec. 23. Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic, a nationalist, is reelected. . . . The ruling League of Communists of Macedonia is voted out of power in final runoff elections. . . . The League of Communists of Montenegro remains in power. Runoffs are to be held Dec. 23. . . . Lech Walesa, the leader of the Solidarity labor movement, wins the Polish presidential runoff election. . . . In Albania, protests by thousands of students in Tirana begin and last twp days, and demonstrators clash with riot police.
As the Arab intifadah, or uprising, enters its fourth year, a Palestinian is fatally shot in the Gaza Strip and a bomb outside military headquarters in Bethlehem kills an Israeli soldier and wounds two others. . . . Pres. F. W. de Klerk and Nelson Mandela issue a joint statement voicing concern about the factional fighting that killed more than 900 people in the black townships around Johannesburg since August. . . . Angola’s ruling party, the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola–Workers’ Party, discards its Marxist-Leninist ideology and adopts “democratic socialism” as its new ideology.
A curfew imposed in Trinidad in July after an unsuccessful coup bid by a Muslim group is lifted. . . . The Mexican government privatizes the national telephone company. . . . The Colombian military launches a major offensive against the nation’s largest remaining guerrilla group by bombing the mountain jungle headquarters of the Marxist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).
Anatoly Kovalev accepts the Nobel Peace Prize on behalf of Mikhail Gorbachev in Oslo, Norway. . . . In Romania, the national truck drivers’ union begin a nationwide strike to force the government to resign. . . . Czechoslovak president Vaclav Havel surprises the Federal Assembly when he asks for broad temporary powers.
The Congolese Workers’ Party, the ruling party of Congo, officially drops its Marxist ideology and plans to officially become a multiparty state Jan. 1, 1991.
Jean Chrétien, the leader of Canada’s Liberal Party, is elected to the federal House of Commons.
The Georgian parliament abolishes South Ossetia as an autonomous region of Georgia. In response, three people are shot to death in clashes between Ossetians and Georgians. A state of emergency is declared in South Ossetia. . . . The Albanian Workers’ Party purges its politburo and approves a proposal for independent political parties. Pres. Ramiz Alia meets with protesting students.
South African police for the first time bring together local Inkatha and ANC leaders in Thokoza in an effort to arrange a truce.
The Colombian government’s chief negotiator, Jesús Antonio Bejarano, states the FARC rejected earlier government overtures toward a peaceful settlement. . . . The Canadian government unveils its longawaited Green Plan, a five-year, C$3 billion effort to clean up the nation’s land, air, and water.
Moscow police rout 43 squatters and raze a tent city erected in June to protest poverty, homelessness, hunger and mental and physical illnesses. . . . The Czechoslovak Federal Assembly approves a package of legislation that redistributes power between the central government and the Czech and Slovak republics to appease the push for autonomy. . . . Thousands of people meet in Tirana to form the Albanian Democratic Party, the first opposition political party since 1946. Separately, riots erupt in an Albanian eastern town, Kavaje, and Pres. Alia appeals for calm.
Mandela and Chief Buthelezi pay separate visits to the South African township of Thokoza, where 130 blacks were killed over a 10-day span. . . . The parliament of Zimbabwe approves a radical landreform bill to resettle an estimated 1 million homeless blacks by seizing land held by farm owners, virtually all of whom are white. . . . P.M. Yitzhak Shamir meets with foreign minister Eduard Shevardnadze, in the highest-level talks ever between the Israel and the Soviet Union.
Reports suggest that there is a growing number of killings of street children by police in Guatemala.
Dec. 9
Dec. 10
Dec. 11
Dec. 12
The Americas
Asia & the Pacific In India, despite the peaceful nature of an Ayodhya protest Dec. 6, religious violence attributed to the mosque dispute flares up. Violent clashes between Hindus and Muslims in several Indian cities begin and last for over a week.
John Fairfax Group Ltd., a major Australian newspaper group, is placed into receivership at the urging of its creditor banks.
In Bangladesh, former leader Hossein Mohammed Ershad and his wife are arrested on charges of theft of public funds, nepotism, and gold smuggling. . . . A third round of talks between North and South Korean premiers opens.
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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.
December 7–12, 1990—129
U.S. Politics & Social Issues
U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense
A State Supreme Court jury in Philadelphia finds the Philadelphia Inquirer liable for $6 million for defaming a State Supreme Court judge, James T. McDermott. . . . The magazine Soldier of Fortune is found liable for damages of $12.4 million by a District Court jury in Montgomery, Alabama in a suit by the family of a businessman slain by a gunman who advertised in the classified section of the magazine. . . . Democrats in the North Carolina House of Representatives select Daniel T. Blue to be the first black speaker of a southern legislature since the post-Civil War Reconstruction era. Dallas voters reject a plan intended to increase minority representation on the city council. . . . Ed Edmondson, 71, U.S. representative from Oklahoma, 1953–73, dies of a heart ailment in Muskogee, Oklahoma. . . . Deane Chandler Davis, 90, two-term Republican governor of Vermont, 1969–73, dies in Berlin, Vermont after gall bladder surgery.
U.S. Economy & Environment
Science, Technology, & Nature
Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle
The Pentagon announces that Defense Secretary Dick Cheney ordered the permanent removal of SRAM-A nuclear missiles from bombers on alert for safety reasons. . . . The U.S. announces that $48.1 million in military aid will be rushed to the government of El Salvador.
Four of the astronauts aboard the Columbia beam the first-ever classroom lesson from space to 41 middle-school students assembled at two NASA centers in Huntsville, Alabama, and Greenbelt, Maryland. . . . A scientific review panel from the National Institutes of Health backs the use of genetically engineered growth hormone in cows to boost milk production.
Joan Bennett, 80, glamorous leading Hollywood film actress of the 1930s and 1940s, dies of a heart attack in Scarsdale, New York.
The planned talks between the U.S. and Iraq over the Persian Gulf crisis founder as both sides argue over the date of the proposed meeting.
On the Columbia, a plumbing problem surfaces, which adds to the list of problems faced on the spacecraft’s mission. . . . The Jupiterbound Galileo spacecraft, launched by the U.S. in Oct. 1989, passes within 600 miles of Earth at 3:35 P.M. EDT.
Martin Ritt, 76, film and television director noted for his socially conscious dramas who was blacklisted during the anticommunist McCarthy era in Hollywood in the 1950s, dies of heart disease in Santa Monica, California.
Dec. 7
Dec. 8
Dec. 9
The FDA grants approval of Norplant, the first major new form of contraception in more than 20 years. . . . Pfizer Inc. announces a recall of 20,000 heart valves., one of the largest recalls of a medical device in U.S. history.
Former U.S. president Jimmy Carter and Houston philanthropist Dominique de Menil present the fifth annual Carter-Menil Human Rights Prize to two groups, one from Guatemala and the other from Sri Lanka. The two organizations share a $100,000 monetary award.
Armand Hammer, 92, American industrialist who built Occidental Petroleum Co., dies of cerebral arteriosclerosis in Los Angeles, California.
The Columbia lands safely at Edwards Air Force Base. . . . A White House commission of aerospace experts urges NASA to focus more on unmanned rockets.
John Strugnell, a Harvard University divinity professor, is dismissed as chief editor of the Dead Sea Scrolls after making anti-Semitic remarks on Nov. 9.
John Gotti, reputed head of the New York-based Gambino organized crime family, is arrested on racketeering charges. . . . In the case of the rape and murder of a female jogger in Central Park, two more teens are convicted. Kevin Richardson, 16, is convicted on all eight counts, including rape, sodomy, and attempted murder. Kharey Wise, 18, is convicted of sexual abuse, assault, and riot.
Pres. Bush pledges in White House talks with Israeli prime minister Shamir that the U.S. will not resolve the Persian Gulf crisis at Israel’s expense. . . . A report to the navy judge advocate general’s office criticizes security lapses at the Trident submarine base at Bangor, Wash., where, earlier in the year, a naval petty officer, Shyam Drizpaul, killed three people and then committed suicide.
Pres. Bush appoints Robert L. Clarke to a second term as comptroller of the currency, on the advice of Treasury secretary Nicholas F. Brady. . . . FDIC chairman L. William Seidman discloses that the FDIC’s bank insurance fund is likely to post losses of $4 billion in 1990.
Twelve people are killed and more than 50 others injured in a chainreaction crash on Interstate Highway 75 near Calhoun, Tennessee. A total of 83 vehicles are involved in the accident, which occurred in dense fog.
The New York Times reports that wider participation of women in intercollegiate athletics is accompanied by a decrease of female coaches and administrators for women’s sport programs. . . . Donald and Ivana Trump are divorced.
The Education Department announces that it will prohibit colleges that receive federal funds from awarding scholarships designated for minority students. The secretary of education, Lauro F. Cavazos, who reportedly opposes the plan, resigns.
The Defense Department’s undersecretary for acquisition, John A. Betti, resigns amid disclosures of severe problems in the navy’s classified A-12 Stealth attack-plane program. . . . Bush approves up to $1 billion in federal loan guarantees for the Soviet Union to allow the Soviets to purchase U.S. food. In addition, he pledges U.S. emergency shipments to the USSR of food and medical supplies.
An Amtrak train from Washington, D.C., crashes into a local commuter train, that was stopped in a tunnel underneath Boston’s Back Bay Station. A total of 265 people are injured, but no deaths are reported.
Movie and television writers and producers agree to extend their current contract through mid-1995.
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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)
Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.
Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.
Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.
Dec. 10
Dec. 11
Dec. 12
130—December 13–17, 1990
World Affairs
Dec. 15
The Americas
Asia & the Pacific
African National Congress president Oliver Tambo returns to South Africa after three decades in exile. . . . Iraq announces that it is setting up hundreds of civil defense centers to prepare the population for war.
The Mexican National Commission of Human Rights states it issued 33 recommendations for action against police and government officials accused of human rights abuses. . . . Canada’s Supreme Court rules that the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms does not protect the right to promote hatred. . . . The Colombian military reports 30 guerrillas and 17 troops were killed in the fighting . . . Canada’s unelected federal Senate, the scene of a protracted procedural battle, clears goods-and-services tax.
In a meeting in Seoul, South Korea refuses to agree to a North-proposed nonaggression pact, so the talks break down, accomplishing little.
The leaders of the EC nations meet in Rome and back a package of grants and aid to the Soviet Union worth 1.15 billion European currency units. The summit also sets $130 million in food and medical aid to Romania and Bulgaria.
The first anniversary of Romania’s revolution is marked by a week of antigovernment strikes and protests. Thousands of workers begin a general strike and demand the resignation of Pres. Ion Iliescu and Premier Roman. . . . In Albania, riots spread to Elbasan. Police make scores of arrests in Albania in street clashes. . . . Two people are killed in separate car bomb explosions in Spain. The Basque separatist group ETA, which claimed responsibility for a Dec. 8 bombing, is suspected.
For two days, the ANC holds its first large-scale legal conference inside South Africa in 31 years. . . . Representatives of the Angolan government and the Union for the Total Independence of Angola reach a tentative agreement on a plan to end their 15-year-old civil war. . . . A general strike begins in Fez, Morocco, but it turns into a violent riot. . . . Three Israelis are stabbed to death by two unidentified Arabs in the Israeli town of Jaffa.
In Nicaragua, Pres. Violeta Barrios de Chamorro signs a decree eliminating compulsory military service.
Pres. Roh Tae Woo becomes the first South Korean leader ever to visit the Soviet Union. . . . The Taj Mahal, in Agra, India, closes to tourists because of ongoing violence.
The leaders of the EC decide to lift a voluntary ban on new investment in South Africa. The policy, adopted in 1986, has already been relaxed by Britain and Italy. The leaders at the summit also reiterate their call for Iraq to pull out of Kuwait and, separately, for the convening of an international conference under the auspices of the UN to resolve the Palestinian question.
Sporadic outbreaks of violence continue in Albania. . . . In Germany, energy officials begin shutting down the last of eastern Germany’s Soviet-designed nuclear reactors.
Rioting continues in Fez, Morocco. Rioters, many of them students, burn buildings, smash cars, and battle with police. . . . Attacks continue in response to the Oct. 8 Temple Mount killing, leaving at least eight Israelis dead. In response, Israeli police virtually close off the occupied Gaza Strip from Israel in efforts to locate suspects. Police also arrest between 600 and 1,000 Palestinians allegedly linked to a fundamentalist Islamic group, Hamas. The Israeli government announces that it will deport four residents of the Gaza Strip said to be members of Hamas.
To commemorate the Romanian revolution, Rev. Laszlo Tokes holds an outdoor religious service in Timisoara and calls for a peaceful “second revolution” to rid the nation of the National Salvation Front. About 10,000 Timisoara demonstrators jeer NSF officials. . . . Two antitank missiles are fired at the EC’s offices in Athens. The November 17 terrorists claim responsibility, and reports suggest the attack is linked to Greece’s new antiterrorist bill.
A leaflet circulated in Israel indicates that recent murders were committed by Hamas, an Islamic fundamentalist movement affiliated with the PLO. . . . Three guerrillas are killed in a clash between the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a PLO faction, and Israeli soldiers in southern Lebanon. . . . Israeli troops shoot dead a masked Palestinian as he sprays nationalist slogans on a wall in the Gaza Strip.
Reverend Jean-Bertrand Aristide, a leftist Roman Catholic priest, is elected president by a landslide in Haiti’s first democratic elections, which are held without violent incident. . . . Eleven people die and 20 are wounded when dozens of former contras seize a police post in Jalapa, Nicaragua. The army captures more than half the rebels.
Reports confirm that Estonia has passed a law allowing Estonians to avoid the Soviet military draft by performing alternative civilian service. . . . Talks between Romania’s ruling National Salvation Front (NSF) and the opposition National Liberal Party on the possibility of a coalition government open in Bucharest. . . . Reports state that 81 prisoners have escaped from a prison in Athens, Greece, and 64 prisoners are still at large. . . . In Albania, the government announces that 157 accused rioters will stand trial immediately.
Pres. Kenneth Kaunda signs a constitutional amendment permitting the formation of opposition parties in Zambia for the first time since 1972.
A crowd celebrating Jean-Bertrand Aristide’s victory as Haiti’s president is fired upon by men in national police uniforms. A pregnant woman is killed, and several are wounded. . . . Colombian president Cesar Gaviria offers greater leniency to drug traffickers who turn themselves in. . . . In Canada, the controversial 7% goods-and-services tax becomes law at an assent ceremony boycotted by opponents.
Dec. 16
Dec. 17
Africa & the Middle East
In Albania, riots erupt in the northern city of Shkoder and in the coastal city of Durres Thousands of riot police and army troops, including armored units, are sent into the troubled areas. . . . Romania’s premier Petre Roman announces the government will put on trial all persons suspected of political crimes or human-rights abuses during the 24-year reign of the late Pres. Ceausescu. . . . The Greek parliament approves a new antiterrorism bill.
Dec. 13
Dec. 14
Europe
U.S. secretary of state James Baker warns that Iraq may try to divide the coalition arrayed against it by withdrawing from part of Kuwait on or around the Jan. 15 deadline at a NATO meeting. The other NATO foreign ministers join Baker in a statement that declares, “There can be no partial solution.”
Reports show that eight days of protests in India have left about 300 people dead and 3,000 arrested.
A new Thai cabinet is sworn in after a reshuffle by Premier Chatichai Choonhavan in response to pressure from the military.
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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.
December 13–17, 1990—131
U.S. Politics & Social Issues
U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense
U.S. Economy & Environment
Science, Technology, & Nature
A state district judge in Clarkston, Michigan, dismisses murder charges against Jack Kevorkian, an Oregon physician who created a device to assist individuals in committing suicide. . . . Arthur Shawcross is convicted for murdering 10 women in Rochester, New York, in 1989 and 1990 while on parole for a 1972 killing. . . . William Bennett, reversing his position, states he will not accept the chairmanship of the Republican National Committee.
Reports states that most U.S. citizens who wanted to leave Kuwait or Iraq have apparently done so when the last U.S.-chartered flight takes off. . . . Former CIA agent Thomas Clines, suspected of involvement in the Iran-contra arms scandal, is sentenced in District Court in Baltimore to 16 months in prison for filing false income-tax returns.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission approves new radiation exposure limits for nuclear plant workers and neighborhoods. The limit for atomic workers is reduced to 5 rems of radiation a year, compared with up to four times that amount allowed under current rules.
A major study in the New England Journal of Medicine finds that the consumption of animal fat in red meat increases the likelihood of developing colon cancer.
Johns Hopkins Hospital announces that patients of a doctor who died of AIDS will be tested for HIV. The announcement is accompanied by a critique that charges that the Centers for Disease Control fail to provide enough data on the transmission of AIDS by health-care workers and calls for new guidelines on AIDSinfected personnel. . . . Prosecutors in Oakland County, Mich., drop their case against Dr. Kevorkian, but seek to extend a temporary restraining order that prohibits him from using his suicide device.
Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle
Dec. 13
Nan Wood Graham, 91, who posed for her brother, Grant Wood, when he painted American Gothic, dies in Menlo Park, California. . . . Former television evangelist Jim Bakker is found liable for nearly $130 million in damages by a federal district court jury in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Dec. 14
Dec. 15
The U.S. condemns Israel’s decision to resume deportations, citing prohibitions against such treatment in the Geneva Convention.
Pres. Bush nominates former Tennessee governor Lamar Alexander (R) as secretary of education.
Appearing on NBC’s “Meet the Press” television program, FDIC chairman L. William Seidman estimates that the deposit insurance fund will lose an additional $5 billion in 1991. He claims that FDIC projections indicate that between 170 and 200 banks will fail in 1991.
Dec. 16
Space Travel Service Corp. in Houston announces plans to conduct a national sweepstakes to select an American to ride aboard a Soviet spacecraft and visit the space station Mir. The winner will have to pass a Soviet physical examination and undergo preflight training, which includes Russianlanguage instruction.
Bernard Aronson, the U.S. assistant secretary of state for interAmerican affairs and part of a U.S. observer group that monitored the election, states that the U.S. recognizes Aristide as Haiti’s presidentelect and is ready to renew aid to the impoverished nation.
Plans for the formation of a new women’s professional basketball league are announced. The league, the Liberty Basketball Association, will begin play in February 1991.
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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)
Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.
Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.
Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.
Dec. 17
132—December 18–22, 1990
Dec. 18
Dec. 19
Dec. 20
Dec. 21
Dec. 22
Africa & the Middle East
World Affairs
Europe
The foreign ministers of NATO warn the Soviet Union that ratification of the Nov. 19 CEF treaty may be delayed by an inaccurate accounting of Soviet weapons. . . . Reports state that the UN World Food Program appealed to donor nations for 1 million tons of emergency food for Ethiopia. . . . Japan joins the international effort to feed the Soviet people, offering $100 million in loans and $3.75 million in direct food and medical aid.
The last functioning Soviet-designed nuclear reactor at the Greifswald plant in Germany closes. . . . The British government announces a 96 million pounds sterling plan to aid the homeless. . . . Reports suggest that Estonia is establishing its own banking system and pricing policies. . . . The Latvian government accuses the Kremlin of being behind a series of mysterious bombings in the capital, Riga.
The UN Children’s Fund, in its annual report, calls for an international commitment of $20 billion to meet goals set at the World Summit for Children in September. . . . UN secretary general Javier Perez de Cuellar appoints Sadako Ogata of Japan to the post of UN high commissioner for refugees, succeeding Thorvald Stoltenberg, who resigned to become the foreign minister of Norway.
The government formally recognizes the Albanian Democratic Party. . . . Poland’s Roman Catholic bishops issue a statement denouncing anti-Semitism in the nation and conceding that some Poles aided the Nazi persecution of Jews during World War II. . . . Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev continues a surprising shift to the right. Fifty-three prominent Soviets publish an open letter urging Gorbachev to crack down on separatists and criminals. Gorbachev threatens to impose direct presidential rule on disorderly areas of the USSR.
The UN Security Council adopts a resolution that refers to the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip as “Palestinian territories” and condemns Israel for its treatment of Arab civilians there.
Eduard Shevardnadze resigns as the Soviet foreign minister and warns that the nation is headed toward a dictatorship. . . . A gun battle among soldiers near the Soviet-Czechoslovak border results in injuries to 21 troops. . . . The German Bundestag holds its first meeting in the old Reichstag in Berlin. . . . The Bulgarian Grand National Assembly confirms the country’s first multiparty government in 40 years.
Nearly three weeks of reports claim that hundreds of Liberians died of starvation, and doctors predict that thousands more will succumb unless a huge relief program is launched. . . . Former education minister Omar Karami is named Lebanon’s prime minister by Pres. Elias Hrawi.
Stating that Honduras is facing the “worst economic crisis in its history,” Foreign Minister Mario Carias Zapata states the country will no longer accept refugees from other countries.
Police in Bangladesh place former vice president Moudud Ahmed under house arrest. . . . India and Pakistan agree to a pact banning attacks on each other’s nuclear facilities. . . . In response to the League’s Dec. 18 announcement, the military government of Myanmar formally bans the National League for Democracy, which won an overwhelming victory in May national elections but has not been permitted to take power.
A joint study by the IMF, the World Bank, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development argues that most direct financial aid to the Soviet Union will go to waste unless that country takes a radical turn toward a free-market economy. . . . Separately, an EC report on the Soviet economic situation contends that political turmoil and “reform fatigue” in the USSR will hamper a transition to a market economy.
Tens of thousands of people in Bucharest turn a revolution commemoration into an antigovernment rally. . . . The Croatian parliament adopts a new constitution that calls for a referendum on secession to be held within 30 days of a two-thirds majority vote by parliament. . . . In Albania, the last bastion of Stalinism in Europe, the government orders the removal of all statues and symbols of former Soviet leader Joseph Stalin.
In a German television interview, Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein declares that Iraq will not withdraw from Kuwait by the Jan. 15 deadline. . . . Israeli officials denounce the UN’s Dec. 20 resolution. . . . Reports state that eight U.S. soldiers were hospitalized after being poisoned by home-brewed alcohol in Saudi Arabia, which bans alcoholic beverages.
The province of Quebec reaches an agreement with the Canadian federal government that gives it greater powers over immigration.
Cambodia and the three rebel factions meet for two days of talks in Paris.
The UN Security Council votes to dissolve the U.S.-administered UN trusteeship over a string of Pacific islands captured from the Japanese during World War II. The vote formally ends the U.S.’s 43-year trustee relationship.
Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev indicates unspecified “necessary measures” will be taken unless Moldavia meets his demands. . . . The head of the KGB, Vladimir Kryuchkov, stuns deputies with a warning against Soviet acceptance of Western aid. . . . Fifteen thousand Albanians are permitted to hold a rally for the Albanian Democratic Party, Albania’s first such legally sponsored event. . . . Lech Walesa is sworn in as Poland’s president in a somber ceremony in Warsaw.
Twenty-one sailors from the aircraft carrier USS Saratoga drown when the Israeli ferry they were taking back to their ship after shore leave in Haifa capsizes.
The Ethiopian government and the rebel Eritrean People’s Liberation Front (EPLF) agree to reopen the rebel-held port of Massawa to allow the delivery of relief food to the famine-threatened province of Eritrea. . . . In Fez, Morocco, the government promises salary increases and unspecified social improvements after riots.
The Americas
Asia & the Pacific
In Haiti, police deny responsibility for the Dec. 17 attack. . . . In Colombia, one of the leaders of the powerful Medellín cocaine cartel, Fabio Ochoa Vásquez, surrenders.
Members of Myanmar’s opposition National League for Democracy announce the creation of a rival government. U Sein Wei is named prime minister.
James R. Lilley, the U.S. ambassador to China, and Richard Schifter, the assistant secretary of state for human rights and humanitarian affairs, close a two-day meeting with Chinese officials to ask them to free 150 jailed dissidents. . . . A Philippine military court sentences 81 soldiers to prison terms of up to 32 years for participating in a 1987 coup attempt. Twenty other defendants are acquitted. . . . Reports state that the Japanese parliament has approved the creation of a $375 million “Japan-U.S. Global Partnership Fund” to promote cultural exchanges and improve understanding with the U.S.
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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.
December 18–22, 1990—133
U.S. Politics & Social Issues
U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense
U.S. Economy & Environment
Science, Technology, & Nature
Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle
A judge in Washington, D.C., rules that Neil Bush had conflicts of interest as a director of an S&L and recommends a “cease-and-desist” order, the mildest possible sanction. . . . The Commerce Dept. reports the merchandise trade deficit rose in Oct. to its highest level since Feb. 1988. . . . The Federal Reserve Board votes to cut its basic interest rate for loans to its member institutions to 6.5% from 7%. The cut is the first in the so-called discount rate since Aug. 1986.
Seven people are killed and another 41 injured (five of them critically) when a tractor-trailer truck collides with a second truck and a Greyhound bus on Interstate Highway 80 near Emory, Utah, during a heavy snowstorm
The International Tennis Federation names Steffi Graf as the women’s world champion for 1990 and, in a surprise, chooses Ivan Lendl as the men’s champion.
Three nuclear physicists, in a report to the House Armed Services Committee, warns that most U.S. nuclear weapons need safety modifications, particularly the Trident II (D5) submarine-launched ballistic missile. . . . The Strategic Air Command grounds all 97 B-1B strategic bombers because of recurring engine failures. . . . The federal government agrees to grant temporary legal status to an estimated 500,000 undocumented Salvadoran and Guatemalan immigrants, pending a review of their requests for political asylum.
The Justice Department brings civil racketeering charges against the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees International Union and its Local 54 in Atlantic City, New Jersey, a union allegedly controlled by the Bruno-Scarfo family.
The National Transportation Safety Board states the Amtrak train in the Dec. 12 accident was traveling at about 110 mph shortly before the crash—10 mph over the speed limit on that section of track. . . . Iowa researchers find a majority of children who had high cholesterol levels in childhood achieve normal levels as adults.
British prime minister John Major makes his first trip to the U.S.
Don R. Dixon, former owner of Vernon Savings and Loan Association of Dallas, is convicted of 23 federal criminal charges by a jury in a Dallas federal court. . . . USX Corp. agrees to pay fines of $3.3 million to settle federal charges of health and safety violations at two Pennsylvania plants. The penalty is the largest in history for the Labor Department’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration.
Amtrak suspends the two engineers of the train that crashed on Dec. 12 without pay pending the results of the Dec. 19 NTSB investigation, and it installs a new signal system that automatically slows any train approaching Back Bay Station.
According to Health and Services Secretary Louis W. Sullivan, a total of $604.1 billion was spent on health care in the U.S. in 1989—an average of $2,400 for each person in the country. . . . In Ohio, Gov. Richard Celeste grants clemency to 25 women convicted of killing men who abused them.
The U.S. suspends its $2.8 million military-aid program to Guatemala, citing Guatemala’s failure to curb human rights abuses. U.S. State Department officials state the primary cause of the suspension is the June slaying of a resident of Guatemala born in the U.S., Michael DeVine. . . . Since the Saudi government restricts the practice of religions other than Islam, the U.S. command starts instructing its troops to celebrate Christmas discreetly.
The House Select Committee on Intelligence closes a nine-monthold investigation into possible links between the CIA and savings-andloan fraud. . . . Former Sunbelt Savings Association Chairman Edwin T. McBirney pleads guilty to fraud charges in a Dallas federal court.
According to a study in Congressional Quarterly, only 46.8% of congressional votes on which Pres. Bush took a position were decided in his favor in 1990.
At a Camp David press conference, British prime minister John Major and Pres. Bush express solidarity in calling for Iraq to withdraw from Kuwait and in backing NATO as the mainstay of the Western alliance.
The court-appointed monitor of the Teamsters Union, Frederick B. Lacey, recommends barring Teamsters vice president George Vitale from the union for five years.
A self-proclaimed white supremacist, Byron De La Beckwith, is charged for the third time with killing civil rights leader Medgar Evers in 1963. . . . . The Education Dept. announces a partial reversal of the controversial policy announced on Dec. 12. The revisions allow colleges that receive federal funds to award scholarships to minority students if the money for those scholarships comes from donations or federal programs to aid minority students. A federal grand jury indicts five Chicago political figures on corruption charges. . . . A National Institute on Drug Abuse survey finds casual drug use declined significantly over the past two years. Critics, however, take issue with the survey’s methods, and Sen. Joseph Biden (D, Del.) releases his own survey, which shows there is a total of 2.4 million hard-core cocaine or crack addicts in the U.S. . . . Health officials in Florida declare an end to the state’s worst encephalitis outbreak in nearly 30 years, which killed nine and infected 202.
Dec. 18
Dec. 19
Dec. 20
Dec. 21
Dec. 22
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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)
Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.
Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.
Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.
134—December 23–27, 1990
World Affairs
Europe
Africa & the Middle East
The Americas
Residents of the northern republic of Slovenia vote overwhelmingly in a referendum to have the republic secede from Yugoslavia should efforts at confederation fail. . . . The ruling Serbian Socialist Party retains power in Yugoslavia’s largest and most influential republic after final runoff elections. . . . The League of Communists of Montenegro, Yugoslavia’s smallest republic, remains in power following final runoff elections.
Dec. 23
The Soviet Congress of Peoples’ Deputies votes to endorse in principle the “draft concept” of Pres. Mikhail Gorbachev’s union treaty. The vote does not constitute an actual ratification of the treaty.
Dec. 24
The Cambodian government and the three rebel factions agree to most aspects of a UN plan for an end to the civil war, but they continue to squabble over several issues.
Israel’s Housing Minister Sharon announces plans to put up 2,500 new houses for Jewish settlers in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip. . . . A Spanish TV station quotes Hussein as threatening that Tel Aviv will be Iraq’s first target in the event of war, regardless of whether Israel joins in an attack on Iraq. . . . Author Salman Rushdie issues a statement in which he embraces Islam and states he will oppose the paperback publication or any further translations of his novel The Satanic Verses.
Albania’s leading Roman Catholic activist, Father Simon Jubani, conducts the first Mass in Albania in 23 years.
Dec. 25
Dec. 26
Dec. 27
Asia & the Pacific
Suriname’s army seizes the nation’s government in a bloodless coup when civilian president Ramsewak Shankar and his cabinet surrender power at the army’s request to avoid bloodshed.
For two days the cyclone Joy batters the Australian state of Queensland, causing an estimated A$40 million worth of damage to coastal communities. . . . The U.S. warns Thailand that continued violations of U.S. copyrights in the country may result in retaliatory tariffs.
The government of the Netherlands, which ruled Suriname until 1975, denounces the Dec. 24 coup. The Dutch government orders a complete suspension of aid to Suriname, which totaled $28 million in 1989.
The Chinese Communist Party Central Committee holds a five-day meeting to discuss a five-year economic plan.
The Russian Federation’s parliament votes to withhold about 80% of its scheduled contribution to the 1991 Soviet central budget. . . . The commander of the Soviet Baltic Fleet warns that relations between the military and the Baltic republics are at a flashpoint. . . . Bonn’s Federal Crime Office reports that Soviet troops commit 20–30 crimes daily and that 15–30 soldiers desert weekly. . . . At a Workers’ Party conference, Albania’s president Ramiz Alia states the party “would deviate from many principles of socialism, correct many attitudes of the past, but does not intend to abandon its Marxist ideology.”
The U.S. orders 200 U.S. government dependents and nonessential personnel to leave Sudan and Jordan—two nations sympathetic toward Iraq in the current crisis— before Jan. 15. . . . Three members of the extremist Jewish Underground, Menachem Livni, Shaul Nir, and Uzi Sharbav, are released from prison after serving less than seven years for the murder of three Arabs and the maiming of two Palestinian mayors. . . . In Algiers, Parliament passes a law that forbids the use of foreign languages in Algeria. . . . Iranian spiritual leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei states that Iran’s death edict against Rushdie remains intact, despite Rushdie’s Dec. 24 retractions.
The north and northeastern coast of the Australian state of Queensland is declared a disaster area after winds up to 145 miles per hour and torrential rains tore roofs from houses, caused power outages and flooded highways.
Prior to closing the fourth Congress, Soviet deputies agree to place executive structures directly under the president. Gennady I. Yanayev becomes the vice president after a second ballot. . . . In response to the Dec. 26 Russian vote, Russian finance minister Fyodorov resigns, and Pres. Gorbachev warns, “This would mean the breakup not only of the economy, but of the Soviet Union.” . . . The IRA fires on a border crossing 20 minutes after the expiration of a 72-hour Christmas truce, the first in 16 years. . . . Reports confirm the first bank in Albania with foreign capital has opened.
Rebels from the United Somali Congress, one of three major groups seeking to oust Siad Barre, begin four days of fierce fighting with Siad Barre’s security forces, known as the red berets. . . . More than 100,000 people march to protest a law that forbids the use of foreign languages in Algeria. . . . The Israeli Supreme Court bars the deportations begun on Dec. 15 until the court completes deliberations on their legality. . . . Iraq test fires a surface-to-surface missile into a remote area in western Iraq.
The Swiss Federal Court rules that $350 million in Swiss bank accounts belonging to Philippine ex-president Ferdinand Marcos, which the Philippines claims Marcos stole from public funds, will be turned over to the government of the Philippines instead of to relatives of the late president.
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Includes developments that affect more than one world region, international organizations, and important meetings of major world leaders.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.
December 23–27, 1990—135
U.S. Politics & Social Issues
U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense
U.S. Economy & Environment
Science, Technology, & Nature
Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle
Foy David Kohler, 82, U.S. State Department official who was the U.S. ambassador to the Soviet Union at the time of the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, dies of heart ailments in Jupiter, Florida.
Reports confirm that the top AIDS drug regulator for the FDA, Ellen Cooper, has resigned her post.
Dec. 23
The Pentagon restricts news coverage and even censors jokes of the Christmas shows performed for U.S. forces in Saudi Arabia, and Brooke Shields is kept from participating because she is a woman.
Dec. 24
Researchers at the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons report that teenage suicide prevention programs may do more harm than good. The study finds little evidence that such programs reduce teen suicide attempts, while there is “some evidence” that they might stir up depressed feelings.
Dec. 25
The Census Bureau reports the 1990 census count as 249,632,692 people, 10.2% more than the 1980 census tally. The final tally, still subject to adjustment for undercount, is 3.8 million over August’s preliminary estimate. . . . Nancy Beth Cruzan, 33, comatose patient who was the focus of a nationwide debate concerning her parents’ efforts to have doctors remove the feeding tube that was sustaining her life, dies 12 days after the tube was removed with permission from a Missouri state court.
Joseph C. Wilson, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, resumes contact with Iraqi officials, but no progress is reported.
The FDA announces that it will begin random testing in early 1991 to detect the presence of antibiotics and sulfa drugs in milk. . . . San Francisco becomes the first city in the U.S. to enact a law regulating the use of video display terminals (VDTs) in the workplace.
Following CIA warnings that Iraq has developed biological weapons, the Pentagon plans to begin vaccinating U.S. troops in the Persian Gulf. . . . Reports indicate that the SEC is conducting an informal investigation of whether General Dynamics and McDonnell Douglas made improper financial disclosures on the A-12 program. . . . The Soviet ambassador to Washington reassures Pres. Bush that there will be no major shifts in Soviet foreign policy in the wake of Shevardnadze’s Dec. 20 resignation.
The Senior Professional Baseball Association calls off its season midway through its schedule. The league, with a total of six teams in Florida, Arizona, and California, folds after the Fort Myers Sun Sox dropped out in a dispute between owners.
Massachusetts governor Michael S. Dukakis (D) signs into law a clean-air bill that sets some of the nation’s strictest standards for automobile emissions.
Dec. 26
Dec. 27
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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)
Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.
Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.
Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.
136—December 28–31, 1990
World Affairs
Africa & the Middle East
In the USSR, reports indicate that nearly one-third of Muscovite youths called for military service in the fall of 1990 failed to respond to their draft notices. . . . Reports show Albanian protesters arrested in mid-December riots received sentences of up to 20 years in prison. . . . Britain announces it will inoculate its soldiers in fear of biological weapons in the Persian Gulf.
Dec. 28
Dec. 29
Dec. 30
Dec. 31
Europe
Year-end data indicates that stock markets in the world’s financial centers generally declined between Jan. 1 and Dec. 31 in the face of international economic and political uncertainties.
The Americas
Asia & the Pacific
In Guatemala, police arrest 11 people and net 1.5 tons of cocaine worth $3.8 billion in its largest-ever drug raid. The U.S. embassy in Guatemala requests the extradition of three suspects. . . . The Canadian cabinet upholds a ruling that orders Canadian cable TV companies to pay more than C$50 million to U.S. movie producers and other foreign copyright holders for use of their material.
Indian prime minister Chandra Shekhar meets with radical Sikh leader Simranjit Singh Mann in an attempt to reach a settlement of the ongoing separatist conflict in Punjab state.
Polish president Lech Walesa nominates Jan Krzysztof Bielecki, a 39year-old economist, to succeed Tadeusz Mazowiecki as the nation’s premier.
In Israel, soldiers shoot and kill two masked men who refuse to submit to a search in the Rafa refugee district. Angry Palestinians pelt the soldiers with stones, killing two people. In the aftermath, tens of thousands of Arabs flood the streets. Some throw fire bombs at the Israeli soldiers. In the end, four are dead and at least 125 wounded. It is the worst violence in a single day there since the Oct. 8 Temple Mount killings.
Salvadoran rebels promise they will end their five-week military campaign and present new peace proposals on Dec. 31.
Japan’s prime minister Toshiki Kaifu announces sweeping changes in his cabinet by replacing 17 of 20 ministers. . . . The Times of London reports that China continues to send arms to the Khmer Rouge despite a September promise to cut off such aid.
In response to demands by Pres. Gorbachev, Moldavia backs down from a plan to form a special defense force in the republic and pledges to take steps to dissolve the renegade autonomous republics formed by ethnic Russians and the Gagauz. However, legislators refuse to pull back from the contention that Moldavia was illegally annexed by the Soviet Union in 1940. . . . An Albanian official discloses that Albanian Jews will be allowed to emigrate. Separately, 3,000 Albanians begin to stream across the Greek border seeking political asylum.
In Somalia, the Dec. 27 uprising results in hundreds of deaths. . . . The Israeli government declares the Gaza Strip a closed military zone and put a curfew into effect in response to the Dec. 29 killings. . . . In a strongly worded New Year’s message broadcast on Iraqi TV, Saddam Hussein brands U.S. Pres. Bush and Saudi King Fahd as “traitors” to their religions.
In Argentina, Pres. Carlos Saúl Menem pardons eight military men and one civilian, including former ruling military junta members responsible for the 1970s “dirty war” against suspected leftists. . . . The New York Times reports that the Nicaraguan Sandinista-controlled army admitted that advanced weapons have recently been smuggled to FMLN rebels in El Salvador, but the operations have ceased.
The Chinese Communist Party Central Committee issues a communiqué that strongly reaffirms the socialist economic system and cautions against an overeagerness to embrace a market economy.
Reports suggest that Pres. Gorbachev has issued decrees to introduce a nationwide 5% sales tax and to establish a stabilization fund for enterprises threatened by economic reform. . . . Hungary’s National Assembly passes Premier Antall’s 1991 budget. . . . Faced with an influx of Albanian refugees, Greece appeals to ethnic Greeks to stay in Albania and wait for “the inevitable” democratization. Greek premier Constantine Mitsotakis announces that he plans to visit Albania in Jan. 1991, and the Greek Orthodox Church urges the Albanian government to allow priests to travel to Albania for the feast of Epiphany, a religious holiday.
Somali president Mohamed Siad Barre is forced to flee his palace in Mogadishu as rebels threaten to take over the city. . . . The Israeli air force attacks a PLO base near Sidon, killing 12 guerrillas. By Lebanese police count, the air strike raises the death toll from such attacks to 40, with 82 people wounded.
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Includes developments that affect more than one world region, international organizations, and important meetings of major world leaders.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.
December 28–31, 1990—137
U.S. Politics & Social Issues
U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense
U.S. Economy & Environment
Science, Technology, & Nature
The speaker of the Texas House of Representatives, Gib Lewis, is indicted by an Austin, Texas, grand jury on two misdemeanor ethics charges.
Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle Publisher’s Weekly lists The Plains of Passage by Jean M. Auel as the top bestseller of the year.
About 400 people attend ceremonies marking the 100th anniversary of the massacre of Indians at Wounded Knee, South Dakota.
Time magazine names Pres. Bush as its “Men of the Year.” The magazine claims it takes the unusual step of describing Bush as two men because of his successes in foreign affairs and his failures in domestic policy.
Dec. 28
Dec. 29
Vice President Dan Quayle begins a three-day trip to the Persian Gulf region.
The New York Times reports that federal government funding provided only 17% of state and local budgets compared with 25% during the 1970s.
In basketball, Scott Skiles of the Orlando Magic chalks up 30 assists, breaking the record of 29 set by Kevin Porter of the New Jersey Nets in 1978.
The Pentagon announces that five more U.S. troops died in separate incidents in the Persian Gulf. A total of 52 servicemen have been killed in and around Saudi Arabia since the start of Operation Desert Shield, most of them in accidents, such the ones occurring on Dec. 22 and Oct. 30.
The Dow Jones industrial average closes the year at 2633.66, down 119.54 points from the 1989 yearend level. . . . Analyses suggest that the U.S. dollar fell in value against major foreign currencies between Jan. 1 and Dec. 31. . . . The Rhode Island Share and Indemnity Fund Corp., which insures banks and credit unions, asks the state to name a conservator to take it over, essentially declaring itself insolvent.
Chess world champion titleholder Garry Kasparov of the Soviet Union wins the world championship match against his countryman Anatoly Karpov with a draw in the final meeting of their 24-game contest.
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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)
Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.
Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.
Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.
Dec. 30
Dec. 31
1991 American air force F-15 fighters flying over a Kuwait oil field which has been set ablaze by retreating Iraqi troops during the Gulf War, 1991.
140—January–October 1991
Jan.
Feb.
March
April
May
June
July
Aug.
Sept.
Oct.
Africa & the Middle East
The Americas
Asia & the Pacific
In Vilnius, Lithuania, Soviet army troops kill 15 pro-independence protesters. The slayings draw international condemnations as well as many protests in the republics.
Iraq's National Assembly passes a resolution that calls on the nation to fight a “holy war” to defend the occupation of Kuwait.
In Haiti, an attempted takeover by Roger Lafontant prompts violent riots until loyalist forces crush the coup.
In China, leaders of the 1989 Tiananmen Square prodemocracy demonstrations are sentenced. A total of 66 of 71 protesters whose cases are complete are released, but the others face prison terms of between two and 10 years.
Pilots from 10 nations, including the U.S., Canada, Britain, France, Italy, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, and Bahrain participate in air strikes against Iraqi targets.
In Albania, prodemocracy rallies begin, and the demonstrations turn into a serious of riots.
Iraq continues to launch Scud missiles at Israel.
At least 100 people die in Peru's first cholera epidemic in over 100 years.
The government of Premier Chatichai Choonhavan is ousted by the Thai military in a bloodless coup led by Gen. Sunthorn Kongsompong. The 1978 constitution is abolished, and martial law is imposed.
The Warsaw Pact formally disbands its military structure in Moscow; only its political arm, the Political Consultative Committee, is still in effect.
In Belgrade, 10,000 Serbian nationalists stage a pro-Milosevic rally, and the Serbian National Council, which represents ethnic Serbs in Croatia, declares an independent republic in the southwestern Krajina region of Croatia.
In Mali, violent protests and a coup attempt are staged against Pres. Moussa Traore.
Miguel Trovoada, an ex-premier and a former political exile, wins the first-ever free presidential elections in Sao Tome and Principe.
Afghan guerrillas seized the town of Khost after heavy fighting against government forces.
The government of Iraq accepts the terms for a permanent ceasefire stipulated in UN Security Council Resolution 687, bringing a formal end to the Persian Gulf war.
Turkey is beset by Kurdish refugees who are fleeing the conflict in Iraq.
Iraqi government forces drive Kurdish rebels out of the cities of Dahok, Erbil, and Zakho.
A powerful earthquake measuring 7.4 on the Richter scale shakes Costa Rica and the Caribbean coast of Panama. It is reported to be the worst earthquake to hit Costa Rica since 1910.
Thousands of people drown and millions are left homeless when a powerful cyclone strikes Bangladesh in the worst storm in that area since 1970.
Defense ministers of NATO approve a fundamental military restructuring of the alliance in the broadest reorganization in NATO's 42 years.
Yugoslavia appears to be in a state of civil war as fighting in Croatia escalates and the federal collective presidency breaks down.
Ethiopia's president, Lt. Col. Mengistu Haile Mariam, resigns and flees the country. Rebel soldiers take possession of the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa.
A prison takeover at the Tamaulipas state prison in Matamoros, Mexico, leaves 18 inmates dead.
Indian Congress (I) Party leader and former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi is assassinated in Sriperumbudur. Violence erupts in Madras and at various locations in New Delhi as the news about Gandhi's assassination spreads.
At the Organization of African Unity's annual summit, representatives from 36 countries sign a treaty designed to create an African common market, similar to the EC, by the end of the century.
Norway's King Harald V formally ascends to the throne. He becomes the third king of modern Norway.
A new constitution for Rwanda is signed into effect by Pres. Juvenal Habyarimana.
Mudslides in the Chilean city of Antofagasta kill 116 people and wash away whole shantytowns.
Mt. Unzen, a Japanese volcano dormant for two centuries, erupts. The Mt. Pinatubo volcano, about 55 miles northwest of Manila, also erupts.
The Warsaw Pact, created in 1955, formally disbands. U.S. president Bush and Soviet president Gorbachev hold the first post–cold war superpower summit.
Soviet president Gorbachev and the heads of 10 of the 15 Soviet republics agree on disputed power-sharing provisions in the proposed union treaty.
In a referendum, Mauritanians vote overwhelmingly in favor of a new constitution that will widen their political freedom.
In a Haitian trial seen as a symbol of the death of Duvalierism, Roger Lafontant and 21 codefendants are convicted for a coup attempt.
Australia's Northern Territory awards the Chamberlains, the subjects of the 1988 film A Cry in the Dark, more than $A415,000 in damages for their wrongful conviction for killing their child.
A group of top Soviet hard-liners attempt a coup d'etat against Soviet president Gorbachev The move draws international condemnation before the rebellion is quashed.
Armenian guerrillas seize Soviet interior ministry troops in the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh enclave in the republic of Azerbaijan.
In Togo, a national conference on democracy elects Joseph Kokou Koffigoh as premier of an interim government, thereby ending an autocratic rule in Togo begun in 1967, one of Africa's longest.
The provincial government of Ontario signs a formal agreement with Indian leaders which declares that native groups have an inherent right to self-government. Ontario thus becomes the first government in Canada to recognize a native right to self-government.
For the first time, the Hanoi government allows U.S. investigators to visit a Vietnamese former camp in search of evidence of MIAs.
UN delegates formally vote to admit seven countries: North Korea, South Korea, the Marshall Islands, Micronesia, and the three newly independent Baltic states–Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania.
The Yugoslav federal military launches a massive armored offensive into the republic of Croatia.
South African president F. W. de Klerk outlines his government's proposals for a new constitution that will provide suffrage to the country's black majority for the first time in modern history.
Haitian president Jean-Bertrand Aristide, Haiti's first freely elected president, is overthrown in a coup d'etat led by Brigadier General Raoul Cédras.
Political parties that favor expanded democracy for Hong Kong win 16 of the 18 seats contested in the colony's first direct elections in 150 years of British rule.
In its largest and most ambitious mission ever, the UN will oversee a peace treaty between the four factions warring for control of Cambodia since 1978 as they try to share power.
In Great Britain, a panel of five law lords rule that rape can occur in marriage, formally reversing 225 years of legal precedent.
Violence erupts in major cities in Zaire.
In Brazil, president Fernando Collor de Mello designates 71 areas as legal Indian territories.
An earthquake strikes the Himalayan foothills of northern India, killing at least 360 people and injuring 2,000 others.
World Affairs
Europe
An international force led by the U.S. launches air and missile attacks on Iraq and Iraqi-occupied Kuwait.
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Includes developments that affect more than one world region, international organizations, and important meetings of major world leaders.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.
Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.
January–October 1991—141
U.S. Politics & Social Issues
U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense
U.S. Economy & Environment
Science, Technology, & Nature
Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle
Utah governor Norman Bangerter (R) signs one of the most repressive abortion laws in the U.S.
When 11 Marines are killed near the Kuwaiti border, they become the first U.S. troops to die in the ground war.
The Commerce Department reports that the U.S. gross national product declined at a 2.1% annual rate in the fourth quarter of 1990. After adjusting for inflation, in all of 1990 the U.S. economy grew 0.9%, the lowest yearly growth since 1982.
Two private medical groups announce that they will establish an advisory board to monitor embryo and fetal tissue research.
British billionaire Richard Branson and his Swedish copilot become the first people to cross the Pacific Ocean in a hot-air balloon.
Maryland governor William D. Schaefer (D) signs into law one of the most liberal abortion bills in the U.S. The measure is designed to protect a woman's ability to obtain a legal abortion, even if the Supreme Court is to overturn its 1973 Roe v. Wade decision.
Pres. Bush signs into law a bill that will compensate Vietnam veterans who had been exposed to the herbicide Agent Orange.
Lynn Martin is confirmed by the Senate and sworn in as secretary of labor.
A study suggests that individuals infected with HIV who take the antiviral drug AZT before they develop symptoms of AIDS may live no longer than those who begin taking AZT once they develop symptoms.
The handwritten manuscript to the first half of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain is found by a 62-year-old librarian in a trunk she inherited from her grandfather.
A videotape shows California Highway patrolmen beating black motorist Rodney King after a car chase.
Data suggests that 170 Cubans fled to southern Florida in homemade rafts in the first three months of 1991. That is more than twice the amount of rafters who arrived in the U.S. in the first three months of 1990.
Exxon Corp. agrees to plead guilty to four misdemeanor environmental charges and to pay a $100 million fine, the largest-ever fine for polluting, over charges arising from the Exxon Valdez spill.
At least 23 people are killed in a series of violent thunderstorms across Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, and Texas.
Violence breaks out at the premier of film New Jack City in New York; Los Angles; Las Vegas; Boston; and Sayreville, New Jersey.
William Kennedy Smith, 30, a nephew of Sen. Edward Kennedy (D, Mass.), is formally identified by police as the suspect in an alleged rape at the Kennedy family's vacation estate in Palm Beach, Florida.
In a White House ceremony, Pres. Bush awards a posthumous Medal of Honor to a World War I soldier, army corporal Freddie Stowers, making Stowers the first black American to receive the honor for duty in either World War I or World War II.
The minimum hourly wage rises 45 cents, to $4.25 from $3.80 per hour, and the so-called training wage, a lower minimum wage for teenagers, increases to $3.62 per hour from $3.35.
The crew of the space shuttle Atlantis releases the $617 million, 17-ton Gamma Ray Observatory into an orbit about 280 miles above Earth. It is the heaviest scientific payload ever carried aboard the shuttle.
The National Conference of Christians and Jews elects Maryann Bishop Coffey as its cochair. She is the first woman and the first black to hold the position.
Riots erupt in the largely Hispanic neighborhood of Mount Pleasant in Washington, D.C., after a police officer shoots a Hispanic man. The rioting is described as the worst in the nation's capital since the assassination of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968.
In a controversial move, Pres. Bush states he will renew most-favorednation trade status for China.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission authorizes the restart of a reactor at the Browns Ferry nuclear power plant near Athens, Alabama. The facility has been closed since 1985, marking the longest shutdown in the history of U.S. commercial atomic power.
A memorial to dead American astronauts is dedicated at Cape Canaveral, Florida.
The Smithsonian Institution's board of regents unanimously approves the creation of a National African American Museum.
Justice Thurgood Marshall, the first black American to sit on the Supreme Court, announces his retirement after 24 years of service.
In NYC, 18,000 troops, including some 6,000 veterans of earlier U.S. wars, are given a traditional tickertape parade.
Mayor Mary C. Moran (R) of Bridgeport, Connecticut, files for Chapter 9 bankruptcy protection for the city. Bridgeport, Connecticut's largest city, is reported to be the largest U.S. city to have filed for bankruptcy.
NASA reveals that the U.S.'s next series of weather satellites, currently under development, contains serious flaws that may affect the nation's ability to obtain vital readings. NASA states it is considering several emergency plans.
An original copy of the Declaration of Independence sells for $2.42 million at Sotheby's. The price is reported to be the highest ever paid for a piece of printed Americana.
Police in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, arrest serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer and discover human heads, boxes of body parts, a barrel of acid, and photographs of mutilated bodies in his apartment.
Pres. Bush lifts U.S. trade and investment sanctions against South Africa in place since 1986.
Senators vote to increase their salaries to $125,100, a $23,200 raise. The Senate also votes to bar acceptance of speaking fees by its members.
Scientists note that the volume of ice in the Arctic Ocean declined by 2% between 1978 and 1987.
A contestant from the Miss Black America beauty pageant charges that former heavyweight boxing champion Mike Tyson raped her in Indianapolis.
In Brooklyn, a car driven by a Hasidic Jewish driver strikes and kills Gavin Cato, a seven-year-old black boy from Guyana. The incident touches off rioting.
The Defense Department discloses that nearly 24% of U.S. combat deaths in the Persian Gulf war were the result of friendly fire.
The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the fiscal 1992 federal budget deficit will reach a record $362 billion, $70 billion higher than previous CBO estimates and $13.7 billion higher than the Bush administration's most recent forecast.
Hurricane Bob, the first major hurricane of the 1991 season, tears up the eastern seaboard, causing 16 deaths and more than $1 billion in property damage.
Disgraced television evangelist Jim Bakker wins a reduction in his 45year prison sentence to 18 years for fraud.
Ed Pastor (D) becomes the first Hispanic elected to Congress by Arizona.
For the first time since 1957, the U.S. has no long-range bombers in a state of nuclear-attack readiness.
About 2,000 gallons of radioactive coolant water escape into a larger water system at the Seabrook, New Hampshire, nuclear power plant.
Four men and four women seal themselves in “Biosphere II,” a giant glass-and-steel greenhouse in Oracle, Arizona.
The International Olympic Committee admits the Baltic states of Latvia, Estonia, and Lithuania into the Olympic movement.
Anita Hill publicly accuses Supreme Court nominee Judge Clarence Thomas of sexual harassment. The charge sparks an emotional and contentious national debate, and, after one of the most bitter and divisive confirmation battles in the 202year history of the Supreme Court, the Senate confirms Thomas as the court's 106th associate justice in the closest vote for a Supreme Court justice in the 20th century.
A federal judge in Alexandria, Va., sentences Melvyn R. Paisley, a former Navy assistant secretary, to four years in prison and fines him $50,000 for his role in the Pentagon procurement scandal.
A federal judge approves a settlement between Exxon Corp., the Alaskan government, and the Justice Department over criminal charges arising from the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill. The settlement calls upon Exxon to pay a total of $1.025 billion in fines and restitution payments through the year 2001.
The first fetus-to-fetus tissue transplant shows initial signs of success.
The number of cassette tapes sold throughout the world has declined in 1990 for the first time since they were introduced in 1965.
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